Water Dome
1938, 1948, restored 2007
The Water Dome was part of Wright's original master plan for the campus. From the beginning he envisioned an impressive natural display on the west campus between the Administration buildings and Seminar buildings. A circular water basin 160 feet in diameter would be ringed by a copper pipe with a regularly spaced series of holes. As Wright envisioned it, when pressurized water was pumped through the tube, it would be forced out the holes to a height of 50 feet, forming a spectacular dome-like display. Behind the dome, Wright arranged an "Arboreal Hemicycle" — a four level exedra of bushes and pine trees encircling the north end of the pool, forming a background for the water and screening the campus from the adjacent neighborhood.
Since it was one of the less practical elements of Wright's plan, other more pressing needs took precedence and it was not until 1946 that construction actually began on the pool. While the pool was completed in 1948, it was never finished in accordance with Wright's plans. There is no record of it ever having been turned on in its original form. A small fountain was placed in the pool's center in the 1950s. During the construction of the new Roux library, the Water domewas threatened with demolition. Architect Nils Schweitzer oversaw the conversion instead to 4 smaller pools, saving the fountain.
In 2006, the college decided to reconstruct Wright's Water Dome. Workers began removing the concrete plaza that had been created over the original basin. It was then discovered that adequate plumbing had never been installed in the basin, explaining why the fountain had never worked as intended.
The recreated Water Dome was based on Wright's drawing, but compromises had to be made. State of Florida code required that any pool of water deeper than 24 inches had to have a fence around its perimeter; the original basin was almost 30 inches deep. Rather than put a fence around the pool, the new basin was designed to be slightly shallower. Engineers also determined that the best way to create the dome of water that Wright intended was to have individual jets angled toward the center. Everyone agreed that Wright's idea of one continuous pipe with holes would never work due to lack of adequate water pressure. And while Wright intended the water to shoot towards the center from the very edge of the pool, the design team determined that this would result in too much water spilling over the sides. So they moved the water jets 10 feet in from the sides, making a circle 140 feet in diameter rather than 160 feet.
The new Water Dome was inaugurated in October 2007. It has since attracted many visitors, and become a favorite spot for local photographers.
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