99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-64- Derelict Dome

Episode Date: October 26, 2012

In the Cape Cod town of Woods Hole, buildings are not usually dome-shaped. Producer Katie Klocksin was pretty surprised when she came across one. Katie started asking around about the dome.  She found it was built by the late Buckminster … Continue reading →

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. It's safe to say that Woods Hole is exactly what you picture when you think of a town on Cape God. Old houses covered in wood shingles. There are sailboats, ocean side restaurants. Wealthy vacationers in the summertime. Super traditional, super east coast. But just up the hill from the tiny downtown, there's this huge dome. It looks like a three-story tall golf ball.

It's this crazy looking white building totally out of place next to the old colonial houses. So reporter Katie Cloxon went to check it out. Hello! Katie brought some friends too. The back door was unlocked. It's not like anything you've ever seen before. Inside, it smells musty. It's creepy.

Look at this old wall paper. There's a wall made entirely out of these interlocking, triangle-shaped windows. They cast a web of shadows on the floor. There's an old kitchen. It looks like it might have been part of a restaurant. You found some? Yeah, there's a whole pile of old salt and pepper.

I don't agree with that. Okay, let's go look. It's kind of spooky. When we left, I needed to know more. What Katie found was a geodesic dome designed and built by the late Buckminster Fuller. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of Bucky. He did go by Bucky by the way. He was a big deal back in the 60s. A drawing of Bucky's head made to look like one of his domes was

on the cover of Time Magazine in 1964. There's a Bucky Fuller postage stamp. He was even given the country's highest civilian honor, a presidential medal of freedom. Bucky Fuller is also responsible for the title of this radio show. He said 99% of who you are is invisible and untouchable, and he discussed the 99% invisible activity that is coalescing to her shape our future.

He's a very quotable man. Here he is from the film Buckminster Fuller, the lost interviews. I think we ought to be looking into what needs to be done to do more with less so that you might sometimes do so much with so little you might be able to take care of everybody and make all the politics invalid. Jay Baldwin was one of Bucky's students. He just wanted people to use less stuff.

He said it was all going to run out. We've got to think big and take care of everybody. He said as long as it's one person starving, you're going to have wars. Fuller called himself a comprehensive, anticipatory, design scientist. He wanted to invent things that would make human life sustainable on this planet.

Decades before anyone else was even thinking about green buildings. And for that, people have called Bucky the Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century. Oh yes, they do that, but the Vor Institute crew counters that Leonardo was the Bucky for medieval times. So here's the deal with the Woods Hole Dome. Bucky wanted to change the world, starting with buildings. So he started making these weird structures,

what she called geodesic domes. Geodesic refers to the geometry of curved surfaces. The golf ball building in Woods Hole is actually the oldest of Bucky's domes that are still standing. The structure of the geodesic dome is based on a lot of complicated math. But in short, it's built with a lot

of triangles. A triangle is a very strong shape, and a dome made out of triangles is extra strong. That meant that domes could be made of lighter and cheaper materials than normal buildings, like plastic and aluminum instead of steel and concrete. Back in 1952, Bucky was just starting to build domes. They caught the attention of an architect and aspiring restaurant tour, a man named Gunner Peterson. And in the early 50s, 1953, he bought some property in Wittshol and decided to build a hotel in a restaurant.

Joel Peterson is Gunner's son. He did make a deal with Bucky Fuller. I don't remember how dad met him. He called him up. I don't, you know, I mean, he tracked him down anyway. And Bucky and his wife came and lived at our house. They decided they'd build the dome restaurant. A geodesic dome has a way of standing out, but in Cape Cod it really stands out. And that upset some people. Wow, it isn't their shingled Cape Cod cottage really stands out. And that upsets some people. Wow, it isn't a shingled Cape Cod cottage. That's for darn sure.

And the feeling is this is going to change life as we know it. We'll never be the same again. This is just horrible. One building. There was stuff that happened. There was things stolen. I mean, there was paint poured on you know, I mean there was paint poured on things, there was there was just lots of stuff. Stuff here meaning.

People didn't want to talk about this on tape, but I just have this mental image of a really ugly mob up in arms about this dome. That's probably an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Despite the unrest, the dome restaurant opened in June of 1954. And according to Joel, it was the place to go. The dome was the most elegant place around, I mean, at that time. And certainly when you went out to eat in the fifties on Cape Cod, in a place like the dome, you wore a tie and the women were all spiffed up.

It was a festive occasion. And they had a live musician. She played the Zither. And I don't know if you've ever had dinner with Zither music. It's rather pleasant. The restaurant is right on the ocean. And you're far away from city. so you can just look up at the ceiling and you're looking at the stars. Sally Brady was 14 years old when the dome restaurant opened near her house.

Those early 50s were really quite an amazing moment because everybody could buy cars. People who survived the war, all those men were home and they were jobs and people were making the American dream come true and I think that the dome was sort of a symbol of the American dream in a way. It felt like a prosperous, optimistic time. It made sense that the dome represented the future for some people. It turned out that there were some real structural problems with the dome. First, the structure acted like an acoustic amplifier.

So all that zither music got blasted across the neighborhood. And a building with that much glass worked like a greenhouse. So it got hot inside. After the first season, they covered the dome and white fiberglass to block out the sun. That meant diners couldn't see the stars anymore. Geodesic domes don't have any support beams. Those triangular window frames do all the work.

Each frame rests on the one next to it. Which can be a problem if the building materials are flexible and move in the wind. Here's Arnie Grepstad, he worked at the restaurants. Saturday night, horrible weather outside, and this particular night, there was a party of four, the scallies that were they having dinner, and they were regular customers, local people. Around 730, with a chock full full restaurant all of a sudden it's not dripping at table 113 and I can remember it seeing them sit there and Jane took the rumble out opened it to a huge applause from everyone in the restaurant

it was just funny but the fact is the geodesic domes most of them linked like sivs again Jay Baldwin Bucky's former student. I have a photograph of Bucky inside his dome in Carbondale with an umbrella in one hand, a book in the other, and a flashlight in his mouth reading the book. And the umbrella is needed. I told Bucky I'm going to find out why domes leak and he said domes leak because they made my amateurs and they built it with holes in it. You wouldn't build a boat with holes in it. Would you har har? And I said I don't think they're leaking because

they made them with a hole in it. I said I think they're leaking g desiccly. The owner Joel Peterson says he patched a lot of leaks. Eventually, Joel wanted to retire from the restaurant business. He sold the property in 2002. It's been sitting vacant ever since. I asked Joel and Arne to give me a tour. I can't bring myself to tell them I've actually been here before. We have to push aside branches to get to the front door.

It's been a few years since I've been here. And to tell you the truth, I never really wanted to come because I mean, it is incredibly overgrown. I mean, it's just sad. Oh my gosh, isn't this amazing? It actually, I actually have a key. Yo, it is. I'll tell you what, this is not a pretty sight.

I told you about Ruth while coming to the other. This is where she played. Now, you want to take a look at the kitchen? There's a walking cooler there and the prep room in the back. This really has been my work in life. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it restored. On the other hand, I think it's going to be a tremendous expense to put this back. So it's with two opposite emotions that you'll look at it.

But you have to be realistic and understand that things change here in life. In 2006, a real estate development company planned to build condos on the site. And for a while, it looked like the dome might be torn down. But then a funny thing happened. There was a public outcry to keep the dome. This is the same building that residents fought against tooth and nail back when it was being constructed in the 50s. Now, in order to build on the site, the developer has to restore the dome. And that's going to be expensive.

So the whole thing is in limbo until more condos are pre-sold. And real estate transactions are not moving quickly these days. If the developer can't pre-sell enough condos to justify the cost of restoring the dome, then the whole deal could fall apart. If that happened, the dome would stay as it is now, continuing to decay, waiting for the next out of towners to come poking around with a flashlight. The person who seems least sentimental about this is Joel Peterson. If I were doing the project that they talk about doing, I'd tear it down.

Be honest with you. It's a building. It was part of my life, it's a building. Sally Brady, who grew up next to the dome, feels differently. Maybe it will be reborn in a different way that will be better. Why not? Maybe it will be a beautiful transparent place and people will go there and do fantastic energizing work that will help humanity.

What do you think we would lose if it was torn down? What would we lose? Well, it's a very good example of this repost for 50 boom and anything was possible Yeah, I sort of agree and then and then what does that mean that now? It's just in such disrepair Well, I think it means that we've moved on and that dream went bust, sort of, yeah, I think it's a kind of broken dream right now. I sort of depressing, isn't it? Maybe a finished dream is a little kinder.

Buckminster Fuller claimed that his ideas were 50 years ahead of his time. And now it's been over 50 years, but domes have not replaced traditional buildings. But you know what? I'm rooting for the dome. I think it represents Bucky's optimism that we could solve the world's problems with good design. And even if you couldn't, you could still stargaze through triangular windows,

looking out over the sea. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Katie Cloxon with Sam Greenspan and me Roman Mars. Katie produced a different version of this story at the Transom Story Workshop, which aired on the PRX How Sound Podcast. Both of those are run by the great super punk rock. Rob Rosenfall. Do they owe us a living? Thanks also to Aaron Chichesky. You can find this show and like the show on Facebook. All of us are on Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify, but to find out more about this story including cool pictures and links and listen to all the episodes of 99% invisible.

You must go to 99pi.org. Radio Tapio. From PRX. From PRX.