Bernie’sDome

The Triponent House, Los Angeles, 1958–1971Bernard Judge’s geodesic house above Beachwood Canyon was built to test a new way of making an American home. The experiment succeeded: the frame passed a load test, and the City of Los Angeles permitted the house and certified it for occupancy. It was also cut short. When the house came down in 1971, the structure and its story were forgotten. This project returns both to the history of American architecture.

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Julius Shulman, Job 3378, negative 22KE, 1962 · Getty Research Institute

At a glance

One frame, three cities, 1950–2023

Press play, drag through the years, or point to a city.

Montreal 1950 Los Angeles 1957–1971 Washington 1972–2023
1962

Bernard Judge, statement of July 10, 1959

The Experiment

“It was not to be a conventional house,” Judge wrote, “but rather an experimental research project.” He set down the questions the house was built to answer, quoted here as he typed them. Choose a question to see what the record shows.

195019581962197119832023

A short documentary · release 2027

Bernie’s Dome

Official trailer · 1:31

Bernie’s Dome is a short documentary about the house on Durand Drive, to be released in 2027. It is built entirely from the historical record: photographs, permits, letters and the frame itself.

Bernie’s Dome. A short documentary by Berkay Kars, 2027
From Julius Shulman’s photographs (Getty Research Institute), the Bernard Judge papers (UC Santa Barbara), the City of Los Angeles building permits and the Smithsonian Institution Archives. Quotations read by actors. Drone footage by the author.

The full eleven-minute preview cut is in the publisher room.

An interactive model of the house as it stood in 1962

The Digital Reconstruction

Reconstructed from Judge’s drawings, his engineer’s calculations, the museum’s record of the frame and Julius Shulman’s photographs, and placed on the present-day hillside. The model may be rotated, enlarged and entered.

Open full screen
The Triponent House, 1962
Interpretive reconstruction by Berkay Kars, 2026. Notes in the full-screen model separate what is documented from what is inferred. A 15 MB download.
Frame: Weatherbreak, Jeffrey Lindsay, 1950. National Museum of American History, 1983.0019

Selected photographs, 1950–2023

The Photographic Record

Julius Shulman photographed the house in 1962. His frames are shown with Weatherbreak outside Montreal in 1950, the bare frame on the ridge above Beachwood Canyon, and the frame standing again in Washington in 2023. Each is credited to the archive that holds it.

See all 36 photographs
Twilight: the dome lit from within above the city lights.
Twilight on Durand Drive1962Julius Shulman · Getty Research Institute · 3378-22KE
The dome in the chaparral above the Los Angeles basin.
Above the Los Angeles basin1962Julius Shulman · Getty Research Institute · 3378-7
The dome seen through foliage and boulders on the hillside.
From the hillside1962Julius Shulman · Getty Research Institute · 3378-5
The same view in colour: spiral stair, cabinets, plants and flowers.
The spiral stair, in colour1962Julius Shulman · Getty Research Institute · 3378-13K
The frame with its skin partly on. A man with a camera stands in the entry court above the block wall and steps.
The skin going on1962Julius Shulman · Getty Research Institute · 3378-3
Weatherbreak standing in the snow at Baie-d’Urfé, outside Montreal.
Weatherbreak in the snowDecember 1950Jeffrey Lindsay fonds · University of Calgary
Jeffrey Lindsay standing in the Weatherbreak frame.
Jeffrey Lindsay in his frameDecember 1950Fuller Research Foundation · UQAM Centre de design
The bare frame on the ridge, with a long timber stair climbing the slope toward it.
The bare frame on the ridgec. 1959–61Bernard Judge papers · UC Santa Barbara
Weatherbreak reassembled at the National Museum of American History.
Flag Hall, Washington2023National Museum of American History · public domain · NMAH-JN2023-00901

From the collections of the Getty Research Institute; the National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Institution Archives; the Architecture and Design Collection, UC Santa Barbara; the Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary; and the City of Los Angeles.

Cover, working design

The book · forthcoming, 2028

The Book

Bernie’s Dome: Rediscovering Bernard Judge’s Triponent House
Berkay Kars

The book follows the frame from a field outside Montreal to Durand Drive and on to the Smithsonian. It is built from photographs, drawings, permits and correspondence held in six archives, and from the frame itself.

Status
Manuscript in preparation
Publication
2028
Preview
32 spreads from the summary
Request the manuscriptPublisher key

Support the book

Gifts pay the archives’ reproduction fees for the photographs and drawings. Every donor is thanked by name in the book.

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Thirty-two spreads from the summary, in reading order

Support the project

Gifts pay the archives’ scanning and reproduction fees. Every donor is acknowledged by name in the book.

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Gifts go to ZARHA Design LLC and are not tax-deductible.

Contribute to the record

The project welcomes photographs, slides, letters and recollections of the house on Durand Drive and of the people who built it and lived in it. Archives, publishers and the press are invited to write.

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Updates

Occasional news of the book, the short documentary and new findings in the archives.