CHARAS, The Improbable Dome Builders, by Syeus Mottel

Introduction written by R. Buckminster Fuller. Includes a new interview between Michael Ben-Eli & Ben Estes. CHARAS, The Improbable Dome Builders is Syeus Mottel's documentation of a community in New York's Lower East Side in the early 1970s, and their desire to build a geodesic dome in a reclaimed vacant lot underneath the Manhattan Bridge. Among the city's struggling street life and systemic racism, Carlos “Chino” Garcia and Angelo Gonzalez, Jr., two friends that had been involved in gang life from an early age, are at the center of the group called CHARAS. Influenced by R. Buckminster Fuller's teachings, and personally mentored by Fuller's assistant, Michael Ben-Eli, the young men of CHARAS began a period of devoted study of solid geometry, spherical trigonometry, and the principles of dome building. Following this period, CHARAS developed a program that encouraged community autonomy and the reclaiming of public space. More than simply a documentation of the project, the book