Tiffany Dome – Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois, United States

Preston Bradley Hall is a large, ornately patterned room of curving white Carrara marble, capped with an austere 38-foot-diameter Tiffany glass dome designed by artist J. A. Holzer. The Cultural Center states this to be the largest Tiffany dome in the world – and with 1,134 square feet of colorful mosaics, including 30,000 individual panes of glass, the boast seems valid.

Completed in 1897, the dome was designed for the Chicago Public Library by Tiffany’s legendary "chief mosaicist" J. A. Holzer. When the Chicago Cultural Center acquired the gorgeously ornate building 1986, the center also inherited the masterpiece that graced the ceiling of the structure. Though the building was estimated to be worth $2,000,000, the dome alone is currently valued at around $35,000,000.

Originally sunlit, the translucent dome portrays the 12 signs of the zodiac among fish scale-shaped pieces of glass embedded in ornate iron framing. In the 1930s, a protective outer dome was constructed, and while the new backlit appearance was lovely, many felt the dome lost much of its natural beauty.