QUESTION

If the artwork creates a feeling of being “out of place”, or that the artwork is ‘trespassing’ the viewer will start to observe the surroundings with a more critical eye, than if the artwork merely matches the location.  The public should feel free to operate within the public space, and not let the artwork or the regulations of the space dictate or negate creative interaction with the public artwork.

Design

 in plain sight

surreptitiously shape

the long term

Dome

CHARAS, founded by Chino Garcia, was primarily a Puerto Rican community engagement project. They were in the vanguard of alternative housing, renovating decrepit buildings and installing solar panels. CHARAS successfully built geodesic domes on vacant land on the Lower East next to the Manhattan bridge in 1972-1973. They collaborated with an engineer, Michael Ben-Eli who was R. Buckminster Fuller’s assistant. This attempt to build geodesic domes on the vacant land was an attempt for the community to control and autotomize its own future.