Sunsphere

Knoxville, Tennessee, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

The Sunsphere is a 266-foot tower topped by a gold-glass globe, built as the symbol of Knoxville's 1982 World's Fair. It is one of two structures left from the fair; its fourth-level observation deck reopened in 2022 and a Welcome Center opened in 2024.

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Sunsphere

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Site-level location · 35.9617° N, 83.9233° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

For one summer in 1982 this gold-glass globe was the emblem of Knoxville's World's Fair. Decades later it is one of the few things left of it, and its observation deck is open again.

The Sunsphere stands in World's Fair Park, which was created for the fair from an abandoned 70-acre railway yard between downtown Knoxville and the University of Tennessee campus. The fair ran under the theme “Energy Turns the World” and closed on 1 October 1982. According to World's Fair Park, the tower was constructed in 1981 and stands 266 feet high, and its gold globe is five storeys tall with panes of glass made of 24-karat gold. During the fair a $2 elevator ride went up to the observation deck.

The park's own account describes a long wait afterwards: the Sunsphere closed to the public when the fair ended and stayed vacant or underused for most of its later life. The city briefly reopened the deck in 1999 and again in 2007 after renovations. WATE reported that it closed for several months in 2014 for extensive renovations, and again in March 2020 as COVID-19 spread. The deck reopened on 22 February 2022 with new displays, and the Sunsphere Welcome Center on level 3, an official entrance, opened on 20 November 2024. The park says the Sunsphere and the Tennessee Amphitheater are the only structures that remain from the fair.

WVLT reported in 2026 that the deck admits up to 40 people every 30 minutes and holds a timeline, gallery, memorabilia, a mural and technology related to the fair. The sixth and eighth levels are event floors run separately.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

Visitors meet in the Welcome Center on level 3 and go up to the fourth-level observation deck, which has views over downtown Knoxville, the Tennessee River and the Smokies, plus fair memorabilia, a timeline and a mural. Visit Knoxville said in 2026 the deck takes 40 people every 30 minutes.

ACCESS

In World's Fair Park, downtown Knoxville. Visitors meet in the Sunsphere Welcome Center on level 3 for the observation deck. Only service animals are allowed inside; park lots are reached from Eleventh Street, Clinch Avenue and World's Fair Park Drive.

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Rachmaninoff oversized bronze (World's Fair Park)

Knoxville, Tennessee

A bronze statue titled 'Rachmaninoff: The Final Concert', described in 2008 as 11 feet tall, stands in Knoxville's World's Fair Park, according to the Knoxville History Project, and marks the composer's last public performance, at the University of Tennessee in 1943.

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0.1 km away

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