13 Facts About Chuck Hoberman

Chuck Hoberman was born on 1956 and is an artist, engineer, architect, and inventor of folding toys and structures, most notably the Hoberman sphere.

Chuck Hoberman wanted to be an artist from an early age, doing drawing and painting, and eventually taking courses at Cooper Union in New York City.

Chuck Hoberman studied liberal arts at Brown University, and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in sculpture from Cooper Union in 1979, and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University.

Chuck Hoberman made a work that unrolled colored plastic sheets on the floor, and he became fascinated with kinetic art.

Chuck Hoberman has designed other folding architectural structures, such as the Expanding Hypar at the California Museum of Science and Industry; the Chuck Hoberman Arch, the centerpiece of the medals plaza for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics; and a retractable dome featured at the World's Fair 2000 in Hanover, Germany.

Chuck Hoberman's artwork has been exhibited at international museums including the New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Mycal Otaru Bay in Hokkaido, Japan.

Chuck Hoberman has installed permanent building facades that transform in transparency at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering of Harvard University and the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University.

Chuck Hoberman designed the Hoberman Arch as a centerpiece of Salt Lake City during the 2002 Olympics.

In July 2011, the rock band U2 concluded a nearly three-year world-wide concert tour that featured Chuck Hoberman's expanding video screen, a 3,800 square feet elliptical display that would grow into a seven-story cone.

Likewise, Chuck Hoberman's "Pocket Flight Ring" is a folding, throwable toy resembling a chakram.

Chuck Hoberman has created the Expandagon Construction System, a kind of construction toy, and the Switch Pitch, a toy which turns itself inside out when tossed into the air, thus appearing to change colors.

Chuck Hoberman won the Chrysler Design Award for Innovation and Design in 1997 and was a finalist for the 2000 Smithsonian National Design Award.

Chuck Hoberman shared the LDI2009 Award for Excellence in Video Design and Technology for the U2360 expanding video screen.