Domes, Art Building Addition

Date

original domes: 1971-?; current structure: ca. 1983-present

Location

Behind the Art Building's 1937 addition, along Willard Court

Architects/Collaborators

Robert Gaede (1920-2008), Cleveland (architect)
Ohio Construction & Engineering Co., Norwalk, OH (contractor)

Style

Contemporary

History

In 1953, R. Buckminster Fuller visited the campus as the speaker for the Art Department's Baldwin Seminar Series, during which time he directed students in the erection of a temporary, geodesic dome frame. Fuller spent his life working across multiple fields, such as architecture, design, geometry, engineering, science, cartography and education. Buckminster Fuller's assertion that simple engineering and design principles could be used to solve human shelter needs on a global scale was a revolutionary concept in the 1950s. His vision for comprehensive planetary planning resulted in new strategies intended to enable all of humanity to live with freedom, comfort and dignity, without negatively impacting the earth’s ecosystems or regenerative ability.

In 1970, the Art faculty convinced President Robert Fuller to grant them $4,000 to erect two geodesic domes to alleviate a crisis in studio space. In April 1971,  prefabricated components conceived by Buckminster Fuller and developed by Pease Woodwork Co. were delivered, after students had dug footers and foundations were poured. The domes were erected entirely with student labor, and served the department as classroom and workshop space for a number of years, until the wood components began to rot. The successor buildings that stand today, circular in shape with a connector section, were designed by architect Robert C. Gaede and constructed professionally on the same location in about 1983. Though the new structures are not domes, they continue to be referred to as such. They are now home to the Art Department’s drawing program.

Sources

Buckminster Fuller Institute website, accessed July 24, 2015.

Paul Arnold, "A Few Random Thoughts about Oberlin's Art Department," unpublished manuscript, February 4, 1999. Oberlin College Archives, Art Department Records Case File.

"'Synergy': Doing More with Less," Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Vol. 67 No. 8, Nov./Dec. 1971, 21-24.