CultureNOW - Cyclorama: Willard T Sears and Peter Vanderwarker

Cyclorama
Historic Buildings: Community Space

Dates

Constructed, 1884

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Description

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ABOUT THE CYCLORAMA
The Classical Revival style Victorian building was commissioned by Charles F. Willoughby's Boston Cyclorama Company to house the Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg, a 400 x 50 foot cyclorama painting of the Battle of Gettysburg. It was designed by Charles A. Cummings and Willard T. Sears. The central space is a 127'-diameter steel-trussed dome which, when it was built, was the largest dome in the country after the United States Capitol building.

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"One of the most astonishing buildings in Boston history lies tucked behind the quiet façade of the Boston Center for the Arts, on Tremont Street in the South End. It is the Cyclorama, built in 1884 as a sort of early Disneyland. Beneath its 127-foot-diameter dome – the largest in the country at the time, except for the United States Capitol – it displayed a single painting, ‘The Battle of Gettysburg,’ created by a Parisian named Phillipoteaux. The painting was 400 feet long and 50 feet tall and completely encircled spectators, who climbed a stairway to arrive in the middle of it. Replicas of cannons and soldiers stood in the foreground to make the scene feel more real, and the painted blue sky was lit from behind to achieve a proper glow.

After the cyclorama fad died, the building housed a skating rink, auto repair shop, truck factory, and much else. Here John L. Sullivan boxed and Albert Champion invented his spark club. As the Boston Flower Exchange, the building acquired its present entrance and skylights. In 1970, it became the centerpiece of the new Boston Center for the Arts, for which it is the major exhibition space. The original architects, Cummings and Sears, designed such local landmarks as New Old South Church, in Copley Square, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - The Cyclorama," Boston Globe, 12 June 1994

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Location
543-547 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116
United States

Nearby Items
Tremont Street at Clarendon Street 402 feet
Atelier 505 494 feet
Betances Mural 0.3 miles
Washington Street at Waltham Street 0.3 miles
Historic Medallions, Washington Street Corridor, Boston 0.3 miles
Boston Historic Murals 0.3 miles
LandWave 0.4 miles

Tremont Street at Clarendon Street		402 feet
Atelier 505		494 feet
Betances Mural		0.3 miles
Washington Street at Waltham Street		0.3 miles
Historic Medallions, Washington Street Corridor, Boston		0.3 miles
Boston Historic Murals		0.3 miles
LandWave		0.4 miles