When Boyd spent the year based at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Grounds, Romberg & Boyd were designing the distinctive domed structure of the Australian Academy of Science building and were involved with the initial designs for the Sydney Myer Music Bowl. In this letter, Boyd describes two domed structures that he recently visited - namely Harrison & Abramovitz’s Rockefeller Medical Institute and Eero Saarinen’s dome at the General Motors Technical Centre in Detroit.

On Saarinen’s building, Boyd writes:

Do you know the dome at G.M.T.C., Detroit? It is closer to Academy proportions, aluminium, built up in bonded sheets, riveted joints, not connected to the structural dome, as Wunderlichs have advised you. In the lavishly finished, money-no-object atmosphere of the G.M.T.C the aluminium covering looks less than superb, slight unevenness throughout, little buckles at joints, suggestion of trouble when horizontal and vertical joints meet. I mention this to warn you that Wunderlich’s may have these troubles, and to assure yourself they know what they are at. (pdf)