domed city

A domed city is a hypothetical structure that encloses a large urban area under a single roof. In most descriptions, the dome is airtight and pressurized, creating a habitat that can be controlled for air temperature, composition and quality, typically due to an external atmosphere (or lack thereof) that is inimical to habitation for one or more reasons. Domed cities have been a fixture of science fiction and futurology since the early 20th century, offer inspirations for potential utopias{{cite journal |last1=Squire |first1=Rachael |last2=Adey |first2=Peter |last3=Jensen |first3=Rikke Bjerg |title=Dome, sweet home: climate shelters past, present and future |journal=Nature |date=23 November 2018 |doi=10.1038/d41586-018-07513-8 |s2cid=165784571 |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07513-8 |language=en}} and may be situated on Earth, a moon or other planet.

Origin

The social reformer Charles Fourier proposed in 1808 that an ideal city must be connected by glass galleries and the botanist J. C. Loudon wrote in his An Encyclopedia of Gardening (1822) about whole cities covered by a giant glass roof{{cite book |last1=Kohlmaier |first1=Georg |last2=Sartory |first2=Barna von |title=Houses of Glass: A Nineteenth-Century Building Type |date=1991 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-61070-4 |page=15 |language=en}}{{cite journal |last1=Lutolli |first1=Blerim |title=A Review of Domed Cities and Architecture: Past, Present and Future |journal=Future Cities and Environment |date=7 September 2022 |volume=8 |issue=1 |page=9 |doi=10.5334/fce.154 |issn=2363-9075 |doi-access=free|bibcode=2022FutCE...8....9L }}

In Northern countries, civilized man could not exist without glass; and if coal is not discovered in these countries, say in Russia, the most economical mode of procuring temperature will be at once covering whole towns with immense teguments of glass, and heating by steam or otherwise, the enclosed air common to all inhabitants.{{cite book |last1=Hix |first1=John |title=The Glasshouse |date=1996 |publisher=Phaidon Press |isbn=978-0-7148-3211-1 |page=29 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Loudon |first1=John Claudius |title=An Encyclopaedia of Gardening |date=1822 |publisher=Longman |page=926 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tF8OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA926 |language=en}}

In fiction

File:Science and Invention Feb 1922 pg905 - Cities of the Future.jpg's 1922 essay 10,000 Years Hence]]

One of the earliest examples of domed cities in fiction is the city of Vitrea in the anonymously written utopian novel Mrs. Maberly (1836).{{cite book |last1=Alkon |first1=Paul K. |title=Origins of Futuristic Fiction |date=2010 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-3772-2 |page=231 |language=en}}{{cite book |title=Mrs. Maberly; Or, The World as it Will be |date=1836 |pages=6–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SiS4_jCNNfsC&pg=PA6 |language=en |last1=Maberly |first1=Mrs }} Domed cities appear frequently in underwater environments. In Robert Ellis Dudgeon's novel Colymbia (1873), glass domes are used for underwater conversation.{{cite book |last1=Bleiler |first1=E. F. |title=Science-fiction, the early years |date=1990 |publisher=Kent State University Press |location=Kent, Ohio |isbn=9780873384162 |pages=210–212}} In William Delisle Hay's novel Three Hundred Years Hence (1881), whole cities are covered by domes beneath the sea.{{cite book |last1=Bleiler |first1=E. F. |title=Science-fiction, the early years |date=1990 |publisher=Kent State University Press |location=Kent, Ohio |isbn=9780873384162 |pages=355–356}} Survivors of Atlantis are found living in an underwater glass-domed city in André Laurie's novel Atlantis (1895).{{cite book |last1=Laurie |first1=Andre |title=The Crystal City Under the Sea |date=24 November 2010 |publisher=Black Cat Press |pages=63–64 |edition=First |url=https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-City-Under-Sea/dp/B005883HV8 |quote=The diving-bell had crashed into a colossal dome of thick crystal plates, and remained fixed there. This crystal dome, illuminated with a dazzling light, which made the electric lamp look pale, was completely visible in all its parts, and appeared to belong to an immense conservatory, covering the most strange and luxuriant vegetation.}} The same idea is found later in David M. Parry's The Scarlet Empire (1906) and Stanton A Coblentz's The Sunken World (1928).{{cite web |title=SFE: Atlantis |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/atlantis |website=sf-encyclopedia.com}} In William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, the namesake of the series is a massive supercity in the USA, stretching from Boston to Atlanta and housed in a series of geodesic domes.

Authors used domed cities in response to many problems, sometimes to the benefit of the people living in them and sometimes not. The problems of air pollution and other environmental destruction are a common motive, particularly in stories of the middle to late 20th century. As in the Pure trilogy of books by Julianna Baggott. In some works, the domed city represents the last stand of a human race that is either dead or dying.{{cite book|first=Ernest J.|last=Yanarella|year=2001|title=The Cross, the Plow and the Skyline}} The 1976 film Logan's Run shows both of these themes. The characters have a comfortable life within a domed city, but the city also serves to control the populace and to ensure that humanity never again outgrows its means.{{cite book|first=Myriam|last=Díaz-Diocaretz|year=2006|title=The Matrix in Theory and Practice}}

The domed city in fiction has been interpreted as a symbolic womb that both nourishes and protects humanity. Where other science fiction stories emphasize the vast expanse of the universe, the domed city places limits on its inhabitants, with the subtext that chaos will ensue if they interact with the world outside.{{cite book|first=Frederick A.|last=Kreuziger|year=1986|title=The Religion of Science Fiction|url=https://archive.org/details/religionofscienc0000kreu|url-access=registration}}

In some works cities are getting "domed" to quarantine its inhabitants.

Engineering proposals

During the 1960s and 1970s, the domed city concept was widely discussed outside the confines of science fiction. In 1960, visionary engineer Buckminster Fuller described the Dome over Manhattan, a 3 km geodesic dome spanning Midtown Manhattan that would regulate weather and reduce air pollution.{{cite magazine |url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/06/09/slideshow_080609_fuller?slide=7#slide=7 |title=Weird Science |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723013547/http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/06/09/slideshow_080609_fuller?slide=7 |archive-date=2011-07-23 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=June 9, 2008}} A domed city was proposed in 1979 for Winooski, Vermont{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912572,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090906073503/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912572,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 6, 2009|title=Environment: A Dome for Winooski?|date=10 December 1979|magazine=Time}} and in 2010 for Houston.[http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/mega-engineering/explore/houston-dome.html Discovery Channel: A Dome over Houston] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100722040300/http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/mega-engineering/explore/houston-dome.html |date=July 22, 2010 }}

Seward's Success, Alaska, was a domed city proposed in 1968 and designed to hold over 40,000 people along with commercial, recreational and office space.{{Citation |last=Davis |first=Jim | title=An entire city under glass |magazine=Popular Science |pages=74–75 |date=March 1970 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6QAAAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22Seward%27s+Success%22&pg=PA74}} Intended to capitalize on the economic boom following the discovery of oil in northern Alaska, the project was canceled in 1972 due to delays in constructing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.{{cite news |last=Porco |first=Peter |title=City of tomorrow a failed dream of yesterday - Thinking big: Domed suburb across Knik Arm was planned in detail |work=Anchorage Daily News |page=B3 |date=3 November 2002}}

File:Eden project.JPG established in 2000 in Cornwall, UK. A modern botanical garden exploring the theme of sustainability]]

In order to test whether an artificial closed ecological system was feasible, Biosphere 2 (a complex of interconnected domes and glass pyramids) was constructed in the late 1980s. Its original experiment housed eight people and remains the largest such system attempted to date.{{Cite news |last=Zimmer |first=Carl |date=2019-03-29 |title=The Lost History of One of the World's Strangest Science Experiments |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/sunday-review/biosphere-2-climate-change.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |access-date=2022-11-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329103107/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/sunday-review/biosphere-2-climate-change.html |archive-date=2019-03-29 |issn=0362-4331}}

In 2010, a domed city known as Eco-city 2020 of 100,000 was proposed for the Mir mine in Siberia.{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-11/17/russia-domed-city-siberia |title=Russia plans domed city in Siberian mine |first=Duncan |last=Geere |date=17 November 2010 |magazine=Wired UK}} In 2014, the ruler of Dubai announced plans for a climate-controlled domed city, named the Mall of the World, covering an area of 48 million square feet (4.5 square kilometers), but as of 2016, the project has been redesigned without the dome.{{cite web|url=https://whatson.ae/dubai/2016/01/dubais-mall-world-no-longer-going-globes-largest/|title=Dubai's Mall of the World no longer going to be globe's largest|work=What's On|date=12 January 2016}}

Notes

Category:Space colonization

Category:Science fiction themes

Category:Fictional populated places

City, domed

Category:Architecture related to utopias

domed city

Origin

In fiction

Engineering proposals

See also

Notes