Buckminster Fuller designs

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To help showcase America’s achievements at the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal (and potentially distract crowds from the UK pavilion, manned by hostesses sporting the newly popular miniskirt), the U.S. government recruited Buckminster Fuller to design a geodesic dome. The choice proved inspired; more than 5 million traveled to the glittering American pavilion, encased in a clear acrylic cover, to see myriad displays, such as Apollo spacecraft, While it proved eye-catching during the Expo, the cover also proved extremely flammable; a fire reduced the dome to a mere steel skeleton in 1976. In a meaningful tribute to Fuller’s legacy, the site has since been turned into an environmental museum.