Feature Stories

The Pantheon: A Temple to All Gods

Panorama of Vistors Beneath the Pantheon Dome.

By Freda Parker Posted 21 Jun 2001

Michelangelo (1475–1564) looked at everything with an artist’s critical eye, and he was not easily impressed. But when Michelangelo first saw the Pantheon in the early 1500s, he proclaimed it of “angelic and not human design.” The Pantheon’s concrete dome inspired landmarks worldwide and is the spiritual ancestor to the modern Monolithic Dome. … read more

The Unforgettable Events and Activities at Park University’s Sports Center

The double dome complex and main entrance.

By Freda Parker Posted 1 Jun 2001

“No one who attended the first graduation at our new Breckon Center will ever forget it,” said Rita Weighill of Park University. The new twin-dome sports facilities is a first-class sports venue added to the extensive underground campus at Parkville, Missouri. … read more

The Invisible Dome Home: Privacy, Security and Longevity, All Under One Roof

The great room and entryway of the underground house in Buffalo, Texas.

By Freda Parker Posted 21 Mar 2001

Visitors to Glenn Young’s Monolithic Dome home often have a problem finding his front door. That’s because Glenn and John St. Pé, co-owners of Dome Contractors, Inc., built Glenn’s Monolithic Dome home completely underground. “We’ve had people come out who didn’t know there was a house there and actually parked on top of it,” Glenn said. … read more

“Marilee,” She Comes Around

Flower pots on the back patio of Shamrock Chateau.

By Freda Parker & Kris Garrison Posted 1 Oct 2000

“Whoever built that ought to be shot!” So said Marilee Byrne the first time she saw a Monolithic Dome. Now, nearly twenty years later, Marilee often recalls that story as she welcomes visitors to her spacious dome home in Italy, Texas, designed by Larry Byrne, Marilee’s husband and MDI’s vice president of marketing and design. The interior of this Monolithic Dome dream home consists of 2660 square feet in three domes, with diameters of 30, 40 and 32 feet. … read more

Genesis of Vista Dhome: From Dome Workshop to Dream Home

By Freda Parker Posted 1 Apr 2000

One of the things that Dr. and Mrs. Al Braswell like best about their Monolithic Dome home in Yucaipa, California, is all the fun they had—and continue having—designing it. Braswell says, “I don’t think we will ever be really finished with our dome. We’re in it, so in a sense, it is finished, but we keep coming up with more ideas and things we want to add. We just have so much fun doing it.” … read more

Xanadu: A Dome in Paradise

By Freda Parker Posted 21 Mar 2000

Xanadu—Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined that name for his imagined paradise in 1797. Some two hundred years later, Ivan and Judy Sheinbaum began creating their Xanadu—a Monolithic Dome tropical island resort on Ambergris Caye in the West Caribbean nation of Belize. … read more

Sports Center for Underground College

Rendering of twin Monolithic Dome sports complex.

By Freda Parker Posted 1 Jun 1999

Built among bluffs and wooded hills, Park College overlooks the Missouri River. That, in itself, is not unusual. But buildings constructed largely of limestone mined from below the campus is, and that’s just what Park College has at its home campus. … read more

Maranatha Church: A Dome Sanctuary

The main entrance to the Maranatha Church.

By Freda Parker Posted 21 Dec 1998

Pastor Ronnie Trice and his wife Sandy organized Maranatha Church in December 1973, initially to serve its local community of Mont Belvieu, Texas. But church membership increased rapidly, so they built a 208-foot diameter Monolithic Dome with room to seat 4,000. … read more

Dr. Arnold Wilson and Domes: Past, Present and Future

By Freda Parker Posted 21 Sep 1998

Dr. Arnold Wilson doesn’t credit human ingenuity for the invention of a dome—he credits the egg. Wilson, who retired after completing a 40-year career as Civil Engineering Professor at Brigham Young University, says, “The egg has always fascinated me. You can see that it’s the shape and structure of the shell that gives it its strength. Much the same is true for a dome, and I think we borrowed from nature when we began building domes.” … read more

Building the ‘Eye of the Storm’

By Freda Parker Posted 1 Jan 1998

On a sunny morning in 1991, at a home site on Sullivans Island, South Carolina, George Paul, designer and builder of dome structures, anxiously watched an Airform inflating. Paul had watched many such inflations before—but never with this much anxiety. … read more

Keeping up with the Domeses