1988 Olympic Fencing and Gymnastics Arenas  Seoul, Korea 1988
Architects: Space Group of Korea (Gymnastics); Dong Myeong
Architects and Planners (Fencing) Roof Structural Engineers:
Geiger Associates  Listen to the Introduction  The 1988
Gymnastics and Fencing Arenas were the first structures to
realize R. Buckminster Fuller's "tensegrity" systems at building
scale. The evolution of this new structural type began in 1949,
when Kenneth Snelson, working as a student of Fuller's,
developed a series of sculptures comprised of continuous wires
separated by discontinuous struts. Fuller realized that if this
concept was applied to structures, that "the compression struts
[would] become small islands in a sea of tension," which in turn
would drastically reduce the amount of material required to
build them. Fuller, who had worked for years to emphemeralize
buildings, transformed Snelson's sculptural idea into a "tensile
integrity" or "tensegrity" structural system for domes and other
longspan roofs, which he patented