Exhibition: Montréal et le rêve géodésique / Montreal’s Geodesic Dreams
Centre de design de l’Université du Québec à Montréal, September 21-December 10, 2017.

2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the most famous geodesic dome in the world: the US Pavilion at Expo 67, designed by R. Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao. The exhibition Montreal’s Geodesic Dreams returns to the “geodesic moment,” revealing the much earlier role of the city in the development of this innovative structural system that captured the 20th-century architectural imagination. The core of the exhibition focuses on the pioneering work of the Montreal designer Jeffrey Lindsay (1924-84), founder and director of the Fuller Research Foundation Canadian Division. Working in Montreal between 1949 and 1956, Lindsay designed and built several domes, among them the 49’ “Weatherbreak” (1949-50), the first large self-supporting geodesic dome built according to Fuller’s concepts, and a 100’ exhibition pavilion commissioned by the Canadian government in 1956. The exhibition also explores the diffusion of the geodesic dome in Quebec in the 1960s, ranging from a polar bear enclosure at the Granby Zoo (Paul O. Trépanier and Victor Prus; 1962-63) to the dome of the US Pavilion at Expo 67, and in the 1970s, when the geodesic dome became an icon of counter-culture.

An accompanying bilingual book published by Dalhousie Architectural Press will be available in November.

Centre de design, 1440, rue Sanguinet, Montréal. Metro Berri-UQAM
Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 12-6. Free admission. 

Further information: http://www.centrededesign.com/
Contact: Cammie McAtee (reve.geo.dream@gmail.com)