Montreal Biosphere Montreal Biosphere The Biosphere (French: "La Biosphère de Montréal") is a museum dedicated to the environment. It is located at Parc Jean-Drapeau, on Saint Helen's Island in the former pavilion of the United States for the 1967 World Fair, Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The museum's geodesic dome was designed by Buckminster Fuller. The architect of this geodesic dome was Buckminster Fuller. The building originally formed an enclosed structure of steel and acrylic cells, in diameter and high. It is a Class 1 (icosahedral, as differentiated from Class 2 domes, which are dodecahedral, and Class 3 ones, which are
Geodesic dome the greatest volume for the least surface area. The dome was successfully adopted for specialized uses, such as the 21 Distant Early Warning Line domes built in Canada in 1956, the 1958 Union Tank Car Company dome near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, designed by Thomas C. Howard of Synergetics, Inc. and specialty buildings such as the Kaiser Aluminum domes (constructed in numerous locations across the US, e.g., Virginia Beach, Virginia), auditoriums, weather observatories, and storage facilities. The dome was soon breaking records for covered surface, enclosed volume, and construction speed. Beginning in 1954, the U.S. Marines experimented with helicopter-deliverable geodesic domes.