RALEIGH -- In their time, the pair of domes that bubble up on the edge of the State Fairgrounds were considered futuristic marvels, rising up to 80 feet high.
It only took a day or two to assemble their aluminum skeletons, and when they appeared each fall near Dorton Arena, it meant Ferris wheels and cotton candy were right behind.
Now that State Fair officials plan to take down the domes, fans hope there's a way they can be saved to honor both the Raleigh designer who made them and a period when innovation peaked in the Triangle.
"Their history is very rooted in Raleigh and the design school" at N.C. State University, said Bill Mooney, a Raleigh designer who studied there. "To me, they're kind of iconic, a moment in Raleigh's history after World War II when people realized we needed to shift from being a farming and tobacco economy to investing in research."
Credit for the dome's design goes to T.C. Howard, who was the longtime president of a Raleigh firm called Synergetics. He and his partner, Pete Barnwell, were students at N.C. State when Buckminster Fuller, famous for his geodesic dome design, lectured there in the 1950s.
Fuller started Synergetics to build dome shelters for the Marines. Howard and Barnwell bought him out and adapted the dome design for other uses. Their Charter-spheres, named for the splinter company Barnwell started that leased them, could be put together quickly and cheaply for shows and trade fairs.
Hundreds were made, Barnwell said. Synergetics' work showed up as an aviary at the Queens Zoo in New York and a 15,000-seat coliseum in Venezuela, where George Foreman fought Ken Norton in 1974.
In Raleigh, two 60- and 80-foot domes first appeared on the fairgrounds in the 1960s, he said.
They were leased for seasonal use until the state Department of Agriculture bought them around 1980 and made them permanent fixtures.
"It represented, at the particular time, technology and architecture that hadn't been tried here in the states, but particularly in Raleigh," Barnwell said. "I would hate to see them come down."
John C. Morris, who runs the website goodnightraleigh.com and often champions doomed buildings, said he approached the Department of Agriculture about keeping them but has learned they aren't in good shape.
Natalie Alford, department spokeswoman, said the plans are to expand the area around Gate 1 and Dorton Arena and make it more user-friendly. The large dome is in the way and will likely be sold as state surplus. The smaller dome may also follow this plan, though there is no timetable.
"We very much appreciate that these spheres were representations of modern technology during their time, that they were meant to be temporary structures, and that we have certainly put them to the test over the years," Alford said by e-mail.
So fairgoers will see a wider gate with an easier path to the fried dough. But if plans go through, there won't be a pair of marvels to meet them.
