“A Necessary Ruin” Documents the Demise of an Industrial Classic

Landscape architect Evan Mather is also a film-maker engaged with the landscape of memory, specifically the recently demolished Union Tank Car Dome in his native home of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Mather has made a documentary about the construction and subsequent destruction of the building, which was based on the engineering principles of the visionary designer-inventor Buckminster Fuller, and, at 384 feet in diameter, was the largest free-span structure in the world.

The movie, entitled A Necessary Ruin: The Story of Buckminster Fuller and the Union Tank Car Dome, will begin a limited one-week theatrical run in Los Angeles at Laemmle’s Town Center 5 in Los Angeles (17200 Ventura Boulevard in Encino) from April 16, 2010 through April 22, 2010. The film includes recordings of the late Richard Lehr who conceived of the facility, and interviews with Fuller’s daughter Allegra Fuller Snyder and freelance photographer Ivan Massar who documented the construction of the facility. Yours Truly provides the voiceover.