Shakespeare's Globe Center--USA: Center for Globe Research

Architectural information on the current reconstruction

Long before Sam Wanamaker, or anyone, attempted to reconstruct the Globe, scholars have always been able to study depictions of Shakespeare's theatre in panoramic drawings of London.

The difficulty with this is that they are too many and too different to give an accurate idea of what the theatre looked like.

As these first three examples show us panoramic artists and mapmakers could not quite agree on the size and shape of the Globe, making it anywhere from hexagonal to completely round.

The most accurate panorama (determined by its overall accuracy with minute architectural details of famous surviving London buildings) is that by Edmund Hollar. Ironically, he mislabeled the Globe as the bear-baiting pit next to the Globe. A properly labeled version (a miracle of computer technology) is in the header at the top of this page.

Scholars not only fixed the label, but also examined the picture to see what architectural information it might yield. They counted the number of windows Hollar put on the Globe, and used this to determine the number of sides on the structure.

It was primarily through this evidence that the original plan for the new Globe called for 24 sides, as shown in this early model.

However, discovering the remains of the original Globe theatre and her contemporary sister the Rose, would cause the new Globe architects and scholars to reconsider.

Return to the main page of your choice:

The University of Maryland

UMD Department of Theatre

updated on: 25 Feb 2000

This page created by Ryan Ritter, web master 1996-1999