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The illustrations show the demolition (1967), the construction and the assembly of the Monsanto plastic house erected in 1957 by the architects Marvin E. Goody & John M. Clancy, Boston, in Disneyland in California. The house is regarded as one of the first pure plastic buildings and to this day it has not been improved on either structurally or in respect of design.
During its 10-year existence more than 20 million visitors went through the house, and it suffered no damage at all. It was demolished because at that site it had served its purpose as a sensation. Sheer force was required to demolish it: a 1.5-ton steel ball and the jaws of power shovels. […]
The house consisted of 16 identical shaped parts of only 7 mm-thick statically shaped fibre-glass-reinforced polyester resin layers with a foam-filled honeycomb core, which were utilizable both as floor elements and as ceiling elements. The elements were, half way up, connected together in such a way that the joints could take up expansions of the synthetic material caused by heat. The cantilever system had the function of transmitting to the material the loads in the manageable form ot stress and pressure forces.
