Man of Steel: The Life and Work of Robert Bruno

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In the early 1970s, sculptor Robert Bruno began work on a house of corten steel in a suburban development just outside of Lubbock. When Bruno died more than three decades later, that house, a remarkable organic structure looking out over a recreational lake, was still unfinished. Today it sits vacant and empty, its future uncertain. Meanwhile, much of Bruno’s other work, a catalog as astonishing as it is diverse (jewelry, sculpture, furniture, architecture) is either forgotten, neglected, or lost altogether. My latest feature for the DMN tells Bruno’s story. It’s said that journalism is the “first draft at history,” and I hope this piece will introduce Bruno to the cannon and inspire more in depth examination of his career. An excerpt:

You first see it, this unlikely vision, shortly after turning onto Canyon View Drive, a gently rolling street lined by the kind of anonymous homes that define American suburbia. What is peeking up over the horizon is something decidedly different, however, and soon enough you will come upon it in all its remarkable glory: a four-legged organism of blackened steel perched on a scruffy ridge, its curving forms resolving themselves in a postcard view over the blue waters of a recreational lake. It could easily be something landed from outer space, the kind of house a James Bond villain might occupy, if he were to put down roots in a nondescript residential development 15 minutes from the drowsy heart of downtown Lubbock.

Inside, there are no aliens and no cinema bad guys. The house itself is unoccupied and has been since 2008, when Robert Bruno, the charismatic if somewhat mysterious sculptor who had made the house his life’s work, died at age 64 after a prolonged battle with colon cancer.

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As meticulous as he was capricious, Bruno had built the house with virtually no assistance over the course of some 30 years, designing and modifying it as he went, frequently tearing out portions that no longer pleased him. On an apparent whim, he was known to jettison months of work. It was a process that seemed to take as many steps backward as forward and left friends and neighbors to wonder if he would ever finish. Indeed, after so many decades, they had come to understand that finishing was something that didn’t matter to him.

You’ll find the story, with interactive features showing the house during construction, is here.