The Montreal Biosphère, formerly the American Pavilion of Expo 67, by R. Buckminster Fuller, on Île Sainte-Hélène, Montreal, Canada
The first dome that could be called "geodesic" in every respect was designed just after World War I by Walther Bauersfeld, chief engineer of the Carl Zeiss optical company, for a planetarium to house his new planetarium projector. The dome was patented, constructed by the firm of Dykerhoff and Wydmann on the roof of the Zeiss plant in Jena, Germany, and opened to the public in 1922. Some 30 years later, R. Buckminster Fuller further investigated this concept and named the dome "geodesic" from field experiments with Kenneth Snelson and others at Black Mountain College in the late 1940s. Although Fuller was not the original inventor, he developed and popularized the idea, and received a U.S. patent.
The geodesic dome appealed to Fuller because it was extremely strong for its weight, its "omnitriangulated" surface provided an inherently stable structure, and because a sphere encloses the greatest volume for the least surface area. Fuller hoped that the geodesic dome would help address the postwar housing crisis. This was in line with his prior hopes for both versions of the Dymaxion House.
The Climatron greenhouse at Missouri Botanical Gardens, built in 1960, inspired the domes in the science fiction film Silent Running.
However, from a practical perspective, geodesic constructions have some drawbacks. They have a very large number of edges in comparison with more conventional structures which have just a few large flat surfaces. Each of the edges must be prevented from leaking, which can be quite challenging for a geodesic structure. Also, spaces enclosed within curved boundaries tend to be less usable than spaces enclosed within flat boundaries. (Since it would be impractical to produce sofas with every possible curved shape, they are normally constructed along straight lines, and so leave wasted space when placed in a curved space.)
The dome was successfully adopted for specialized industrial use, such as the 1958 Union Tank Car Company dome near Baton Rouge, Louisiana and specialty buildings like the Kaiser Aluminum domes (constructed in numerous locations across the US), auditoriums, weather observatories, and storage facilities. The dome was soon breaking records for covered surface, enclosed volume, and construction speed. According to a WAFB-TV of Baton Rouge news report on November 27, 2007, the Union Tank Car Company Dome has been demolished.
Leveraging the geodesic dome's stability, the US Air Force experimented with helicopter-deliverable units.
The dome was introduced to a wider audience as a pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. This dome is now used as an aviary by the Queens Zoo in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Another dome is from Expo 67 the Montreal, Canada World's Fair as part of the American Pavilion. The structure's covering later burned, but the structure itself still stands and, under the name Biosphère, currently houses an interpretive museum about the Saint Lawrence River.
In the 1970s, the Cinesphere dome was built at the Ontario Place amusement park in Toronto, Canada. In 1975, a dome was constructed at the South Pole, where its resistance to snow and wind loads is important.
Residential geodesic domes have been less successful than those used for working and/or entertainment, largely because of their complexity and consequent higher construction costs. Fuller himself lived in a geodesic dome in Carbondale, Illinois, at the corner of Forest and Cherry [1]. Unfortunately, residential domes have so far not caught on to the extent that Fuller hoped. He envisioned residential domes as air-deliverable products manufactured by an aerospace-like industry. Fuller's dome home still exists, and a group called RBF Dome NFP is attempting to restore the dome and have it registered as a National Historic Landmark.
