The year 1895 witnessed the birth of many revolutionary concepts, technologies, and products that would shape the century to come. The first U.S. gasoline powered automobile was patented. The wireless telegraph was developed. X-Rays were discovered. Sigmund Freud proposed the process and term psychoanalysis. And on July 12, in Milton, Massachusetts, famed American polymath Robert Buckminster Fuller was born.
Throughout his childhood, the curious Fuller cultivated a passionate engagement with technology. In his wide-ranging book, Critical Path, Fuller recalls:
When I was nine years old, the airplane was invented, but I did not see one flying until I was fourteen, and I did not fly one until I was twenty-two, within which same year (1917) I heard the historically first human-voice conversation over the radio. (Path 129)These were monumental and formative events to young Bucky, who realized intuitively that they represented a “harbinger of an entirely new space-time relationship of the individual and the environment” (Path 131). This intuition ultimately informed the inspiringly intertwined life and work of Bucky Fuller, and resulted in 42 honorary Doctorates, 28 patents, and 28 books – remarkable for someone often labeled a crackpot, and who never built a profitable business or earned an undergraduate degree. The Critical Path, Fuller himself observed, did not often come easily or profitably.
In 1927, desperate and bankrupt, having been twice expelled from Harvard (for “lack of ambition”), and with a wife and newborn daughter at home, Buckminster Fuller peered into the murky depths of Lake Michigan, on the brink of suicide. At his darkest moment, something became suddenly apparent, a revelation Fuller would later describe as “the anticipatory wisdom which we may call God” (Time). As a result, Fuller was convinced that his life was not his own, but rather belonged to the universe. “You and all men,” he concluded, “are here for the sake of other men” (Time). This realization, along with his earnest faith, led Fuller to embark on a journey that would inform the rest of his life. In his final publication, 1983’s Guinea Pig B, Fuller states the aim of this journey, his great experiment:
I am now close to 88 and I am confident that the only thing important about me is that I am an average healthy human. I am also a living case history of a thoroughly documented, half-century, search –and-research project designed to discover what, if anything, an unknown, moneyless individual, with a dependent wife and newborn child, might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity that could not be accomplished by great nations, great religions or private enterprise, no matter how rich or powerfully armed. (Fuller 1)
The project, in which Fuller assumed the role of “Guinea Pig B,” was founded on the concept of Spaceship Earth – the planet envisioned as a “6,586,242,500,000,000,000,000-ton spaceship, cruise-speeding frictionlessly and soundlessly on an incredibly accurate celestial course” (Fuller 1). Fuller considered technology and science as offering unprecedented opportunity to increase the efficiency of Spaceship Earth’s operation, a unique chance to “produce sustainingly favorable physical and metaphysical advancement of the integrity of all human life on our planet” (Path xii). Recognition through experience and exploration of scientific patterns and principles formed a fertile soil in which Bucky’s many inventions, designs, and proposals blossomed. Some, like the Geodesic Dome, Dymaxion Car, House, and Bathroom, would eventually see production, while Floating Cloud Cities, the Geoscope, and the World Game have inspired debate, activism, and fantasy for generations. We may not often realize R. Buckminster Fuller’s impact on our lives today, but he is there in each step we take toward sustainable living, a fact he recognized and, in some sense, embraced. “Most of my inventions have come into public use long after my relevant patent rights have expired. This has not mattered to me since I did not take out the patents to make money, but only to document and demonstrate what the inventive little individual can accomplish” (Path 149).
Upon his death in 1983, Buckminster Fuller, in addition to his many inventions, books, and academic recognitions, had accumulated a number of design awards, including the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects and the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (BFI), was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan, and had succeeded in inspiring countless environmental and social advocates as well as inventors and dreamers worldwide.
Inventions
The Geodesic Dome (1954, U.S. Pat. No. 2,682,235)
Much of Fuller’s work involved the design of sustainable, economically efficient housing. These designs embraced Fuller’s principle of “doing more with less,” later termed Dymaxion – Dynamic Maximum Tension – which aimed to use scientific patterns to achieve "maximum gain of advantage from the minimal energy input" (Time). The dome utilizes a spherical structure comprised of triangular units, which exploits the tension and compression of the geometric pattern to produce a structure of both unparalleled strength and efficiency. Fuller noted that in doubling the diameter of a geodesic dome, the square footage of the dome is quadrupled, and the volume is increased eight-fold (BFI). The Geodesic Dome has housed American Exhibits at World’s Fairs in Warsaw, Casablanca, Istanbul, Kabul, Tunis, Lima, New Delhi, Accra, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Osaka, and in the ten years following their design “covered more square feet of the earth than any other kind of shelter” (Time). The design is ubiquitous in nature (“viruses, testicles, the cornea of the eye” (Time).) – Carbon Molecules resembling Geodesic Domes were discovered in 1985, and named Fullerenes - and have appeared in countless man-made designs including the Dome at Epcot Center, DisneyWorld, as well as the soccerball.
The Dymaxion House (1929)
Fuller’s first fully realized attempt at creating an autonomous, economical and efficient dwelling was 1929’s Dymaxion House. Influenced by the design of grain silos and nautical engineering elements gleaned from Fuller’s childhood sailing off the coast of Maine as well as his years in the Navy, the Dymaxion House was designed around a central mast, from which cable supports framed the aluminum structure itself, like spokes on a wheel. Fuller envisioned the house as an affordable solution to widespread housing shortages, further speaking to his aim to benefit all humanity. Fuller proposed utilizing the production methods and materials being used to manufacture airplane fuselages, combining new technology, scientific principle, and mass production to revolutionize the housing industry. Fuller took the reluctance of the Housing Industry to implement his designs as evidence that narrow, Malthusian, self-interest comprised a formidable material and metaphysical hindrance to progress. On the failure of Dymaxion designs, Bucky observes” "It was only the general inertia of the building world" (Time). Though only one Dymaxion House was produced in Wichita, Kansas in 1948, it has been restored and since 1998, has been housed at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit.
The Dymaxion Bathroom (1936)
Early in his experiment, Bucky set out to redesign what he saw as the inefficient and unsanitary bathroom. The Dymaxion Bathroom, a mass-produced structure comprised of “glass-fiber-reinforced-polyester resin” (Fiberglass), bolt-together pieces which allow for easy cleaning, included a waterless toilet and a “Fog Gun” shower, a technology still used in steam cleaning today. Fuller noted that the use of a conventional toilet over a year resulted in the consumption of 4000 gallons of water, while human waste over the same period, if dried and treated, would barely fill two five gallon buckets. Further, Fuller noted that such waste, though aesthetically unpalatable, can be chemically useful, and could aid in sustainable living. The “Fog Gun self-cleaning device” would enable the personal hygiene of a family of four on one pint of water a day, preserving what most agree is the Earth’s most precious and essential resource. The Dymaxion Bathroom, though mass produced in West Germany in the 1980s, after Bucky’s patent had expired, found resistance among plumber’s unions as well as aesthetic resistance against a “hermetically sealed and mechanically-carried-away-and-packaged toilet device” that precluded its widespread use in the U.S. (Path 149).
The Dymaxion Car
The Dymaxion Map
The Geoscope
