A massive geodesic dome with 61 glass eyes is coming to Arkansas\u2019 Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.<\/p>\n
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The structure, called Fly\u2019s Eye Dome, was designed by the late Buckminster Fuller, who was known for his futuristic inventions and who hoped it would revolutionize housing. Museum curators say Fuller was inspired to design the dome after looking at a photo of a fly\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n
The dome will join a 1950s home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that became part of the museum\u2019s collection in 2015. Demonstrating innovation in American architecture is part of the museum\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n
The 50-foot-wide Fly\u2019s Eye Dome, made of glass and fiberglass, will appear on the museum\u2019s north lawn like a massive golf ball caught in the grass.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is shocking and people are going to go, \u2018What is that?\u2019\u201d said Dylan Turk, a curatorial assistant at Crystal Bridges who worked on the Wright installation. \u201cHopefully they\u2019ll go out there and want to know what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the dome \u201cmarks an incredible moment in American architecture history \u2014 innovation and thinking outside the box.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright\u2019s and Fuller\u2019s homes provide different perspectives on how to be at one with nature. Wright\u2019s Bachman-Wilson home, with a prominent glass wall, immerses visitors into the landscape along Bentonville\u2019s Crystal Spring.<\/p>\n
Fuller\u2019s home features 61 \u201coculi,\u201d or eyes, through which to see the world. More than 11 dozen panels \u2014 most of them triangles \u2014 fill the spaces between the eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an actual piece of paper where he had a picture of a fly that he had found in a newspaper in the \u201860s,\u201d Turk said. \u201cHe saw it and thought, \u2018The structure of this fly\u2019s eye could become one of my type of domes.\u2019 He was literally looking at a fly\u2019s eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three prototypes were built before Fuller died in 1983. The 50-footer was previously displayed at the Los Angeles Bicentennial celebration in 1981 and at the Festival International d\u2019Art in Toulouse, France, in 2013. The other two were 24 and 12 feet wide.<\/p>\n
In an announcement to patrons in its magazine \u201cC,\u201d the museum said Fuller considered his design a way to address global housing needs through \u201ca beautiful, fully equipped, air-deliverable house that weighs and costs about as much as a good automobile.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to use the lightest materials possible because it costs the least to ship and uses less energy to build,\u201d said Turk. \u201cFiberglass is strong and cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crystal Bridges was founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton. The museum was designed by another prominent architect, Moshe Safdie.<\/p>\n
Crystal Bridges has acquired Fuller\u2019s papers, is studying them and has loaned some material to the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the nearby University of Arkansas.<\/p>\n
Fuller died before fully explaining how to lay out, heat or cool the dome\u2019s interior space. \u201cWe hope to potentially evolve what Fuller intended to do to see if there is a more efficient way of designing it, or a new technology now that we can embrace Fuller\u2019s spirit and make it more efficient,\u201d Turk said.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s far different from the Wright home, the museum calls the Fuller dome a step in its quest to define uniquely American architecture.<\/p>\n
\u201cEfficient, affordable, at one with nature: all of these factors were key in the concept and development of both architects\u2019 ideals,\u201d the museum says in its thrice-yearly magazine. It quotes architectural historian Robert Rubin, who recovered Fuller\u2019s dome from storage in 2001, as saying the \u201cEurocentrism\u201d of U.S. architectural history \u201cneeds to be corrected.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dome will stand along trees and a sculpture garden out of view of the Wright home, near where the museum is developing a new entrance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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