Buckminister Fuller: Inventor of the Future

 

Just finished this book. Fascinating account of this most brilliant man. He hobnobbed with some most forward-thinking people of his generation, including:

Albert Einstein — Fuller met Einstein in the 1930s and discussed Fuller's ideas with him. Fuller was deeply influenced by relativity and devoted substantial attention to Einstein's thinking.

Isamu Noguchi — Probably one of Fuller's closest and most enduring friendships. They met in Greenwich Village around 1929 and collaborated on projects including the Dymaxion car. Noguchi was fascinated by Fuller's ideas about technology, materials and light.

Marshall McLuhan — The Canadian communications theorist and author of Understanding Media. McLuhan became an enthusiastic admirer of Fuller; they met in the early 1960s and corresponded. McLuhan famously regarded Fuller as a kind of modern Leonardo da Vinci.

John Cage — The radically experimental composer. Cage and Fuller were colleagues at Black Mountain College, an extraordinary experimental arts community.

Martha Graham — Fuller knew the pioneering dancer and choreographer during his Greenwich Village years.

Frank Lloyd Wright — Fuller knew Wright and, interestingly, Wright criticized Fuller's book Nine Chains to the Moon. Their relationship illustrates that Fuller wasn't simply surrounded by people who agreed with him.

Charles and Ray Eames — Fuller and the Eameses belonged to overlapping worlds of experimental design, technology and architecture, particularly in the postwar period.

Henry Luce — Founder of Time and Life magazines. Fuller had connections with Luce and the publishing world and served as an adviser to Fortune and Life.

And then there are some surprising ones.

Amelia Earhart — She actually rode in Fuller's Dymaxion car. Fuller was very much at home in the world of aviation and technological experimentation.

Eleanor Roosevelt — Fuller drove her in a Dymaxion car in 1935.

L. Ron Hubbard — Before Hubbard became associated primarily with Scientology, he was a pulp writer and enthusiastic sailor who crossed paths with Fuller in the 1930s.Margaret Mead, Clare Booth Luce, and many others. He absolutely did not let a day pass without trying to accomplish something.

His Dymaxion house is on display at the Henry Ford Museum, and I've toured it several times.

His 3-wheeled Dymaxion car is one of the weirdest I've seen, and I have a hunch was the inspiration for the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.

And, of course, his greatest achievement was arguably the geodesic dome, in all sizes, from models to full sizes, including Spaceship Earth, the centerpiece of Epcot in Orlando, Fla. Ironically, Fuller was never consulted on the building of this ride, which traces man's evolution from caveman days to modern times.

Fuller was even honored with a U.S. postage stamp in July, 2004, on the 50th anniversary of most most famous invention, the geodesic dome. Hailed as "one of the greatest minds of our times," Fuller was renowned for his comprehensive perspective on the world's problems. For more than five decades he sought solutions that would improve human lives.