2 Fuller's Biography
2Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was born in Milton, Massachusetts. He was not professionally trained as an architect, although his work and ideas were discussed in the architectural profession for a large portion of his life. The prestigious American Institute of Architects rejected Fuller's gift of the patent rights for his Dymaxion prefabricated house. However, over the next fifty years, he was awarded numerous honorary architectural degrees and professional fellowships (Pawley 1990: 12).
3 In 1927, at the age of thirty-two, Fuller undertook an experiment entitled Guinea Pig B, (the ‘‘B’’ stood for ‘‘Bucky’’ , his nickname), which he hoped would help him discover what an individual could provide for all humanity (Fuller 1983: xiii). In 1972, he claimed:
45I 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 religious or private enterprise, no matter how rich or powerfully armed. (Ibid: vii)
6 This experiment continued until his death at age eighty-eight (Ibid.: vii).
7 Fuller attended Milton Academy when he was a boy, and received a theoretical education as well as athletic training. He believed that athletics were an important aspect in the development of his design philosophy, and he asserted that ‘‘athletics greatly heightened what I call the 'intuitive dynamic sense,' a fundamental, I am convinced, of competent anticipatory design formulations’’ (Fuller 1969: 12). After Milton Academy, he attended Harvard University but was dismissed for not attending classes (Ibid: 12).
8 Fuller defined the word ‘‘teleologic’’ in the following terms:
910By ‘‘teleologic’’ I mean: the subjective-to-objective, intermittent, only-spontaneous, borderline-conscious, and within-self communicating system that distills equatable principles-char- acterizing relative behavior patterns-from out pluralities of matching experiences; and reintegrates selections from those net generalized principles into unique experimental control patterns-physically detached from self-as instruments, tools, or other devices admitting to increased technical advantage of man over environmental circumstance, and consciously designed to permit his modification of forward experiences in preferred ways (sic). (Ibid: 9)
11Fuller was an avid believer in teleologic inspiration. Fuller's teleologic interest, tire process of studying the rational principles exhibiting order, design and purposes of phenomena (Angeles 1981: 290), came from his boyhood experiences on Bear Island in Penobscot Bay, Maine. Fuller would often take his rowboat four miles each day to the island to collect the family mail. He claimed that his first teleologic design inventions were envisioned during these trips. One was a mechanical jellyfish in which a ‘‘web—and—sprit cone’’ (Fuller's term) was attached to the end of the pole, resembling ‘‘an inside-out umbrella’’ that was to be submerged. When pushed by the pole, ‘‘the cone opened and gave inertial advantage, almost as though touching bottom, to push-pole the boat along far more swiftly and easily than by sculling or rowing’’ (Fuller 1969:10). This enabled the person manipulating the pole to see in front of him or her while traveling through the water. The island also provided Fuller with beach-dried driftwood, which he used to carve some miniature and full-size experimental boats, houses, and air transport devices (Ibid: 10). He claimed that teleologic thought was to be obtained by examining the processes of nature and could be used to gain control over the environment. The design principles of nature could be harnessed and used by the designer to develop artifacts that would give humans an advantage over their sometimes harsh environment.
12After attending Harvard University, Fuller apprenticed at a cotton mill in the machine-fitting department, where he learned the mechanics of machinery (Ibid: 11). The machinery parts were mostly shipped from Europe and, if they arrived damaged, it was Fuller's responsibility to find replacements. This taught him the principles of engineering concerning the functioning and stresses of parts (Ibid:12).
13Fuller felt that technology should be applied and improved over time. He used technology with a combination of experience and knowledge and stated:
14But I could also see that this magnificent reorientation was occurring only through knowledgeful, and experience-rich competence in teleologic designs, integrating transcendentally man's conscious planning, but by virtue of physical laws, as an organic workable complex-industrialization (sic). (Ibid: 12)
15He was interested in how technology could bring about the most benefits for humanity, and he derived this notion of technology from his own understanding and application of the laws of nature.
16During the time at the cotton mill, Fuller kept a sketchbook and notebook of his experiences. He was readmitted to Harvard but was again dismissed for his lack of interest in the classes. He then acquired a job at the Armour and Co. meatpacking plant, where he loaded beef onto export ships. Fuller joined the Navy during the First World War and learned shipbuilding techniques and navigation skills (Ibid: 13).
17 His military experience included naval aviation and he was assigned to a unit providing safe escort for underwater sea-craft. The crash of seaplanes occurred frequently during his naval duty. Fuller designed a seaplane rescue mast and boom to help retrieve downed planes from the sea. This invention helped to save many pilots who would otherwise have drowned. Because of this invention, he was transferred to the special course at U.S. Naval Academy in 1917. In the same year, Fuller was married to Anne Hewlett, the daughter of a prominent New England architect (Ibid: 16).
18 Fuller noted that while he was in the Navy he ‘‘…learned the process of conscious self-attunement toward the understanding of principles and their subsequent teleologically translated anticipating effectiveness, as demonstrated in: navigation, ballistics, logistics, ship-squadron and fleet handling (at sea and in port),…’’ (Ibid: 14). According to Fuller, teleology could be applied to the design of navigational and nautical devices and principles.
19 In 1919, Lieutenant Fuller was discharged from the Navy. He returned to the Armour Co. in New York as assistant to the transport manager. Two years later, he left to become the sales manager at the Kelly-Springfield Trucking Co., which soon went bankrupt. He re-enlist- ed in the Navy as a temporary reservist and was given command of the patrol boat Eagle. He left the Navy permanently in the fall of 1922 (Pawley 1990:35--66).
20 Shortly afterwards, his four-year-old daughter, Alexandria, died of influenza. The death of his young daughter affected Fuller tremendously. He became obsessed with trying to design a home unlike the damp dwellings in which most Americans lived in. These cold, damp houses facilitated the spread of the influenza epidemic in the United States. He soon went to work for his father-in-law, James Monroe Hewlett. He was made President of Hewlett's Stockade Corporation, which promoted a method of building walls out of cement and compressed wood shavings, known as the Stockade Building System (Ibid: 36).
21 Hewlett and Fuller ran five factories from New Jersey to Illinois promoting this new product. As the chief salesman, Fuller spent long, isolated periods traveling from state to state during which time he developed a drinking problem. After three years of this difficult lifestyle, he moved to Chicago to supervise a Stockade factory in Joliet, Illinois. His wife, Anne, joined him there in 1926.
22 Many architects and contractors were skeptical of the Stockade technique. Fuller's profit was often marginal because he had to perform fullscale fire tests on the Stockade blocks. Often the results of these tests were not accepted by many architects (Fuller 1969: 36). When Hewlett needed money during the Depression, he sold his share of the company to the Celotex Corporation. Fuller, as President, was in constant conflict with the Celotex management because of low profit margins. He resigned in the summer of 1927. In August of that same year, his second daughter, Allegra, was bom (Pawley 1990: 36).
2324After his resignation, Fuller contemplated suicide along the Lake Michigan shoreline, thinking that his life insurance policies would be more valuable to his family than he was. It was then that he experienced a ‘‘private vision’’ that provided him with the idea that he did not have the right to eliminate himself. At the age of thirty-two, he began a new life.
25He moved from an expensive home in Joliet to a lower-class apartment at Belmont Harbor. Over the next two years, he refused to speak to anyone, even his wife. He read and sketched profusely (Ibid: 37).
26 In his biography, Fuller stated:
2728I really did stop all sounds, and then gradually started wanting to use a particular sound. I was finally pretty sure I would know what the effects would be on my fellow man if I made a particular sound. I wanted to be sure that when I did communicate that I really meant to communicate thusly and that this was me communicating and not somebody else. 'Out of all your experience what kinds of things do you know?' (1969: 47--8)
29Fuller thought it was important that he convey his thoughts precisely, and he chose particular words in order to convey these concise meanings to his fellow human beings.
30He used the metaphor of language as a instrument or tool to make his point:
31I know of people inventing words, but most of the words were here before me and they are tools. They are obviously tools, and I'm enough of a mechanic to know that you can use tools in the wrong way. It seems to me that the facility with which we can make these sounds, as a parrot can copy a sound, is possibly one of the ways in which the trouble starts. (Ibid: 47)
32During the two years that Fuller held a moratorium on speech, he read magazines and books on mathematics, science, and architecture. Like many engineers of the ‘‘Technocracy’’ movement, he believed that the United States should be run like a machine and its currency replaced with units of energy (Meikle 1979: 69). He concluded that human beings could go against the traditional American beliefs of limited resources and poverty by designing artifacts that had a potential gain over the raw resources that nature provided. By combining technology with the laws of nature, humankind could have a chance to create a better lifestyle.
33 Fuller believed that scarcity was a conspiracy lead by financiers and businessmen who wanted a ‘‘more for less’’ technology to create profits instead of benefiting humanity. As a reaction to this kind of thinking, Fuller gave the title ‘‘4D’’ to the inventions he created in order to reverse what he felt was a negative balance. The term ‘‘4D’’ meant ‘‘fourthdimensional thinking’’ , adding time to the dimensions of space to ensure gains for humanity instead of personal gains only. He promoted the artifacts he produced, though not for commercial gain. His ‘‘design science’’ was developed in order to obtain maximum human advantage from minimum use of energy and materials. The first patent on the 4D designs was a mass production house (Pawley 1990: 39).
34 In 1917, while in the Navy, Fuller conceptualized ‘‘…a wingless, amphibious ‘‘jet-stilts’’ aircraft which would plummet aeronautically in tetra-vector guidance. This aircraft would be powered by twin combination plants, consisting of gas turbines, jets and rocket assist thrusts’’ (Fuller 1969:18). According to Fuller, each thrust was to be angularly orientable throughout a ‘‘spherical-tetrant sector: vertically, outwardly, forwardly, backwardly, inwardly, with the geometrical degrees of freedom’’ similar to a duck's maneuvering range (Ibid: 18).
35 This aircraft was the impetus for his jet-stilt flying design with inflatable wings, modeled and drafted in 1927. However, Fuller did not have the financial means to create a working prototype of his novel plane, which he called the ‘‘Zoomobile’’ (Bush 1975:108). Another problem was that the limited metallurgy of the era offered no alloys capable of resisting the high degree of heat given off from the gases of a jet engine. Fuller was forced to develop a ground model of the Zoomobile, which later became known as the ‘‘4D Transport’’ (Hatch 1974:122).
36 Fuller began production on the first ‘‘4DTransport’’ after working as publisher of his Shelter magazine, which he published from 1930--32. He then went to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he and his assistant Starling Burgess developed the ground taxiing capabilities of the vehicle or ‘‘wingless fish’’ (Fuller 1969:19). The ‘‘4D Transport’’ was later named the ‘‘Dymaxion Vehicle.’’ Henry Ford gave him a 70 percent discount on any automotive equipment he could use. Fuller thought that by using Ford's V-8 engine people would think he was associated with the Ford company, and that ‘‘4D’’ was another way of saying ‘‘Ford.’’ He changed the name from ‘‘4D,’’ because he did not want to be associated with the Ford Motor Company (Ben-Eli 1972: 755).
37 Fuller and Burgess opened the abandoned Locomobile Co. Dyno- meter plant in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in March, 1933 to build both cars and Burgess's racing yachts (Hatch 1974: 124). Theodore Roosevelt was president at this the time and the economy was in distress. Over one thousand men applied for the twenty-eight jobs opening at the plant. The ‘‘4D Dymaxion’’ team completed the prototype of the Dymaxion Vehicle Number One in only four months, on July 12th 1933. It was sold to Gulf Oil and was used as their promotional vehicle. The Dymaxion Vehicle Number One was involved in a fatal accident at the 1934 Chicago World Exposition. This vehicle was repaired and fitted with a new faceted windscreen, and was again used by Gulf until it was destroyed in an accidental garage fire at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C.. The Dymaxion Vehicle Number One became the basis for the United States patent for which Fuller applied in October 1933. The patent was finally granted in 1937 (Pawley 1990: 62). After developing and demonstrating three Dymaxion Vehicles that he termed ‘‘technically first-class prototypes’’ , Fuller closed the operation in 1936 because he finished what he had set out to do (Ben-Eli 1972: 755). Fuller did not design the Dymaxion Vehicles for mass production or to make a fortune. The purpose of these vehicles was to put his theories, beliefs, and principles to the test (Hatch 1974:134).
38 Along with the Dymaxion Vehicles, Fuller invented the Dymaxion Bathroom of 1927 for the Dymaxion 4D House. Conceived as a single form in electroplated copper, it was not until 1930 that Fuller created a prototype of this bathroom for the American Radiator Company's Pierce Foundation. This prototype was never publicly displayed. However, in 1936 the Phelps-Dodge copper mining corporation helped Fuller to put a working prototype of the bathroom into production.
39 The Dymaxion bathroom, consisting of a tub and shower unit and a lavatory-toilet unit, (Marks 1960: 33) differed from most bathrooms of the era. It could be installed as a unit into any house in a short period of time. It had a prefabricated intake manifold, vent and waste pipes, and electric harness terminals. As the historian Robert Marks notes: These bathrooms ‘‘were not marginal sanitary utilities, but luxury bathrooms, equipped with all usual facilities and some new ones, such as air conditioning’’ (Ibid: 33).
40 Both the Dymaxion Vehicles and Bathroom were designed to function as part of the Dymaxion Housing system. Fuller conceived the Dymaxion House as a shelter that could be airlifted to any location on the globe. The house was to be mass-produced and constructed in a factory just as automobiles and airplanes were. He wanted to produce a maximum strength dwelling with the minimum of weight. Using the analogy of airplane technology, he chose materials such as steel alloy cables and an inflatable Duralumin mast located in the center of the unit. The Dymaxion House designs were completed in 1928 and a patent was filed (Ibid: 21).
41 Fuller also invented the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, a lightweight corrugated steel shelter made from modified grain bins. The United States Army Air Corps bought thousands of these units for use as flight crew quarters. The Dymaxion Deployment Unit became the basis for Fuller's 1946 Wichita House. These houses were intended to be used as full-size family dwellings, weighed four tons each, and were to be assembled on aircraft production lines built during the war. The design historian Martin Pawley suggests that the Wichita House was the …most important prefabricated house design of the 20th Century, and certainly the greatest lost opportunity of the years of post-war building recovery (1990:13-14). The Dymaxion House reflects Fuller's continuing concern for lightweight structures.
42 Another of Fuller's inventions was the Dymaxion Airocean Map. This map transferred the spherical data of a globe into a two-dimensional surface (Fuller 1969: 140). This map had its beginnings in his 4D Time Lock book of 1927, which he entitled the ‘‘Dymaxion Traffic Chart’’ (Ibid: 127). The conventional spherical globe makes it difficult to view the world in its entirety, but the Dymaxion map enables the viewer to see all of the earth's surface at once. The map is composed of a series of twenty triangular sections with two of the triangles dissected to keep the continents of Australia and Japan intact. According to Fuller, the Dymaxion map ‘‘…describes the earth's surface with the minimum total score of distortions from the many well-known geometrical processes inherent in translation of the angle and scale information from a spherical to a flat surface’’ (Ibid:122). Life magazine published a copy of the map in its March 1943 issue.
43 The Dymaxion concept, according to Fuller, brought about the most advantages for humankind. He used technological knowledge to convey and produce the most with the least (Hatch 1974: 163). Fuller incorporated this concept in all of the Dymaxion products as well as in his later inventions.
44 Fuller, however, is best known for inventing the geodesic dome: ‘‘…a triangulated space-enclosing technology that was domical in shape in order to enclose the maximum internal volume with the minimum structure’’ (Pawley 1990: 14). The design was patented in 1954 and approximately three hundred thousand geodesic domes were built over the following thirty years. These domes, which were conceived of as part of Fuller's engineering associations, incorporated the alloys, structures, mechanics and processes that were capable of producing for society predictable and behavioral characteristics based upon ‘‘competent experience’’ (Fuller 1969:191). Engineering, according to Fuller,‘‘…consolidates the net gains of science and design in the industrial complex’’ (Ibid: 191). These designs are based upon his concept of synergy, which is ‘‘…the essence of those great changes of man in respect to his a priori1 environment’’ (Ibid: 65). The impetus for these domical structures stemmed from his ideas concerning nature and its connection with mathematics. He claimed in his biography:
4647The mathematical patterning and inter-transformability of Nature's geometrical structurings are the only reality of universe. The infinitely regenerative dynamism, always potential in the fundamental relationships of the principles, in itself constitutes the intellectually tunable and ever inescapable reality (sic). (Ibid: 147)
48 For Fuller, the mathematical metaphor was an essential component of the physical environment, and indeed encapsulated his. This metaphor was Fuller's vision of what constituted that environment.2 His beliefs and values were based on mathematical principles and philosophies which influenced his dome designs. His dome structures were based upon the tetrahedron and the polyhedron. He stated that the geodesic domes were a combination of these two forms. Fuller noted: ‘‘The regular six-chord-edged tetrahedron encloses (defines) the minimum volume with the most surface of all 'geometric' polyhedra or structural systems, whereas the sphere encloses (defines) most volume with least surface’’ (Ibid: 166). His domical structures exemplified his Dymaxion concept, which was to do the most with the least. This is known as the process of ‘‘ephemeralization,’’ an aspect of what Fuller referred to as ‘‘synergy’’ (Ibid: 179).
50 His mathematical inferences3 rely upon the dynamism4 contained within the structures of mathematical forms and expressions. This explains why, in the construction of his domes, he focused upon such mathematical and engineering principles as:
5354…sets of dynamic associations by contraction, expansion, spin, orbit, torque, push and pull and precession. This all brings us by progressive collections of thoughts into a fundamental twoness of dynamic reciprocities which, internally paired, ultimately become one with outwardly paired principles of reciprocity (sic). (Ibid: 236)
55 This notion of dynamism is also expressed in his definition of the environment. He notes that:
5657Man, in degrees beyond all other creatures known to him, consciously participates-albeit meagerly-in the selective mutations and accelerations of his own evolution. This is accomplished as a subordinate modification and a component function of his sum total relative dynamic equilibrium as he speeds within the comprehensive and complex interactions of universe (which he alludes to locally as environment). (Ibid: 225)
58 The human being plays a part in the evolution of the species, which is dependent on the dynamic processes occurring within the cosmos or universe. This action, he defined as environment.
59 Semantics was of interest to Fuller, from 1928 throughout the remainder of his life. The domes were no exception. Fuller also drew upon the Judeo-Christian myth of God5in these designs as well as in the Dymaxion projects. He reinforced this attitude in the following: ‘‘So important have domes been throughout man's total experience that the roots of the word for God, home and dome are the same-domus, domicile and dome’’ (Ibid: 148).
6162The domes also encompassed mathematical formulae related to such forms as the tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron (Ibid: 219). According to Fuller, these all represent ‘‘closed systems’’ that are defined by compression encompassed by tension (Ibid: 219). Fuller brought to the dome structure ideas concerning its tensile ability. He introduced a new structural geometry and advanced mechanics into the dome form. He tried to emulate in structure the atom's form, including the compound curvature trussing of its dynamic structure. The domes, like the atoms, were comprised of great structural forces. Fuller stressed that, while this domical design was not new in its elementary form, it was new in its manner of employing the way it employed these principles in a manmade structure (Ibid: 216).
63All of his designs were based upon an engineer's value system. In his biography he claimed that:
64Engineering is the judicial authority that never assumes the initiative but decides and proves the assertions of science and design. Engineering thus establishes reliable data on the failure limits of complex associations and also measures the new synergetic behavior characteristics discovered by design initiative. Thus, engineering rapidly places on inventory comprehensive data pertaining to the known behavior characteristics of complex associations previously undertaken by design.
65These complex associations may be broadly defined as alloys, structures, mechanics, processes and services. It is a function of engineering to provide society with reliable predictions as to the behavior characteristics of complex designs predicated on competent experience. Engineering, then, consolidates the net gains of science and design in the industrial complex. Gains are design intuited synergies (sic). (Ibid: 191)
66Fuller's designs reflect an engineer's values and beliefs. Fuller claimed that scientific engineering principles can create designs that can dictate the behavior of the materials, structures, and processes involved in the design process. The use of engineering in the production of designs supports his Dymaxion philosophy of obtaining the most gains for humankind through the use of technology. This idea is exemplified in his domes and Dymaxion designs.6 Some of the domes Fuller created were the Kaiser Dome in Honolulu, Hawaii; the Travillon in Winrock, Arkansas; the Radome on the Arctic DEW line; the Radome Octetruss in The Musetun of Modern Art's garden; the Kaiser Dome in Moscow; the Graham National Foundation dome roof structure in Pryor, Oklahoma; the Anheuser-Busch Aviary in Tampa, Florida; the Miami Seaquarium; the Kaiser Dome over a Lutheran church in Florida; the U.S. Pavillion, Expo 67; the Climatron in St. Louis, Missouri; and his dome residence in Carbondale, Illinois.
68 Fuller also became interested in megastructures. These megastructures, or large architectural and engineering structures listed below, were projects that Fuller began but never completed (Pawley 1990: 154). The Triton City Project, a floating city designed to accommodate 100,000 inhabitants, was to be composed of a tetrahedron, a four-faceted structure, and was intended to promote ‘‘the most surface with the least volume of all polyhedra’’ (Ben-Eli 1972: 762). This Tetrahedral City, he noted, could be floated out into the sea and anchored. His City of Floating Spheres, measuring a hundred feet in diameter, was to weigh three tons and enclose seven tons of air (Ibid: 763).
69 Fuller also worked on The Old Man River Project, a communal city envisioned for East St. Louis, Missouri. This project was never completed (Ibid: 769). At the time of his death, Fuller was working on the development of the ‘‘Fly's Eye Dome’’ , which was intended to be an inexpensive dwelling unit (Pawley 1990: 14).