Prof. Dr. Walther Bauersfeld (1879-1959), who studied mechanical engineering, was one of the managing directors at Carl Zeiss Jena from 1908. While ZEISS was working on two planetariums for the Deutsches Museum in Munich, he developed the idea of projecting the sun, moon and planets onto a hemispherical surface as early as 1914. His managing director colleague Rudolf Straubel then suggested projecting the stars as well. Construction was interrupted by World War I and proved difficult even after 1919. Walther Bauersfeld took the construction of the projection planetarium into his own hands and developed the basic technical solutions. Bauerfeld handed down 600 pages of handwritten notes on theoretical and design problems in the development of the projection planetarium. Bauersfeld personally presented the first Zeiss planetarium, later referred to as Model I, at the Deutsches Museum on October 21, 1923. This day is considered the birth of the modern planetarium. 

In addition to the projection technology for planetariums, Bauersfeld also developed the related dome construction in the reinforced concrete shell design. The rod network he designed served both as a supporting structure for dome buildings and for mounting the projection surface. The rod network was an anticipation of the geodesic domes later developed by Buckminster Fuller.