Dome

In 1975 I visited the sandstone hill called Ayer's Rock (also Uluru) in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the only huge rock in a vast territorial space of flat land. I wonder if its dome shape has had anything to do with its resistance to breakdown from weathering over the ages.

In 2008 I visited the Greek Island called Santorini (also Thera) in the Aegean Sea near Turkey. All over the island there are many circular buildings with dome-shaped roofs. Cave houses and tiny chapels have been carved into the white cliffs. Buildings which survived the famous earthquake in 1956 were domed. The people who survived had taken shelter in cliff tunnels and buildings with dome-shaped ceilings.

The famous American futurist Jacques Fresco (1916-2017) designed many beautiful dome-shaped objects. Critics who were used to square and rectangular buildings objected to the idea of a future of working and living in mostly dome-shaped ones. Fresco's response was that we have been 'living' in a dome-shaped cranium all our lives. Obviously that is the best shape of 'housing' safety for the machinery of our delicate brain.