The Sunsphere, located in World’s Fair Park in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, is a 266 ft (81 m) high hexagonal steel truss structure, topped with a 75 ft (23 m) 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 (26.4 m) to represent symbolically the 865,000-mile (1,392,000 km) 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 that support the seven-story sphere. The tower has a volume of 203,689 cubic feet (5,767.8 m3) and a surface of 16,742 square feet (1,555.4 m2).
During the fair it cost $2 to take the elevator to the tower's observation deck. The tower served as a restaurant and featured food items such as the Sunburger and a rum and fruit juice cocktail called the Sunburst. In the early morning hours on May 12, 1982, a shot was fired from outside the fair site and shattered one of the sphere's windows.No one was ever arrested for the incident.
The Sunsphere has been used as a symbol for Knoxville, appearing in postcards and logos. Between 1993 and 1999, the Sunsphere was featured in part on the logo for the Knoxville Smokies minor league baseball club.
The 2002 AAU Junior Olympics mascot Spherit took its inspiration from the landmark. It featured red hair and a body shaped like the Sunsphere. On Sunday, May 15, 2000, nuclear weapons protesters scaled the tower and hung a large banner that said "Stop the Bombs." They remained on the tower for three days before surrendering to police.
The Sunsphere is also featured in the logo for the Hard Knox Roller Girls women's flat-track roller derby league and their mascot, Sphere This also took its inspiration from the Knoxville landmark. The Sunsphere was highlighted in the seventh season episode of animated TV sitcom The Simpsons titled "Bart on the Road" and was renamed the wig sphere due to its use as a storage facility for wigs.
In 2011, a drawing of the Sunsphere – alongside images of iconic structures from Tennessee's three other large cities (the Memphis Pyramid, Nashville's AT&T Building, and the Tennessee Aquarium of Chattanooga) – was incorporated into the standard design of Tennessee's state-issued driver's licenses.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunsphere
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