The Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois) ran an article on December 15, 1952 outlining a vision of weather-controlled communities of the future.
"Weather-conditioned" communities in the future are perfectly feasible, according to a professor of architecture.
Ambrose M. Richardson of the University of Illinois announced that his graduate architecture students already are working on a model of plastic pillows, helium-filled and joined to make a mile-high floating dome.
Next spring Richardson intends to try the idea with a small dome covering about an acre of land.
He said the next step may be covering 10 or 15 acre areas such as football stadiums and baseball parks. Larger domes - made of thousands of transparent pillows each only a few feet square - covering whole communities would be only a step away.
See also:
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Hubert H. Humphrey's Year 2000 (1967)
Superfarm of the Year 2020 (1979)
He wasn't that far off! Except for the helium it sounds a lot like the
ReplyDeleteethylene-tetrafluoroethylene pillows that are being used in the building for the olympic swimming pool in China and in the Eden Project in the UK.
Shopping malls are basically rofed over pedestrian-only city centers. In Northern Europe pedestrian only city centers are common. In Milan they are often covered. In Japan as well.
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