Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words
Jan. 11th {1858}. . . . All the early observatories of Europe seem to have been built as temples to Urania, and not as working chamber of science. The Royal Observatory of Greenwich, and the Imperial Observatory of Paris, and the beautiful structure in Calton Hill, Edinburgh, were, at first, wholly useless as Observatories. That of Greenwich had no steadiness, while every pillar in the astronomical temple of Edinburgh, though it may tell of the enlightenment of Greece, hides the light of the stars from the Scottish observer. Well might Struve say that “an observatory should be a simple box to hold instruments.”
Ironically, Maria’s thoughts above would come true for her – the Vassar College Observatory was not built or equipped in the way she would have liked though it was begun before she had agreed to become its director and the professor of astronomy at Vassar. But its important to recognize that sometimes someone can be so caught up in the appearance of something and leaving her or his mark that they don’t take into account how something is really going to be utilized and by whom. So it appears that when built, according to Maria, that these sites were built to be “temples” and to stand out for their beauty, not to stand out for the activity that would happen inside them – and not to be designed with that activity in mind. That is why you need a diverse group to make sure a site is created that is usable – for all.
JNLF
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