Impediments to Integration: The Divergent Intentions and Convergent Expressions of the Dymaxion House and Demountable Space Structural Designs

This paper will compare and contrast two of the earliest, technically innovative,and structurally expressive prefabricated structures, Buckminster Fuller’sDymaxion House (1927-45)and Eero Saarinen’s Demountable Space building(1942, with Ralph Rapson), by examining their relative commercial andtechnical failures.As evidenced by their design proposals, both designers wanted an affordable,easy-to-assemblebuilding comprised of prefabricated building elements,made from contemporary materials, which would be packaged and shipped tothe site using the latest manufacturing efficiencies available. To make thebuildings easy-to-assemble,both designs seemingly incorporated the sameexpressive and efficient structural system—a centralized mast protruding fromthe middle of the structure with a series of tension cables fanning out tosupport the roof and floors. By centralizing the structure, the on-sitework ofpouring foundations and connecting to utilities could be minimized, and thestructural mast itself became the means by which other elements would beassembled and erected.In spite of their similarities in structural expression, both projects had incrediblydivergent ideas about spatial volume, functional flexibility, architecturalexpression, and the corresponding level of technological expression and resolutionthat was required to achieve these goals. In all cases, Fuller producedthemore prescriptive spaces with architectural expressions that resulted from thethoroughly developed myriad of complex inter-related technical solutions forbuilding (e.g., the mast was a means of supporting, shipping and venting thestructure and the round floor plan was done to reduce materials, minimize heatloss and to provide adequate lateral stability). Saarinen, however, favored flexibilityand expression primarily and often postponed the thorough examinationof technical restrictions until late in the project’s development (e.g., the mastsupported the roof but not the floors, the walls were flat-packed and modularfor purposes of expression but they provided no lateral stability, and the meansfor constructing the building was more optimistic than realistic). These earlytendencies for how these designers looked at the relationship between technology,structure, and space would come to define much of their later careersand become a common refrain in critiquing their work.Fuller’s eventually constructed a version of this design, called the Wichitahouse, which become a well-known commercial failure and serves as an exampleof the dangers of allowing ideological expressionism to trump spatial andaesthetic concerns. Saarinen’s Demountable Space project was never builtand even though he spent much of the next several years participating in manyof the first prefabricated house designs (including Case Study houses #8 &#9), he never revisited the bold structural expressionism that he explored inthis project. The paper will explore how the ideals expressed in these projectsdefined their later work in prefabricated buildings and expressive structures.Further, the paper will argue that these initial failures to successfully incorporatea bold, expressive, and efficient structural system as a central conceptualcomponent for prefabricated buildings unnecessarily created a lack of similarexplorations for generations, giving way instead to prefabricated structures definedby their box-like small volumes and flat pack facades.

Volume Editors
John Quale, Rashida Ng & Ryan E. Smith

ISBN
978-0-935502-85-5