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“I am delighted to receive your letter regarding a possible clearspan enclosure for one of your ballparks,” wrote Fuller. “By coincidence, I have already thought a great deal about this subject and have made many calculations in respect to it. About a year ago the Denver Bears (minor league baseball team) asked me to consider the matter seriously and I went through an exploratory design and calculation and came up with the same ‘600 foot diameter and one million dollars’ figures that you mention for the enclosure proper.
“Last fall I was retained as a consultant to architects of Minneapolis who had been commissioned to draw up plans for a Twin Cities ballpark suitable for major league use. In connection with this consultation I studied the critical dimensions and operating service mechanics of the major ballparks and suggested to the architects the use of a specific structural system — the Octetruss — which my company is now employing in designs ordered from me by the United States Marine Corps. The Octetruss clearspan would also provide a comprehensive box seat system vertically and horizontally enclosing the field — to great customer advantage and with increased customer capacity. It would incorporate mass-produced unitarily formed, fiberglass-reinforced polyester-resin, seating boxes, rotatably dumpable for cleaning purposes and impossible to rotate while occupied.
“The vertical Octetruss seating would be wrapped around on the outside with a spiral drive-yourself-up ramp, exteriorly tiered parking balconies. The inwardly canted, interiorly tiered seating boxes would be partially serviced by escalators permitting unprecedented altitude and view advantage.
“The top would be skinned with translucent fiberglass petals opening and closing to the sky. The entire structure would be illumined at night by indirect lighting bounced off its interior sky — enormously enhancing the total visibility for viewers and players alike.
“Enclosed you will find a packet of items which may provide you with a more intimate knowledge of structural problems with which we have been dealing. One of these is comparable in clearspan magnitude to that posed by you, i.e., the 1000 foot spherical radio telescope discussed in the letter to Dr. Emberson of the Associated Universities. The engineering staff and consultants listed in the Emberson letter would also serve with me should you wish to go further with the ballpark problem.”
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Two views of inventor R. Buckminster Fuller’s 1954 patent for the geodesic dome. |
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