When
Montreal decided to host the 1967 Exposition
they of course invited the United States
of America (it is after all rude not to
invite your next door neighbours). The
U.S. pavilion would be a huge geodesic
dome; what was needed was a large enclosed
area that had no internal supports, and
a geodesic dome was just the answer. They
had been used since the turn of the century
and had been proved to be very hardy buildings
indeed.
The Montreal Dome was designed by a idiosyncratic
man named Buckminster Fuller who was obsessed
with domes and how they could help the
“society of the future”. The
most famous “mundane” use
of the geodesic dome was to create domes
to house radar dishes for the military.
There
are dozens of geodesic domes all over
the world and they all work on the same
principals. They are made up of standardized,
interlocking shapes that can be assembled
and taken apart quickly. Geodesic domes
have no internal supports, so this, which
makes them ideal structures for holding
large groups of people. Such a dome is
considered a “near spherical structure”;
a network of struts arranged on great
circles (geodesics) lying on the surface
of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to
form triangular elements that create local
triangular rigidity and distribute the
stress.
The fate of the Montreal Geodesic Dome
was not a happy one though. Because of
neglect or perhaps because of poor safety
standards the covering of the dome caught
fire and burned off. While it was considered
for destruction, it was saved; the structure
itself still stands and, under the name
“Biosphère”, currently
houses an interpretive museum about the
Saint Lawrence River.
Geodesic
Dome Travel Links |
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