III.

The Geodesic Dome

In 1947 and 1948, Fuller developed what he called a synergetic-energetic system of geometry, an architectural consequence of which is the geodesic dome. The geodesic dome (patented in 1947) comprises a spidery network of interconnected tetrahedrons (four-sided pyramids of equilateral triangles) forming a three-way, hemispherical grid that distributes stress evenly to all members of the entire structure and hence exhibits a high strength-to-weight ratio. This led to his extensive development of geodesics, the mathematical study of economical space-spanning structures. In 1953 the Ford Motor Company commissioned Fuller to design the Ford Rotunda Dome in Dearborn, Michigan. Thereafter he designed domes housing military radar antennas (radomes), the 117-m (384-ft) Union Tank Car Company dome in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (1958), the 60-m (200-ft) “golden dome” that dominated the U.S. pavilion at the American Exchange Exhibition (1959) in Moscow, and the dome for the American pavilion at Expo '67 in Montréal, among many other structures. (In 1985 chemists succeeded in synthesizing a perfectly round carbon molecule consisting of 60 carbon atoms. Because the molecule resembled a geodesic dome, the chemists named it a buckminsterfullerene, or buckyball. See also Nanotechnology.)