Great absent dome

by Steve DeGrush

News Reporter

Just above the mirror ball and gold trim oval outline on the ceiling of Memorial Union’s Great Hall sits the iron skeleton of a stained glass dome that has been covered since 1947.

Its neo-classic Georgian panels only filtered light into the hall for 19 years before its dome was concealed.

Now, Wisconsin Union light and sound employee Terry Klein, who discovered the dome’s 14 by 24-foot frame while he was re-lamping stage lights for a banquet in 1988, says he wants to see the skylight restored and re-opened to natural sunlight.

“They did it in haste. They didn’t want people to know about it,” Klein said of the subtle manner in which the dome was covered. “I’ve got to think it’s been kept very, very quiet.”

Klein said he is upset with the two former Union directors and the current director, Mark Guthier, for not making the dome’s restoration more public and instead pushing it aside for “pet projects” of the second director, Ted Crabb.

Guthier did not return phone calls as of press time.

“‘You really don’t have anything to do with this,'” Klein said Crabb told him in 1988 after Klein questioned why the dome had been covered for so long and if it might be restored.

But the cover-up may not be as underhanded as Klein makes it sound, Assistant Director of the Wisconsin Union Richard Pierce said.

“It’s not a plot to keep it secret because we’re afraid people will demand it be restored,” Pierce revealed. “There certainly isn’t a conscious effort to hide it, but on the other hand, I can’t think of why we’d necessarily talk about it until we get ready to actually go out and solicit support to restore it.”

Pierce said there were practical reasons for covering the dome.

Skylights were built above the stained glass transom, which water leaked through and spilled onto the dome during rainstorms, Pierce noted. He noted dim light from the skylight was often a problem in the hall and the dome’s shape caused an echo effect, both of which gave way to the plaster that now covers the ceiling.

In a phone call Pierce made to Crabb, Crabb said there were no practical provisions for cleaning the dome.

However, restoration still remains an option. Under a several hundred thousand dollar Union facilities master plan for both Memorial Union and Union South, Pierce said spaces that have aesthetic historic importance could be considered for restoration.

“The notion of restoring the dome, it seems to me, is very much on the minds of Union students particularly, but the Union management as well,” Pierce said. “When exactly it would happen, I can’t begin to tell you.”

He noted that restoration costs would be huge and the master plan has a 10 to 12 year implementation period, so opening the dome could be a ways off.

Klein does not believe he will see the dome uncovered in his lifetime.