In 1951 architect Bruce Goff designed a circular house for Mr. Albert Ford, a gas-company executive from Aurora, Ill. The house consists of a huge, domed center circle, 166 feet around and two semicircular bedroom wings, all shaped by steel arches made of standard Quonset ribs. At the base of the center sphere, which is built on three levels, is a curved cannel coal wall treated against smudging and weathering. For sparkle, this wall's studded with ordinary playing marbles and with numerous 100-pound clusters of bright glass cullets, a hardened waste product periodically cleaned from glass furnances.
Navy surplus rope covers the horizontal ceilings. Cypress siding, laid in a herringbone pattern, lines part of the domes and walls. There are no openable windows, so ventilation is provided by hinged louvers and ceiling vents. The house has a lovely balcony in which Mrs. Ruth Van Sickle Ford, director of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, can work on her paintings.
Terrace cuts into main room like a wedge of pie. All levels - gallery, balcony and pit -extend into terrace section. Fireplace is two-faced, one side opening to outdoors, the other into dining area.
Two work areas, the kitchen and balcony studio, are in center of main room. Maid washes dishes below, Mrs. Ford paints above. Shelves hung from balcony, separate kitchen from gallery, ae cupboards on one side, bookshelves on other.
The master bathroom, here reflected in a Chinese mirror, has a black terrazzo tub, rope-covered ceiling, a concrete floor painted black and cypress walls.
Flood of light comes in through glass walls and skylight, burnishing the copper cone. Overhead the Quonset steel ribs arch toward the dome, joining the interior ribs in a pattern that looks like the inside of an umbrella. By day the dome lets in sunlight; by night it acts as a reflector for room's indirect lighting. Here, in the kitchen behind the dining counters, Mrs. Ford washes the Sunday breakfast dishes. Most of furniture, inlcuding squat hassocks, was designed by architect Goff. Mrs. Ford chose the warm color scheme.
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