Judul : How Many Tiles on the Original West Baden Springs Hotel Atrium Floor?
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How Many Tiles on the Original West Baden Springs Hotel Atrium Floor?
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Okay, before you try counting to a million (a few times
over), we’ll answer the question for you.
How many individual marble tiles made up the original floor
of the West Baden Springs Hotel atrium?
It’s a mind-bending sum. Even more preposterous when you stop
and think every single one of those tiles was laid by hand back in 1917
during a series of upgrades and improvements at the hotel.
Before we calculate the solution, let’s play myth-buster for a second.
For years – even to the present day, depending on who you
talk to – common lore was that the atrium consisted of about 12 million
individual tiles. That number’s a little too steep. The true number is still
astounding.
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The solution is a fun little geometry story problem. (Definitely
dusting off those high school math skills here.) We start with the square
footage of the atrium – a shade over 195 feet in diameter. That gives us 29,864.6
square feet on this circular floor. And there are approximately 144 of these
1-inch square tiles in every square foot. Take 144 tiles in a square foot times the
29,864.8 square feet in the atrium, and we’ve got our answer….
4,300,531 (give or take).
There is some variability in tile size, with some being smaller. According to James Vaughn’s book “The Dome in the Valley: The History and Rebirth of West Baden Springs Hotel,” the number could range from 4.3 to 6 million.
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| The view of the old atrium floor from an upper balcony. At the very top edge of this photo are anthemion designs, which were Greek in origin and resembled a stylized honeysuckle leaf. There were 48 of these intricate anthemions, which were the boundary between the white tile central field and the decorative designs on the perimeter of the atrium. After several floor repairs over the years, none of these anthemion patterns remain. |
Just imagine the painstaking process of laying these by
hand. Especially with so many tiles arranged in beautiful, intricate patterns.
Heck, just to count to one million (at one number per second) would take more
than 11½ days. Getting to 4,300,531 (or more), one tile at a time, each laid with
a measure of thought and precision, is almost beyond comprehension.
Because of cracks and buckling, a large section of the
atrium floor had to be removed during the late 1990s in the beginning stages of
restoration. Today, the tiles you see in the atrium are all that remain from the original floor — roughly 25 percent. Hey, 1 million+ tiles is still pretty
good, especially after more than 100 years.
But don’t bother trying to count ‘em all the next time you’re
in the atrium. Just enjoy the view.
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