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from Nightlife's 08/21/03 issue: A Fuller Worth:
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But the only dome Bucky and his wife, Anne, ever lived in is located at 407 South Forest Avenue. Yes, Carbondale, Illinois. Bucky built the home in 1960, and lived there while employed by Southern Illinois University until 1971.
To honor and preserve Fuller's legacy, and in time for 2004, the fiftieth anniversary of the patenting of the geodesic design, the RBF Dome Not for Profit was established through efforts made in part by Cornelius "Corny" Crane, the organization's president, and Bill Perk, a retired SIU faculty member and Bucky's proté gé , who serves on the board of directors.
RBF Dome has received 501(3)(c) status, the necessary tax consideration that defines a nonprofit organization. The United States government no doubt recognized Bucky's contributions to Spaceship Earth– many of Bucky's inventions are used by our military– and honored the late inventor by granting the not-for-profit standing on a fast track, within a matter of months.
With the RBF Dome now officially in place, restoring and preserving Bucky's original dome is the first task. The second is to build an Interpretive Center, which, according to Crane, will demonstrate "that goals are being accomplished, where the technology is now, what's possible now, and to share with young people Fuller's ideas by showing them tools and models [relating to] Fuller's work."
"We met July 21 with the Preservation Commission, and they know [that RBF Dome has] decided to seek historic site designation for the famous architectural structure, so that's brand-new news," Perk said. "We plan to file the necessary paperwork."
"And that's the first step in attempting to achieve national landmark status, to apply for local landmark status," Crane said. "We're just beginning to get the group [involved in RBF Dome] and find out what exactly has to be done to get these grants written for preservation. We already have funds slowly trickling in. People are aware."
Crane explained the RBF Dome's mission in terms of synergetics, a trifecta of things/events/ideas working together: "One, to preserve the dome; two, to bring [visitors] to it; and, three, when they're there, we'd like to create a history of Fuller's time here in Carbondale."
Perk said the organization's focus is bringing tourists to Carbondale. "Carbondale tourism" sounds too much of an oxymoron? After all, the renowned Fuller did live here, did accomplish research at SIU, and did his best to put Carbondale on the map.
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There are four levels of historic-marker status: preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, and reconstruction. "We're fairly new to this, and we're going to have to decide out of these four what we're going to try to do so that we can follow the guidelines to fit underneath the umbrella of preservation," Crane said. "We also want to make sure that whatever we do, we continue to demonstrate Fuller's philosophy."
To illustrate an example of Fullerine philosophy, Perk said, "The [dome] patent application says Inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, 407 S. Forest. Aha! It was only put up in 1960, the one he was living in, and by 1961, he'd already patented a successor [called] the fly's eye [design]... a superior dome. Fuller's attitude toward shelter is like yours or mine towards an automobile– get rid of the ol' clunker if it's giving you trouble."
"Trade in the old for something better," Crane added.
"All of the detritus of industrial society are recyclable. Keep turning things over like nature does," Perk said, allowing his imagination, long in the works, to evidence on his expression. "The Fuller Interpretive Center could begin to show how even while [Bucky] was living in [the South Forest dome], he was looking for the next path to take. The implication is, we can get local-to-global recognition for this [dome] artifact as a significant thing that is worthy of making sure it's still around for this generation unto to the seventh generation, as the Sioux would say."
Although Bucky might have simply plowed the dome and built something new in its place, today's viewpoints conflict concerning a plan to recycle as nature does. Because the dome was Bucky's personal domicile, preserving its original components becomes increasingly paramount. Thus, building the prospective Interpretive Center would offer the chance to craft an outstanding structure that would merit Bucky's approval, something solid he might have built in place of "the ol' clunker" dome, had he known its current condition.
"To make [the dome] more like when Bucky and Anne lived there, that's going to take some time and effort and dollars and people who know what they're doing," Perk said, articulating encouragement. "Mr. Gail White [of White and Borgognoni, a company that worked on the Super Block school] is not only one of the architects in town, but he's on the Illinois Preservation Commission.... Robert Swenson is the architect for the [Labyrinth] waterfall, [located between Harbaugh's and the Interfaith Center], and on the faculty of Architecture and Interior Design. Swenson has served on the board that reviews applications for historic designation."
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About the accumulating team members, Perk said, "They'll help us make sure the city is eager to award [historic status]. Michael Jackson, the architect of the Illinois Preservation Agency said, 'You guys really need to preserve this artifact as a marker.' See, there's a special category called historic landmark; there's only about two-thousand such artifacts designated in the United States. Jackson said, 'You guys got a prime candidate to be given that recognition.'
"We are prepared to believe we're going to get all types of cooperation locally. We have high hopes that we'll not run into any problems related to getting the [historic] designation. This will generate a tourist trap... [on average] of twenty-six-thousand people per year, but you gotta be careful. If a busload of people drives up, where are the sanitary facilities? So we'll need a full Interpretive Center somewhere nearby. It's a necessary prerequisite we anticipate."
Purposefully, the RBF Dome accepts a large responsibility to the local community. Bucky's memory deserves nothing less; in fact, "doing more with less" was the twentieth-century visionary's motto. Were he alive today, Bucky probably would say that raising funds to refurbish the dome, which then would attract tourists (that is, draw outside monies into the area), maintains the dynamic process of his own way of thinking, his thought pattern.
Specifically, Bucky would say, and did, that "man is a complex system of patterns of processes.... He is the result of his own pattern integrity."
Referring to the RBF Dome's initiating a preservation fund, Perk said, "We need resources, and [donating to the organization] monetarily is the most helpful."
"Immediately, if not sooner," Bucky said of any decision to take initiative.
Driving by the dome, its protective plastic geodesic exoskeleton is visible from down the street, past the South Forest/Schwartz intersection. With its dilapidated six-foot fence, the dome home has become an eyesore to the neighborhood, as well as an embarrassment to the entire city because of the degradation of this artifact.
It's true the dome home has seen better days, but once the residence is restored, preserved, and marked historic, the expansive possibilities of tourism within Carbondale just bubbles under that weird plastic wrapping. It's the well-rounded stuff of which folklore is made.
Structurally, the dome needs repair, as one or more of its top panels is what's called "dimpled."
Perk explained the original-construction mathematics.
"The thing is built with triangles simply joined edge to edge. The problem seems to be [pressure] causing the dimpling effect [of one of the triangular ceiling panels]. Even so, [the dome is still] probably a lot safer than something going wrong in an ordinary post-and-beam rectilinear structure, where an earthquake will collapse it into an A-frame.
"All of this is geometry, very specific."
Bucky himself explained his geodesic invention in a way that begs us to question our very foundation of knowledge: "Because our educational system has taught us to think and measure in terms of squares, we have come to assume that a cubical house has structural integrity. But it hasn't. (Build a model with sticks and rubber joints and see.) We often start out on all the wrong bases."
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The RBF Dome owns the dome now because Perk donated it to the organization. But his tale of purchasing it quickly develops into a story itself. Perk spoke animatedly for awhile about the dome's complicated sale/ownership history since the early 1970s.
"Okay, here's the rapid sequence," Perk began, but unhurried and methodical, remembering aloud. "When Bucky moved out of town in seventy-one, he put the dome up for sale. In seventy-two, Mike Mitchel, a local area fellow, bought the dome; he was a Bucky groupie, you know, followed Bucky around, was very into Fuller.
"In 1995, Bucky's centennial year, [Mitchel] got in touch with me to see if I could get the community to buy the dome from him and donate it to the Park District or something. So there was an announcement in the paper about a meeting, Friends of Fuller's Dome Home, and a couple dozen people met over about six months to try to see if this was feasible. At the time, George Whitehead of the Park District invited me to meet him formally with the board to see if [the exchange] was something they could contemplate. If we could have bought it and donated it free and clear, the Park District at the time was prepared to save the dome, take responsibility.
"So then it got down to how [to] buy it from Mike Mitchel, who was asking $106,000 for it, and I found out that he had bought it from Bucky for $22,000. Bucky had put it up for sale for $35,000. So I took 22/35ths of $106,000 and came up with about $68,000, and said, 'We'll make you an offer, but first we've got to see if the bank will loan us the money.' Turns out the bank won't even contemplate it till you've had it appraised officially. The appraisal came up with $46,000 to $48,000, so eighty percent of that is what the bank might loan.
"Anyway, that all fell apart in ninety-five. The appraisal is public information, and the word had gotten out, so there's nobody who was going to give Mike Mitchel what he wanted for it. I mean, it's unrealistic, couldn't be done. In 1999, we came to an agreement of [$50,000]. [My ownership] was free and clear by 2001, but there's no way that I as a private citizen could solicit funds from the public to try and restore it– that's illegal.
"I tried to talk the SIU Foundation into [my donating] it to the SIU Foundation. Thomas Zung, Bucky's architectural partner, who's still alive, came and spoke on campus and had a dinner with [SIU Chancellor Walter] Wendler and a couple of deans and faculty from the Architecture and Design Department. Wendler was in architecture at Texas A and M, so he had some sense of the significance of Fuller. Zone said, 'You people still have the only dome Bucky ever lived in right here in town!'
"And all Wendler did was acknowledge that was the case, but he didn't pick up on the idea that the university ought to do something. And... Brian Vagner, president of the SIU Foundation, finally [said that] there's no way the University could afford to [restore the dome] given the layoffs that were happening. It's more than they were prepared to cope with."
Perk took a breath, then switched gears and continued at some length about mostly local architects and preservationists, professional individuals gathering into a pro-dome behind-the-scene crowd.
Once Southern Illinoisans understand the magnitude of the occasion– the likelihood of Carbondale tourism generated by preserving this local feature home– who wouldn't promote safeguarding Bucky's dome?
As Bucky said, "All the world, properly informed of the design and invention revolution, would welcome it. Science, not politics, centralizes society." Looking to the past only as a springboard to the future, Bucky reminds us how, though it appeared impossible at the time, "the telegraph wire communized the world."
The RBF Dome organization will soon to be online at <http://www.BuckysDome.org>, but for now direct inquiries to <info@BuckysDome.org>, or call (618) 549-DOME.
Author's note: all Bucky's quotations are taken from his book, I Seem to Be a Verb, (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), courtesy of the Buckminster Fuller Institute's 1995 centennial calendar (Pomegranate Calendars and Books). For more information on Bucky, contact the BFI at <http://www.bfi.org>.