Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, p. 29-105). / The thesis investigates the geodesic structure and dome phase in the corpus of Richard Buckminster Fuller's artifactual production and writings. It offers a history of the meteoric rise of the geodesic structure, its production, deployment, reception and subsequent marginalization. The geodesic work, as a pinnacle of Fuller's life work, form a multi-layered symbolic project with significance that extends beyond architecture. While the geodesic dome is an aspect of Fuller's many artifactual productions, it is studied here as a culmination of a set of ideas that Fuller developed and refined over a course of forty years, beginning with the 4D-Dymaxion House. These ideas represent a set of poignant observations and critique of design and design practices in particular, and of contemporary American culture in general. At a cursory level, Fuller's invention of the geodesic dome in the late forties appears to be a historical aberration, given the traditional, deeply symbolic significance of the dome and the fairly entrenched modem aesthetic sensibility based on planes and asymmetry. Yet, over a period of twenty years, the geodesic invention reinvigorated a traditional archetypal form besides charging up new interests in all types of space-frame structures. The invention of the geodesic structure invention enjoyed professional attention and rallied public enthusiasm. However, with its swan-song at the Montreal Expo '67, it was quickly eclipsed and marginalized. The thesis shows that Fuller's geodesic work is an attempt to create a seamless continuity between nature and society, following on the heels of his first attempt (in the 4D-Dymaxion House phase) to create a similar continuity between society and industry and between production and consumption. To understand anyone of these aspects, one must posit the invention in the context of its inventor and the relationship of the desires he brought to bear on American society and culture in his time. / by Yunn Chii Wong. / Ph.D.

Texte remanié de: Thèse de doctorat--Architecture--Genève, 2003. Titre de soutenance : La maison Dymaxion de R. Buckminster Fuller et autres machines habitables du XXe siècle. / Bibliogr. p. 239-246. Index. Bibliogr.

Thesis (Master)--İzmir Institute of Technology,İzmir, 2005 / Keywords: Synergetic geometry, complementarity, tensegrity, system and synergy, dymaxion, geodesic. Includes bibliographical references (leaves. 77).

This dissertation investigates the modern American stadium from the late 1940s to the early 1980s, examining the ideologies that shaped these monumental buildings and the meanings people affixed to them. Stadiums were significant components of the modern landscape, frequently hosting massive audiences, costing tens of millions of public dollars, and uniquely symbolizing cities and their citizens’ civic spirit. Through interpretations of these stadiums’ architectural expression, spatial constitution, discursive construction, and visual representation, this study explores the ideological landscape of the modern United States, expands understandings of modern space, and examines what it meant to be “modern” throughout this period. A response to the old stadiums they replaced—largely masculine, inter-class, inter-racial, rambunctious places locked into run-down neighborhoods—new stadiums eliminated traditional and iconic sites of urban diversity, reconstituting sports spaces as modern, suburban, and technological. They re-gendered stadium space, integrating women into it as consumers and service workers. They re-classed stadium space, outfitting it with exclusive restaurants and private luxury boxes. They technologized stadium space, conspicuously loading it with exploding scoreboards and massive video screens. They re-racialized stadium space, relocating it from old ballparks adjacent dense African-American neighborhoods to open sites along freeways convenient to booming white suburbs or as anchors to clean-sweep downtown redevelopment. They fundamentally altered stadium experience, shifting emphasis from games on the field to entertainments and consumption opportunities around it. In doing all these things, modern stadiums materialized an ideological apparatus privileging a range of values and practices including gender distinction in mixed-gender settings, socio-economic and racial segregation, technological scientism, and consumption-oriented stimulation. Roy Hofheinz, the force behind the iconic Houston Astrodome’s planning and execution, fully understood the relationship of the material and the ideological; as he put it, “You’ve got to have tangibles to sell intangibles.” To illustrate these points, this dissertation engages postwar plans for futuristic new stadiums from designers like Norman Bel Geddes and Buckminster Fuller; the construction of new stadiums in the mid-1960s in New York, Houston, and St. Louis; and the increasingly routinized modern stadium of the 1970s—a controversial expression of modern progress for some, modern artificiality for others. / text