SIUE celebrates 70 years of geodesic dome innovation

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – The miniature geodesic dome that Buckminster Fuller built on the SIUE campus is celebrating his creation this weekend.

“The anniversary we’re marking with this weekend’s programming is the date he got his U.S. patent for the geodesic dome,” Benjamin Lowder, director of Fuller Dome Center for Spirituality and Sustainability, said. “He’s got 29 other patents, but that’s what he’s most famous for.”

Friday night, the campus is hosting a Bucky Fuller film screening. Then a lecture under the dome will take place Saturday at noon. The Sunday ceremony sounds will explore the unique acoustic properties with a sound bath experience.

Along with creating the geodesic dome, Fuller was also a professor at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and Edwardsville.

“The 90th meridian would figure so important in his dymaxion math patent. He used the 90th meridian as the central line of reference, rather than the equator.  The 90th meridian passes through the land that became the SIUE campus,” Lowder said. “This provides visitors the sensation of entering the center of the earth and looking up and seeing where you’re standing on the planet.”

Fuller considered the 90 ^th meridian the main street of Earth, according to Fuller Dome manager Tovia Black.

“I like to think when we’re sending out prayers and meditation, all that energy is going right through the main street of our earth,” Black said.

With summer camps, concerts, speakers and a Sunday gathering inside, it makes for a busy mini-Earth.

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