Since the earliest civilizations, the sky has shaped calendars, agriculture, and navigation. It has played a fundamental role in developing human knowledge and shaping our understanding of our place in the universe. To pursue this knowledge, people have created instruments and spaces to interpret the cosmos, linking the positions of celestial bodies, the passage of time, and life on Earth. In architecture, this enduring fascination takes shape in buildings that not only facilitate observation but also heighten our awareness of the vastness that surrounds us.
Long before contemporary planetariums emerged, architecture served as a tool for reading the cosmos. The Jantar Mantar, a collection of astronomical observatories built in India during the 18th century, demonstrates how monumental structures could translate celestial movements into precise measurements, using geometry as a method of observation. Their forms, dimensions, and orientations were designed to track astronomical phenomena, turning architecture itself into a scientific instrument.
