For Sale: Buckminster Fuller Dome

Who wants to own an original geodesic dome designed by the one and only Buckminster Fuller? Here is your chance!

Since a couple of weeks the huge Aviodome, that used to function as the aviation museum at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, is for sale. The Aviodome was the first geodesic dome in Europe. The iconic building was built in 1971 by the American cult architect Richard Buckminster Fuller and is 2,700 square meters big and 23 meters high. The dome has a radius of 34 meters and the roof consists of a column-free span of approximately 60 meters. (Click here for a video of the building process.)

When the aviation museum decided to move to Lelystad in 2003, the unique aluminum dome could hardly be saved from demolition. It was professionally disassembled and stored in 29 containers with the intention to rebuild  it later as a church in the the municipality of Haarlemmermeer. But the reconstruction never took place and there is no prospect that it truly is going to happen. The 45 ton heavy shipping containers in which the outer dome, the fittings, the inner shell and the isolation are stored, are still aimlessly waiting for a new owner. All (technical) information can be found on the ‘dome for sale’ website. Interested parties can register on the site to contact the owner and to make a bid. A brief explanation of the plans is required. Click here for photos of the dome. To learn more about domes, check out the freely available PDF of Lloyd Kahn’s Domebook 2.

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