Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) was an architect, engineer, geometrician, cartographer, philosopher, futurist, inventor of the famous geodesic dome, and one of the most brilliant thinkers of his time. For more than five decades, he set forth his comprehensive perspective on the world’s problems in numerous essays, which offer an illuminating insight into the intellectual universe of this renaissance man. These texts remain surprisingly topical even today, decades after their initial publication.
While Fuller wrote the works in the 1960’s and 1970’s, they could not be more timely: like desperately needed time-capsules of wisdom for the critical moment he foresaw, and in which we find ourselves. Long out of print, they are now being published again, together with commentary by Jaime Snyder, the grandson of Buckminster Fuller. Designed for a new generation of readers, Snyder prepared these editions with supplementary material providing background on the texts, factual updates, and interpretation of his visionary ideas.
With the publication of the Dymaxion House in 1929, Buckminster Fuller became an overnight sensation in the world of Americanarchitecture. It was an uncompromising design and spectacularly novel. The living areas were hexagonal and attached around a central supply tower, and the multistory interior was fully climate-controlled. The house was conceived as completely self-sufficient – all the necessary supply modules were contained in the tower, including water and wastewater, energy production, and air filters. The rooms were equipped with the most modern furnishings and fixtures. The approximately 150 m 2 house weighed just 3 tons, cost no more than a car, and was designed to be constructed and dismantled anytime and anywhere.
The house reflected Fuller’s basic technological principle, his determination to achieve the greatest possible utility at the smallest possible cost in terms of energy and materials by making use of everything that science and technology have to offer. With its self-supporting structure and self-sufficiency, it also reflec...
