Bucky's Dome

Book excerpt: Recognized as one of the great design and architectural thinkers of the twentieth century, R. Buckminster Fuller's name is synonymous with the geodesic dome. But throughout his long life and career, Fuller would only ever call one geodesic dome "home," and that was the house he built in 1960 on a corner lot in the small Midwestern town of Carbondale, Illinois. Erected in just one day, Carbondale's famous "Bucky Dome" was an architectural innovation that is now recognized as a local, state and national historic site. The Dome was the residence of Fuller and his wife, Anne, for over a decade and it endures until this day. This book recounts the building of the Fuller's remarkable home, the Midwestern lives of its two famous owners, and the home's history of subsequent owners and renters. And it covers the nearly twenty-year process involving architects, carpenters, preservationists and volunteers in their efforts to restore the Dome to its original individualistic and revolutionary state.