Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Fuller Dome with dance, music, art, architecture, and artifacts expressing the dome's history
Friday, October 22nd, 2021, marks the 50th anniversary of the day that Buckminster Fuller dedicated his dome on the SIUE campus by reading his essay "Geoview." The Center for Spirituality and Sustainability would like to mark the Fuller Dome's 50th anniversary by inviting you to join us in the dome for an evening celebrating its history while looking to its future. The evening starts at 6PM with program comprised of:
A reading of "Geoview" by Fuller's, family, friends, colleges & devotees
A dance tribute from the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe
An exhibition of art and artifacts donated from the Fuller Estate
Plus, live string and piano music from the SIUE music department
The 50th Anniversary Exhibition opens in the Fuller Dome Gallery at 7:30 PM following the program
On October 22nd in 1971, Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao dedicated the geodesic domed Religious Center that they had designed and built together for the newly created Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville Campus. At the dome that day, Bucky read an essay he had written for the occasion. The essay is titled "Geoview, Go In To Go Out" and it describes Bucky's intention for the Center's design as well as the Center's connection to our planet's 90th longitudinal Meridian. The Center is topped by a translucent, three-quarter-sphere, miniature-earth, geodesic dome that perfectly straddles the planet's 90th Meridian. Bucky was able to align the miniature-earth dome's 90th Meridian with the actual 90th Meridian so that when you stand in the center of the dome and look up, you are looking at the place that you are standing on the actual planet. In doing this, you see your place in the world from vantage point of the heart of the planet, and since the miniature-earth dome is translucent, you look out to the heavens and see the world's place in the universe. Providing this immediate sense orientation of the human individual with-in the universe is a remarkable architectural achievement and the Center is in many ways Bucky's master work. Today the Center is named the Fuller Dome and it is managed by a non-profit organization, the Center for Spirituality and Sustainability.