Acknowledgments
3First and foremost, of course, thanks are due to Bucky Fuller himself—not just for the inspiration to undertake this book, but for his permission to reprint figures from Synergetics; explorations in the geometry of thinking. Next, my sincere appreciation goes to his collaborator Ed Applewhite, who gave me the chance to meet Fuller and offered valuable suggestions for the project.
4 Illustrations from R. Marx & R. B. Fuller The Dymaxion world of Buckminster Fuller, as well as J. Krause & C. Lichtenstein Your private sky: R. Buckminster Fuller, the art of design science, are reproduced here with the permission of the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller; the captioned isotropic vector matrix on page 31 appears by permission of the William Hugh Kenner Estate.
5 The striking black-and-white photos which accompany the early parts of this book were provided by Robert Duchesnay, whose Dome Project has over many years reminded the city and residents of Montréal that their Expo Dome is an important artifact worth preserving. Duchesnay’s photos have an enigmatic quality which may have helped provoke me to take the unusual approach to Fuller’s legacy—via the American dream, New England transcendentalists, anima mundi and mandalas, etc.—which emerges in these pages.
6 I first met Robert as well as many other Fuller aficionados when I had the good fortune to conduct the Fellows Seminars at Lonergan College (Concordia University) in Montréal during the academic year 1987–88. I would like to thank Mark Doughty for inviting me to contribute to that ongoing series of ‘major figures’ lectures. I recall with great relish the many lively hours of debate and discussion in the company of both fellows and students. Such a setting and such a dedicated group of scholars is a rare find in today’s academic world. Charles Davis, then Principal of the College, has since passed away, but his open scepticism about Fuller’s ideas and his probing, rationalist critiques may well have elicited some of the arguments offered here.
7 I cannot recollect my early days working on Fuller without bringing to mind my fellow explorer John Blackman—co-author of the Workbook/Appendix Unfolding Wholes here—who made those studies a daily delight. John’s good sense, good humour and astute intuition led us both down byways I might never have explored on my own. In those days, we were often abetted by Michael Connolly, who proved a dab hand at ‘unfolding’ Wholes himself, and Tom Parker, who skillfully rendered such figures in accurate line drawings. Diane Pendola provided some surprising support as well as ‘space’ for things to happen, while Kathy Borst no doubt understood Fuller’s math and its pedagogic possibilities better than any of us. All of these lively enthusiasts let us know in different ways that we were onto something worthwhile.
8 My thanks also go to the Lutterworth staff: Amy Dampney for her painstaking copy-editing, Tom Wilson for book design, Emma Collison and Aidan Van de Weyer for help with the graphics, and of course Adrian Brink, who committed his house to the project in the first place and stuck with it through thick and thin.
9 Finally, I should thank my family for putting up with this long-lived and sometimes demanding project. My wife, Mary, has been especially tolerant, but my daughters Casey and Alison also got to know ‘Uncle Buck’ through those funny geodesic models that kept turning up in their childhood years everywhere from cribs to Christmas trees.
10 So to all of these—friends, family, colleagues—I offer this book, along with my thanks.