The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area

A 2012 SFMOMA exhibition tracing Fuller's influence on Bay Area design.

The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area was an exhibition held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from March 31 to July 29, 2012. It was the first exhibition to consider Fuller's legacy specifically in the Bay Area, a region long attractive to dreamers, progressives, and designers. Although Fuller never lived in San Francisco, the show argued that his ideas seeded many local experiments in technology, design, and sustainability.

The exhibition was anchored by Inventions: Twelve Around One, a print portfolio of Fuller's patented inventions recently acquired by SFMOMA, and it displayed such projects as the 4D House, the geodesic dome, the World Game, the Dymaxion car, and the Dymaxion Air-Ocean World Map. Around these it arranged Bay Area works that carried Fuller's radical idealism forward, including Ant Farm's 1972 domed Convention City proposal, a North Face tent, the Plastiki boat, One Laptop Per Child, Lloyd Kahn's Pacific High School domes, and IwamotoScott Architecture's Jellyfish House.

By juxtaposing Fuller's originals with later designs informed by technology, ecology, and social responsibility, the show framed his visionary, resource-conscious approach as a durable influence on regional design culture. It was made possible with support from the Gensler Family Foundation and Obscura Digital.

See Also

• R. Buckminster Fuller (R. Buckminster Fuller) — the central figure
• Inventions: Twelve Around One (Inventions: Twelve Around One) — the print portfolio at the exhibition's core
• Lloyd Kahn (Lloyd Kahn) — Bay Area designer whose Pacific High School domes featured in the show

Sources

• The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area (SFMOMA)