Hey Guys I wrote an essay that none of you will read.

  The Great Rotunda was a project that was born out of boredom. Originally starting with an interesting pillar design, I eventually decided to build something from it. I was looking for two challenges; using an uncommon pallet of blocks, and building something I have never before done. My block pallet started with quartz, as that felt like an appropriate block choice for pillars. Quartz are a nice block to use, however they are limited to only blocks, slabs, and stairs. Bone blocks also blend decently well. To add an extra level of shaping, I moved to the infamous diorite block, primarily because it (as of 1.14) has a wall variant. Diorite worked well as an accent block while also giving me some additional levels of shaping. I also found that mushroom stem blocks blend quite well with quartz. This helped give some variety to the quartz and to the pillar. I also used iron trapdoors as an additional bit of shaping as they can help round out shapes.

  With a solid pillar done, I felt it would be appropriate to move in a roman / renaissance type architectural direction. One of my favorite roman buildings is the Pantheon. This is why I went with a rotunda based design. Despite being one of the oldest roman buildings still standing, the Pantheon's interior has been kept in great condition. I wanted my build to have a somewhat similar feel of the grand nature when standing inside. I used granite and andesite for the floor to introduce some non white color to the build, but kept everything that same mixture of quartz, bone, mushroom stems, and diorite for the walls and ceiling.

  In order to give the build some extra contrast, dark prismarine was used as the roofing material. I personally love that shade of green with the off-white color of the structure.

  Lighting was a pain, so I placed about a million fire cauldrons, lanterns, and endrods all over the place, amongst other ways. I managed to get about 95% of the place spawn proof, but some areas are barely under the light-level.

In other words, download my map and chuck a diamond at it, maybe even like it. Please and thank you.

kbai