His idea for a plastic dome showcased his desire to make architecture affordable Frank Lloyd Wright?s opinion of his own genius wasn?t the only thing inflated about his work. In the late ?50s, during the height of his fame, the architect took a slight detour to design a different kind of home. While many of his masterpieces, such as Fallingwater, featured bold cantilevers and extended roofs which seemed to float on air, this project actually relied on pressurized air to stand up.
Frank Lloyd Wright?s Fiberthin Village project, completed for the U.S. Rubber Company, featured a series of 25-by-46 foot hemispherical homes, split spheres made from Fiberthin, a vinyl-coated nylon fabric. Wright?s design for a village of these structures, and the celebrity he lent to the product, represent one of his periodic attempts to create affordable housing for the common man. Unlike his prefab or Usonian designs, however, these experimental dwellings were closer to bouncy castles than mass market homes for the everyman; they were supported by ?extremely low air pressure provided by a combination warm-air-heating and air-conditioning system with a blower attached? according to a New York Times article. Tubes of the space-age plastic, filled with 1,700 pounds of sand, served as weight and ballast.

Life Magazine

Life magazine spread about the Fiberthin concept in the November 11, 1957 issue.

Wright?s contribution served as an early example of what would la...