Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Atomium, October 1958

Constructed for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels, the Atomium could not help to impress. And it's still there, over 50 years later! There are nine steel spheres that are arranged to resemble a gigantic unit cell of an iron crystal. It's 102 meters high, but 335 ft. sounds more impressive. Visitors can ride escalators inside the connecting tubes, and go all the way to the top. If you look closely, you can make out a window on it.


Near the Atomium is this "Map of Belgium". You could view it from ground level like this, or cross that zig-zagging walkway seen at the top of this photo. The "map" itself featured major landmarks of Belgium, including the famous sprouts of Brussels. You can see the little roadway that had moving traffic; notice the "roundabout". It appears that the muddy area at the bottom of the photo represented the North Sea. Maybe the tide was out!

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7 comments:

  1. TokyoMagic!12:23 AM

    Sprouts of Brussels...hehe! I would love to see this in person one day! Too bad after taking the escalators up inside the tubes, you couldn't slide back down in some of the other tubes.

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  2. Vintage Disneyland Tickets7:05 AM

    335 feet tall? I'm getting weak knees just looking at it!

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  3. Connie Moreno7:24 AM

    That's pretty darn cool, Mister! Would love to see it some day...but from the ground because I'd be scared to death to go up that thing.

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  4. Matt8:41 AM

    I love the Atomium, I used to have a little replica of it on my desk...don't know what happened to it :(

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  5. Anonymous12:29 PM

    ive been to the atomium, its not very thrilling, and at the top they serve 5 euro cups of orange juice

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  6. JG8:20 PM

    My son took pics of this, but I missed on my trip to belgium.

    fantastic building, hard to believe it's real.

    JG

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  7. Chuck10:31 AM

    I understand there is usually a long line of locals outside who can't seem to make up their mind on whether to go up in the Atomium or not. Silly Belgian waffles...

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