Zeiss Dome

Index Entry

Zeiss Dome:

"When my dome was first shown in the Museum of Modern Art

in New York, Arthur Drexler--their curator of architecture--

and others said that my geodesic domes had been anticipated

by the Zeiss Dome in Germany.

"But the Zeiss Dome did not anticipate my tensegrity

structures at all. The Zeiss Dome was triangulated, but only

as a reinforcing grid for concrete. With all that concrete

they did not realize that the structural integrity was in

the reinforcing net itself--that it could stand by itself.

The workmen found it stiff enough to climb on, and were

photographed doing so, but none of the engineers involved

assumed that such a grid building had any serious structural

capability in its own right. Engineer's logic is based

entirely on a compressional continuity which may be only

held together by tension."

Wash, DC; 14 Oct'76

Citations

C21110