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Staerkel Planetarium

Buildings and structures in Champaign, IllinoisEducation in Champaign County, IllinoisPlanetaria in the United StatesTourist attractions in Champaign County, Illinois
William M Staerkel Planetarium Exterior
William M Staerkel Planetarium Exterior

The William M. Staerkel Planetarium is a planetarium at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois. It is the second largest planetarium in the state, the largest being the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, and has the first Carl Zeiss M1015 opto-mechanical star projector installed in the western hemisphere. The Staerkel Planetarium provides science education programs and light show entertainment to as many as 40,000 people each year. It has a 50-foot dome, seats 144, and private group and school show reservations can be made beyond the regular public offerings.Public shows are every Friday and Saturday evenings. Aside from their regular star shows, the planetarium also hosts a lecture series the first Friday of every month. The planetarium is named after Parkland College's founding president, who led the college for the first 20 years.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Staerkel Planetarium (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Staerkel Planetarium
Perimeter Road, Champaign

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Latitude Longitude
N 40.132289 ° E -88.291218 °
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Address

Parkland College

Perimeter Road
61822 Champaign
Illinois, United States
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William M Staerkel Planetarium Exterior
William M Staerkel Planetarium Exterior
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Frederick Squires House
Frederick Squires House

The Frederick Squires House is a historic house located at 1003 West Church Street in Champaign, Illinois. Owner and architect Frederick Squires created the Craftsman style house in 1927. Squires combined two similar 1870s frame houses, one of which was moved from another site in Champaign, to build his house. In addition to using existing houses to form a new one, Squires used recycled wood, brick, and concrete to complete his new home. The house's interior design incorporates principles of Craftsman design such as an open floor plan, use of natural materials throughout, and an entrance hall that functions as a room in its own right.Born in 1879 in Plainfield, New Jersey, Frederick Squires graduated from Williams College with a BA in Architecture and then attended the School of Mines of Columbia University, the earliest mining and metallurgy school in the United States, established in 1864. Squires then worked as an architect until 1914. He was active in designing office buildings in New York City as well as in publishing designs in outlets such as Architectural Record, Concrete-Cement Age, and House and Garden. He published a book entitled The Hollow Tile House (1913) on a new construction technique that he had developed. One year later, he published the quirky Architectonics: The Tales of Tom Thumtack, Architect, illustrated by Rockwell Kent. From 1914 on, Squires worked with his brother in the oil business, but he maintained his interest in architecture, as demonstrated by the unique design of his Craftsman style home.The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 22, 2011.