Astrodome, The
a.k.a. Houston Astodome
8400 Kirby Dr., Houston, TXThe 1965 Astrodome, approximately six miles southwest of downtown Houston, Texas, is a domed circular concrete and steel framed building, featuring a steel Lamella truss roof structure capped with 4,596 skylights of clear Lucite plastic. Encompassing an area of over nine acres, the Astrodome was the first permanently-enclosed multi-purpose stadium in the United States. Featuring an outer diameter of 710 feet and a clear span of 642 feet, the Astrodome, at the time of its construction, was touted as, "the largest clear-span building ever constructed." The playing or event field is a concrete surface that provided space (208,000 ft2 or 4.8 acres) for football and baseball playing fields on artificial turf, and was also reconfigured as necessary to host concerts, rodeos, conventions, and other events. The Astrodome has not been used for major events since 2002, but served as a temporary home to victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since that time, the Astrodome has sat vacant, but it nevertheless retains a high degree of integrity.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.