Chuck Hoberman

Chuck Hoberman (born 1956 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US) is an artist, engineer, architect, and inventor of folding toys and structures, most notably the Hoberman sphere.

Hoberman's father was an architect, and his mother was a children's book author. He wanted to be an artist from an early age, doing drawing and painting, and eventually taking courses at Cooper Union in New York City. He 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 engineering from Columbia University. At some point during his education, he was asked to produce a sculpture that could move. He made a work that unrolled colored plastic sheets on the floor, and he became fascinated with kinetic art. Finishing his formal education, he then went to work for a robotics engineering firm, where he added computer modeling (CAD-CAM) to his skills. After six years, he left to pursue his artistic and technical interests full-time.

The second largest Hoberman sphere is displayed at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey, in an atrium where it periodically contracts and then expands to a diameter of 18 feet (5.5 m).

Hoberman also has designed folding architectural structures like the Expanding Hypar (1997) at the California Museum of Science and Industry; the 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. His 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 Hokkaidō, Japan.

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