Sunsphere - Knoxville, TN
Posted by: 
ggmorton
N 35° 57.708 W 083° 55.400
17S E 236364 N 3983663
The Sunsphere in Knoxville, TN is still a popular attraction to this day, but not like during the 1982 Worls's Fair for which it was designed.
Waymark Code: WM13PBX
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 01/22/2021
Views: 1
"The Sunsphere, located in World’s Fair Park in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, is a 266 ft high hexagonal steel truss structure, topped with a 75 ft gold-colored glass sphere that served as the symbol of the 1982 World's Fair.
Designed by the Knoxville-based architectural firm, Community Tectonics, the Sunsphere was created as the theme structure for the 1982 World's Fair. It was noted for its unique design in several engineering publications.
The World's Fair site later became a public park, the World's Fair Park, alongside Knoxville's official convention center and adjacent to the University of Tennessee's main campus. The Sunsphere remains standing directly across a man-made pond from the Tennessee Amphitheater, the only other structure remaining from the 1982 World's Fair.
In its original design, the sphere portion was to have had a diameter of 86.5 feet to represent symbolically the 865,000-mile diameter sun. The tower's window glass panels are layered in 24-karat gold dust and cut to seven different shapes. It weighs 600 tons and features six double steel truss columns in supporting the seven-story sphere. The tower has a volume of 203,689 cubic feet and a surface of 16,742 square feet."
Reference: (
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The Sunsphere is now open to the public, and one can ride to one of the observation decks for free on the elevator.