Fuller showing off his dome
Yesterday we revisited Buckminster Fuller's plan to put a dome over some of Manhattan in 1960, but four years prior to that proposal, he had a similar one for Brooklyn. In this 1956 issue of Mechanix Illustrated, they exclusively showed a rendering from Fuller for a new domed stadium for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Per his plan, the geodesic dome would have been 300 feet high and 750 feet in diameter, making it feasible to fit the "demand for a ball park big enough to hold the enormous Dodger following. It would also be an all-weather, year-round sports palace capable of pulling in big money as a showplace for every kind of sporting event and exposition."
The dome would have included air venting, shadowless lighting fixtures, a huge underground car park with four automobile entrances, a promenade lined with shops, restaurants and other facilities, and more, all on a 500-acre plot of land in the center of a four square block area. In fact, it would have been at the southeast corner of Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue—on the site of the Barclays Center.
The publication called it "The Dodger Dome," and noted that it could become "an object of pride in Brooklyn." Prior to the dome proposal, which would have kept the team in New York, the Dodgers played at a field in Gowanus, and then, of course, Ebbets Field.
