Summary of R. Buckminster Fuller
Aptly described by one commentator as a "practical dreamer", Fuller was a tenacious optimist, stating that his overall objective in life was to help achieve "humanity's comprehensive success in the universe". Fuller produced theoretical contributions to science, architecture, and design that were defiantly utopian. Intent on improving the quality of everyday living, his futuristic "Dymaxion" designs included a car, a house and a world map. These were followed by his Geodesic Dome which remains his most resounding practical success.
Fuller's worldview was shaped by an unshakable belief in the benefits of technology but he did not consider himself an inventor. He referred to himself rather as a "comprehensive, anticipatory design scientist"; that is, a modern day soothsayer who produced blueprints and prototypes which next generation design practitioners could take forward and realize. His idea that the Earth was analogous to a spaceship ("Spaceship Earth" as he called it), led to his most ambitious vision of all, a global network of Geoscope screens on which friendly nations would cooperate for the greater good. Fuller also earned a reputation as a mesmeric teacher and he supplemented his various internships and professorships with some 30 book publications. The spirit of Fuller's ambitious optimism and inventiveness was inspirational and lives on in the attitude of many present-day entrepreneurs, designers, architects and scientists.
Accomplishments
- Though his Geodesic Domes would prove too futuristic for everyday living, they found many other practical uses. Used as bases by the military around the world; as weather and radar outposts; as storage depots; as a home for botanical gardens and aviaries; and a fixture of many children's play areas, the Dome would become Fuller's abiding signature on the earth's landscape (as many as 200,000 have been constructed).
- Fuller's Dymaxion designs offered a whole new way of imagining urban living. His car, which would in the future take to the air or the sea; and the house, which would be mass produced and transported to their location in giant tubes, seemed to belong to the realms of science fiction. But the Dymaxion philosophy, which prioritized sustainability through technology and human-centric living, would in fact anticipate the central tenets of all modern design thinking.
- His revolutionary "island earth" Dymaxion Map - the first flat map of the earth's whole surface area - brough the Buckminster Fuller name to the attention of the American public. Like his Dymaxion Car and House, many viewed his futuristic vision as impractical and outlandish. But Fuller's map inspired legions of followers, some of whom shaped the whole future of world mapping.
- Fuller's World Game concept embodied his "Spaceship Earth" metaphor whereby the earth's population would work - or rather "play" - together for the collective benefit of the whole planet. With his blueprint for a city-enveloping Geoscope screen and a World Game (the latter to be played out on the former) Fuller had in fact foreseen a new technological utopia of advanced screen science on which global information and new ideas could be shared instantaneously.
Biography of R. Buckminster Fuller
In his vision for a "shelter for living", Fuller rued, "let architects sing of aesthetics that bring Rich clients in hordes to their knees"; for me "a home, is a great circle dome where stresses and strains are at ease".
