Greetings From Planet NeoCon

Edie Cohen -- Interior Design, 6/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

There's always one burning question post-NeoCon. "So, what was new?" For attendees this year, the response was automatic. "The Bucky dome." That would be Buckminster Fuller's 24-foot-high Fly's Eye, which had taken up residence in Chicago's Merchandise Mart. Lent by the Max Protetch Gallery, New York, the dome was an off-site complement to "Buckminster Fuller: Starting With the Universe," then at the nearby Museum of Contemporary Art.

Vitra footed the bill to move the dome's 50 fiberglass sections, weighing in at 3,500 pounds, to the lobby of the Mart—where we canvassed local notables for reactions. The response was personal for Dirk Denison, who was a teen when he met Fuller at a lecture and went on to found Dirk Denison Architects: "Everything Bucky did was part of the big picture. This dome was about the nature of surfaces, like a globe." Kathy Taslitz of Kathy Taslitz Interiors used the word tremendous. Waxing nostalgic, Brad Lynch of Brininstool + Lynch recalled, "My 11th-grade homeroom teacher had us build a wood dome. The jungle-gym effect of Fuller's made me want to climb it." Interior Design Hall of Fame member Neil Frankel mused, "Having it there was enlightening." For sure, it provided visual stimulation for the hordes waiting on the infamous elevator lines.