designbelt

ASM World Headquarters    John Terence Kelly + R. Buckminster Fuller     1959

Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book

In the late 1950’s, Cleveland Modernist architect John Terence Kelly and visionary R. Buckminster Fuller collaborated on the ASM World Headquarters, just 20 miles east of Cleveland, to create an iconic statement of earth and sky. Characterized by some as a “spaceship landed in the countryside,” the composition of building and geodesic dome are more fittingly read as extensions of the landscape. Like Joseph Paxton at the Crystal Palace (a), Fuller attempts to dematerialize structure into atmosphere (b) to create an intimate dialogue with Kelly’s hovering mass on concepts of enclosure, space, and datum. Unlike Paxton’s illustrative statement of modular reproduction, however, the ASM World Headquarters is meant to be closer to Bruno Taut’s Glass Pavilion (c) as a catalyst and call to arms amongst a community of craftsmen. Truly, Kelly and Fuller’s collaboration contains more depth that can be seen at first glance from Kinsman Road. It is a Utopian statement that offers room for interpretation (and re-interpretation) over time, embodying the best qualities of visionary architecture; the ability to capture the imagination and continually offer relevant advice for future constructions. 

ASM World Headquarters.9639 Kinsman Road.Novelty,OH.44134

(a) Crystal Palace     London, England     (1851)

Joesph Paxton 

(b) Hyman, Isabelle and Marvin Trachenberg. Architecture: From Prehistory to Postmodernity. Prentice-Hall. 2^nd ed. 2002. p. 461-2.

(c) Glass Pavilion     Cologne, Germany     (1914)

Bruno Taut