Drop City was an artists' community that Clark Richert, filmmaker Gene Bernofsky and artists JoAnn Bernofsky, Richard Kallweit started in southern Colorado, near Trinidad, in 1965. The intention was to create a live-in work of Drop Art, continuing an art concept they had developed earlier at the University of Kansas & University of Colorado.

Drop Art (sometimes called "droppings") was informed by the "happenings" of Allan Kaprow and the impromptu performances, a few years earlier, of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Buckminster Fuller at Black Mountain College. Inspired by the architectural ideas of Buckminster Fuller and Steve Baer, the "droppers" constructed domes based on the geometric solid, the "triacontahedron" and other "zonohedra" to house their studios and living quarters. Among the innovations, experiments, and accomplishments that can be credited to Drop City are:

· Zome architecture— Along with helping build Fuller-style geodesic domes, friend and architect Steve Baer introduced the droppers to his innovative zome architecture, which enabled droppers to cluster the zome spaces, in what was a more efficient use of space and materials. Zome architecture was employed on “The Complex” as well as on the “Cartop Dome.”

· Solar energy— Droppers were among the first to experiment with solar energy in Colorado, and they successfully installed it on one of their domes, aptly called “the Solar Dome”.

· Immersive theater— The “Theater Dome,” was designed to show 360-degree films. Although the community unraveled before its purpose came close to being realized, the Theater Dome was the first of its kind outside of Planetarium domed theaters

· Re-purposing— Droppers regularly used discards and trash for building as well as for creating art. For example, they used cartops from junk cars to build domes, bottle caps to adorn them, and other trash to create “droppings” that were installed at the site.)

· Banking— Drop City had the only “open bank account” known in history—anyone could deposit or withdraw money. The account became short-lived when people began flocking to the community after exposure in the national media.

· Underground comix— The Droppers’ Being Bag comic is considered by many as the first underground comic.

· The 61-Zone System— an important geometric discovery made by Clark Richert and Steve Baer.

· The Ultimate Painting— Created by the five founders of Drop City, The Ultimate Painting lies was a stroboscopic, spin painting that traveled the country being shown at colleges and universities; and was featured in the 1968 E.A.T. show in New York. As a work of art it lies at the crux of several art historical threads. A foundational example of “expanded cinema” that gave rise to the contemporary practice of video art, it was both a painting and an immersive experience, defining a missing link between the history of painting and the emergence at the time of environments and installation art.

Direct out-growths of Drop City are:

· Steve Baer’s passive solar Zomeworks Company in Albuquerque, NM, grew out of the collaboration between architect Steve Baer and Clark Richert.

· Other counterculture communities in the American Southwest were inspired by Drop City, such as New Buffalo, Red Rockers, The Lower Farm, and notably Libre, established by Dean Fleming and friends, and still operating in the San Juan National Forest in southern Colorado.

· The establishment of the nationally recognized Criss-Cross artists cooperative in Boulder, Colorado. During the 1970s, Criss-Cross hosted dozens of exhibits at art galleries, art centers, and museums in the U.S. They also published an internationally distributed artists journal (by and about artists and their art)—Criss Cross Art Communication.

· The founding of the Zometool Company, in Longmont, CO. Based on Richert and Baer’s 61-zone system, the zometool is an award-winning exploration tool for mathematicians and scientists and an educational tool for students of all ages.

· Cubic Fusion of interpenetrating fractal tetrahedron was discovered by artist/dropper Richard Kallweit in the 1980s.

In 1967 Drop City won Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion award for innovative and economic housing construction.

Drop City Movie Trailer