Everywhere a sign

Art takes many forms for us to enjoy and be moved by – paintings, music, drama, dance, literature. And, sometimes, an interior of a building is a work of art.

Preston Bradley Hall, Chicago Cultural Center

During a trip to Chicago, I stopped in to see the Chicago Cultural Center while exploring the city’s Loop district. I wasn’t prepared for the impact the giant building’s interior makes on visitors.

The center’s Preston Bradley Hall features an ornate ceiling filled with mosaics. With 30,000 individual glass pieces and stretching 38 feet in diameter, a Tiffany glass dome draws your gaze upward.

The dome is supposed to be the largest of its kind in the world, and it is stunning.

In 1897, the cultural center was completed to be Chicago’s first central public library.

According to the city’s website, “The country’s top architects and craftsmen used the most sumptuous materials, such as rare imported marbles, polished brass, fine hardwoods, and mosaics of Favrile glass, mother-of-pearl and colored stone, to create an architectural showplace.”

Louis Comfort Tiffany

The Tiffany dome was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, and its Tiffany favrile glass, lighting fixtures, wall sconces and chandeliers were made by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company of New York.

Tiffany patented his favrile glass in 1894 after years of experimentation. His revolutionary glass-making method created a material different from other iridescent glasses. The color was part of the glass itself, not just a surface coating.

Tiffany’s favrile glass creates a beautiful work of art to crown the cultural center. A restoration of the dome was completed in 2008.

But the dome, beyond being just colorful, also features some interesting signs.

Creating a circle at the dome’s top are the 12 symbols of the zodiac. Many people will see those signs and think of astrology and daily horoscopes. And maybe tired pick-up lines at the bar.

Since I’m more interested in the science of astronomy, I associate those zodiacal signs with the constellations that range along the ecliptic, an imaginary line on the sky that marks the path of the sun throughout the year.

The zodiac in Western astrology corresponds to the star constellations of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.

“Zodiac” is an old word, going way to the Greek zōidiakos, which means “circle of animals.” So of the 12 signs, you get a nice menagerie that features a ram (Aries), bull (Taurus), crab (Cancer), lion (Leo), scorpion (Scorpio), goat (Capricorn) and fish (Pisces).

Each sign is about 30 degrees of the great circle the sun appears to make through the heavens each year.

But these signs no longer correspond to the astronomical constellations in which the Sun really appears.

In fact, there’s a 13th constellation that is included in the ecliptic but is not one of the original zodiacal signs.

Johannes Kepler's drawing of Ophiuchus

That’s Ophiuchus, meaning the “serpent bearer” in Greek.

You see, about two millennia ago when the zodiac was first being worked out, the sun appeared to move into 12 distinct signs. But, alas, nothing stays the same. Like the earth’s orbit around the sun.

That has changed over time, which means the ecliptic changed, too. So now Ophiuchus is included in the ecliptic since the International Astronomical Union drew up today’s constellation boundaries back in the 1930s.

In its apparent movement across the ecliptic, the sun moves through Ophiuchus from Nov. 29 to Dec. 17. That’s right, Sagittarians. Some of you are really Ophiuchians.

Ophiuchus also messes with the nice rhythm of the zodiac, which has the sun moving through each sign in about 30 days. For Ophiuchus, it’s only 18.

But astronomy and astrology are two different beasts really, even though they share an interest in the planets, Moon and stars. They overlap and diverge pretty quickly.

Both, however, are deeply interested in exploring mysteries and providing insights.

Maybe Louis Tiffany was thinking of his daily horoscope when he used the signs of the zodiac in his magnificent dome.

But the building was designed as a library, and it features various murals that extol books, learning and understanding.

One has a quote by Victor Hugo that reads, “A library implies an act of faith which generations still in darkness hid sign in their night in witness of the dawn.”

Signs can have many meanings.