Talk:List of largest spherical buildings

Relevance of the Sphere at The Venetian Resort/Las Vegas Sphere

The editing page currently says to exclude the Las Vegas Sphere from this list, as it is an extension of the actual concert building. The Vegas Sphere itself is made of a lattice-style structure covered in screens that fully surrounds the internal concert venue. Why does that fact exclude it, but still allow for the Montreal Biosphere to be included? That structure is a lattice structure with glass coverings that fully surrounds a standing building on the inside. Is it because the lattice structure of the Biosphere does not connect to the building on the inside, or is it for some other reason? I'm pretty confused about its inclusion despite the Vegas Sphere's exclusion, and would appreciate some better clarification that what is provided on the main page's editing page. Omega LVIII (talk) 22:05, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Very good point. When the Montreal Biosphere was added to the list, the sphere was considered a building. Like how a glasshouse would be considered a building. There is indeed a building inside the sphere, but there are buildings with buildings inside themselves, so that fact itself doesn't exclude it. However, if the sphere itself is not considered a building, then it should also be excluded. The Wikipedia article itself states "the fire burned away the building's transparent acrylic bubble, but the hard steel truss structure remained", referring to the sphere as a building, but I understand this using self-reference within Wikipedia which isn't what you're meant to do. But after the sphere was burnt up and leaving the steel structure, it's no longer a building, since it has similarities to the Eiffel Tower, which isn't a building. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, you can be inside the sphere without being inside the internal buildings. Each point might not be great in itself, but together they hopefully make sense.

The Las Vegas Sphere, and similar buildings, are similar to the Montreal Biosphere in that they have an internal building, with an external sphere. But as far as I've understood, the biosphere is meant to host and enclose something. The exosphere of the Las Vegas Sphere is not meant to host or enclose something in itself, it serves as the purpose of creating a spherical exterior of the actual building.

But of course, this is all up for debate.

Liggliluff (talk) 08:09, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Another way of formulating it.

The biosphere had indoor space within it. (until it burned down and it weren't no longer considered a building after that point.)

While the spherical billboard of the MGS sphere at the Venetian isn't a roof, it is just a large curved billboard. The building bellow still has an actual roof to protect its interior from the weather, something the billboard doesn't. Nystemy (talk) 18:28, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Right. The Sphere is still technically a building, even if you don't count the exosphere as part of it. Why it's not included on the list at all with just the interior dome dimensions seems a bit baffling. Is it because the interior theater is not a sphere? Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 15:24, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The building is a slightly squashed cylinder with a dome for a roof, not a sphere.

And the exosphere isn't a roof nor walls since it is just a curved bill board and is therefore not a building, it doesn't enclose its interior from the weather. As can be seen in this image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_spherical_buildings#/media/File:The_Sphere_at_The_Venetian_Resort_(53098837453).jpg

"A building or edifice is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building

Pictures of the interior wall/ceiling of the theater does however seem very spherical, but I can't find any sources to its supposed diameter. Not that this list is about spherical rooms within buildings, so this measurement wouldn't make it applicable regardless.

If we were to include partial spheres where we only require the "sphere" to have some proportion above and bellow its equator, then Apple inc would just need to slightly remodel their headquarters to have a 470 meter diameter "spherical" building. However, this is taking things to the extreme and the MSG sphere's building is proportionally far closer to a sphere in comparison, but still missing a good 25% of its top, and that is still a sizeable amount of sphere to not have compared to all other buildings on this list that consists of more than a whole hemisphere.

In the end, if Maddison Square Garden Corporation hadn't made a napkin ring with a domed cap as a roof, then it would have been a really large spherical building. But they cut away a sizeable portion of the top for some reason, and thereby disqualifying them from this list. Nystemy (talk) 16:50, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Pantheon is spherical internally and is very important. Indaco1 (talk) 16:00, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Pantheon indeed has a fairly large room with a spherical dome as a ceiling, but this room is not a spherical building, nor is the rest of the building spherical.

It is likewise already on the list of largest domes Nystemy (talk) 19:48, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Matrimandir

Is there any particular reason the Matrimandir is not on this list? From the sources I could find, the diameter appears to be 36 meters, which puts it at par with the La Geode. Kitizl (talk) 15:33, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]