New York/The Ring Dome

The Ring Dome • Minsuk Cho • Petrosino Park
Adjacent to the Storefront for Art and Architecture


The Ring Dome

I haven't been following the doings at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. It's their 25th anniversary. But I walk by quite often, and it's hard to miss the Ring Dome installation on the scruffy little park between Lafayette and Centre Streets called Petrosino Park.

The dome is a little Buckminster Fuller-ish, but these are circles not triangles, and the issue doesn't seem to be about structural integrity, rather about delicacy, as if an alien bubble landed in the middle of traffic. You can go in the dome, sit in the sun, and feel enveloped and open to the sky at the same time. The pattern above is projected beneath your feet. At certain angles the dome becomes dense like a ball of string, but most often it appears light and diaphanous. It's art, it's fun, it's a ball.