Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine Removes Rare Camera Obscura From Roof Today, Stages it for Reinstallation at New Facility on Thompson’s Point
Rooftop view of Museum & Theatre cupola as camera obscura is removed.
The one-of-a-kind periscopic camera obscura on the roof of the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine was disassembled and carefully lowered by crane to street level today as the first phase of its move to the Museum & Theatre’s new facility at Thompson’s Point, a 30,000 ft2 building which is currently under construction and scheduled to open in 2021. After imaging the Free Street neighborhood for nearly 30 years, the camera obscura will now go into storage until later this summer when it will be reinstalled on the roof of the new building
“One of the important aspects of the camera obscura is that it is a one-of-a-kind feature and one that we felt strongly about preserving. Public camera obscuras are rare, and the engineering and optical quality of ours is one of a kind. Today’s work with the camera obscura, gave us even more insight into the thought and care of the original, elegant design. It has been part of the legacy of the Museum and Theatre for 27 years and it’s really exciting that it’s moving to the new building,” said Consulting Exhibits Director Chris Sullivan.
The Museum & Theatre’s camera obscura is a sophisticated imaging device that, for nearly thirty years, has been transferring a “light picture” of the Free Street neighborhood from the cupula on the roof down onto a table top in a third floor exhibit. A historically important tool in both art and science, DaVinci used a camera obscura to correctly explain how the eye works; the camera obscura helped Renaissance artists master perspective, early astronomers to study the sky, and chemists/ entrepreneurs to invent photography.
Camera obscura at Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine, Free Street, before removal.
View from below of camera obscura during preparation for its removal from rooftop cupola.
As the Children’s Museum & Theatre moved into its Free Street location in 1992, the camera obscura project and collaboration began with Kodak, Inc. Kodak engineered all of the lens and optics components and a local metal fabricator created the metal frame structure to house it. The cupola on the roof of 142 Free Street was added as a housing. After its deinstallation today, the camera obscura will await its installation in the new building when the cupola housing on the roof of the new facility is ready to receive it.
The camera obscura will become completely interactive in the new space. Visitors will be able to drive and focus the unit themselves. Using the camera obscura, families will be to see down the Fore River, back to Portland, and watch trains, cars, and planes passing by Thompson’s Point.
On the roof of the new facility at Thompson’s Point, the south end of the camera obscura will be supported by the steel beam that was signed by all the attendees of the press conference announcing the capital campaign and construction in February 2020.