LOOKING BACK AT THE FUTURE: Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller: Starting With The Universe
Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Reviewed by Julie Ashcraft

To climb a cube shaped jungle gym is a bit dangerous. It means climbing straight up a 90 degree angle against gravity. To climb a geodesic dome jungle gym is safer and more fun. Since the angle decreases, climbing becomes easier and gravity helps one hold on. The geodesic dome was invented by R. Buckminster Fuller. He loved working with the forces of nature. And he wanted to keep children safe.

After the early death of his first child, Fuller contemplated suicide. Instead he decided to spend his life exploring ways to benefit humanity and the environment. The transport vehicle, architectural structures, sculptures, models, drawings, paintings, papers, photographs, video and World Game in this exhibition bear testament to Fuller’s efforts, and those of his collaborators. Fuller inspired great enthusiasm with his plans and inventions to efficiently use distributed resources to create affordable housing and sustainable life for all on “spaceship earth”.

Amongst extensive work and documentation in this heavily attended exhibit, an extra tightly-packed crowd gathers around a video screen showing 1929 FOX News outtakes of Fuller promoting Dymaxion House. “No bedclothes may be used, though you may put on twenty blankets if you’re still self-conscious”, Fuller says, standing bolt upright in his three-piece suit and tie. (Fuller was explaining the revolutionary interior climate controls in his hexagonal, window sided house). The entire house was suspended from a center mast, like a tree. The unusual design made it “proof against fire, flood, tornado, earthquake, electrical storm, marauders.” The house was “enclosed in triangular forms” made of “casein material…relatively break-proof.” He continues, “The windows are suspended in tension cables. So instead of a rigid covering, an airplane could run into this window, possibly damaging one pane–but children could play baseball inside the house without damaging the exterior covering.” Considering that the first successful airplane flight was only 26 years earlier, Fuller was taking new technological hazards into account with his architectural design.

Fuller was profoundly inspired by scientific theories, and his enthusiasm bubbled over into bedtime stories for his second daughter. He expanded the traditional Goldilocks and the Three Bears story to include discussions of geometry, physics and relativity. In the exhibited “Tetrascroll”, Fuller writes, “I became convinced that the best way to study the thoughts of the scientists I was reading was to test myself by disclosing what I understood to a child. This also put the scientist, whose thoughts I was relaying, under great test. The scientist must be elegantly logical to the child or else the scientist’s logic was questionable.”

Scientists have also shown enthusiasm for R. Buckminster Fuller. Although scientists tend to name their discocveries after themselves, when Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley discovered a special structure in soot that resembled Fuller’s geodesic domes, they named it Buckminsterfullerene. The discovery was so important, they won a Nobel prize. Buckminsterfullerene is a very strong, tiny structure with the potential to change the world.

R. Buckminster Fuller was one strong individual who showed a love for people, nature, the world, the universe. He tried to change things for the benefit of all. His eyesight wasn’t great, but his vision--tremendous.

This article was originally published here: http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/zsheehan/2008/10/02/looking-back-at-the-future/#more-157