The building was commissioned by the Navy to the Goodyear Zepellin Corporation to be a construction site for two contracted lighter-than-airships. At ten million cubic feet in capacity, the design was overbuilt, as the airdock was built to house an airship much larger than the two contracted blimps. The structure was meant to have an expansive unobstructed interior space and be wind resistant. The building was an engineering marvel at the time, as it was internationally the largest building in the world without interior supports. Wilbur J. Watson, who owned the company that designed the structure, wrote about engineering of bridges and probably used this knowledge during the design process.

It is occasionally used for local social and political events, such as concerts and political rallies. The United States military has recently been contracting the Goodyear Company, owned by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, to build military airships once again at the Airdock.

The Airdock has a semi-paraboloid shape and at its maximum length 1,175 feet, maximum width 325' and maximum height 211'. The semi-parabolic shape was chosen and tested to ensure its structural integrity. One hundred feet high there is a row of twelve windows on both sides of the building. The building has two sets of double doors weighing six hundred tons each at both ends of the building, semi-spherical in shape. The doors rest on forty wheels each, on railroad tracks and each set of doors has its own individual power plant devoted to opening and closing the doors. The building itself is mounted on rollers so that it can expand and contract in relation to temperature changes. The shell of the building is supported by eleven structural steel arches. This was an advanced engineering project, with its incredibly large interior spaces without supports, intentionally done so to maximum usable construction space.

The building has two sets of double doors weighing six hundred tons each at both ends of the building, semi-spherical in shape. The doors rest on forty wheels each, on railroad tracks and each set of doors has its own individual power plant devoted to opening and closing the doors. The building itself is mounted on rollers so that it can expand and contract in relation to temperature changes. The shell of the building is supported by eleven structural steel arches.

This was the second large scale airdock that Goodyear built. In 1917 The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company built the Wingfoot Lake Airship Base, which is now the oldest airship base in the country. It was originally designed to be one hundred feet wide, ninety feet nigh and two hundred feet long, later extended to four hundred feet long. It was the largest such structure before the company built the Airdock in Akron, six miles away.

According to the National Park Service’s Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Historical Aviation Properties, the distinct semi-paraboloid shape and the lack of interior supports of the Airdock makes the structure architecturally significant. The techniques used to build such an large structure without interior supports were impressive for the time. This was an advanced engineering project, with its different systems used to deal with environmental factors. One example of this is how the building was placed on rollers so that it could expand and contract in relation to temperature changes. The Wilbur Watson Engineering Company was involved in constructing bridges and so the latest bridge technology at the time likely employed.

This structure is important to the Goodyear Zeppellin Corporation’s history and also the development of U.S. military aviation history. The building was constructed for the sole purpose of constructing two lighter than airships for the government, the USS Akron and USS Macon. The structure itself was a engineering marvel but the airships constructed within it were part of United States military advancements. Though the blimps constructed in the Airdock were unsuccessful with both the the USS Akron and USS Macon crashing with passengers on board, it was a necessary step in military aviation history. For Goodyear the structure has been used for constructing commercial blimps and it also housed the company’s photographic division of the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation.

[ADD A SENTENCE OR TWO ON HOW THIS IS A WORK OF MODERN ENGINEERING THAT IS FOCUSED ON FUNCTION AND DOES NOT TRY TO FOLLOW ANY ARCHITECTURAL STYLISTIC CONVENTIONS]

The building was received positively, and has been designated a National Park Service Aviation landmark, a Ohio state Landmark and the American Society of Civil Engineers has also listed the Airdock as an engineering landmark.

ASCE, History and Heritage of Civil Engineering: Goodyear Airdock. \"History and Heritage of Civil Engineering: Goodyear Airdock." http://live.asce.org/hh/index.mxml?lid=80&versionChecked=true (accessed February 13, 2010).Good Year, "Goodyear Blimp: History of the Wingfoot Lake Airship." 2009 http://www.goodyearblimp.com/history/wingfoot.html (accessed February 15, 2010).National Park Service, "Goodyear Airdock- Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms." http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/aviation/goo.htm (accessed February 13, 2010).Naval Historical Center, "USN Aircraft- USS Akron (ZRS-4):Construction, Christening & Miscellaneous Views." July 4, 2002.http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/ac-usn22/z-types/zrs4-v.htm (accessed February 13, 2010). Wilson, J.R.. "A New Era for Airships." Aerospace America 42, no. 5 (2004): 27.