Dome

General context view, looking south, with the Seattle Center, which includes the Space Needle, in the middle, and Mt Rainier in the distance; Seattle Center is a fairground, park and arts and entertainment center in Seattle, Washington. The 74-acre campus is the site used in 1962 by the Century 21 Exposition (Seattle World's Fair). It is located just north of Belltown in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood. It contains the Space Needle and the terminus for the Monorail, both built for the 1962 fair. Architect of the Space Needle was John Graham. Architectural innovation was not limited to the Needle. Paul Thiry (1904-1993) guided the fairground's overall planning and designed the futuristic Coliseum (now Key Arena) to house the Washington State Pavilion beneath a radical suspended roof. In one of his first major commissions, Minoru Yamasaki (1912-1986) blended Japanese and Gothic aesthetics to create the elegant U.S. Science Pavilion, today's Pacific Science Center. (Seattle born and trained, Yamasaki went on to design his hometown's IBM Building and Rainier Tower and New York's ill-fated World Trade Center.) Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 3/9/2008)