Buckminster Fuller (Designer)
Introduction
Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American designer, architect, and inventor. He was also a professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a prolific writer.
During his life, Fuller sought an answer to the question: "Does humanity have a chance to ultimately and successfully survive on planet Earth and, if so, how?" Seeing himself as an average individual with no special financial means or academic degree, he chose to dedicate his life to this question, attempting to discover whether an individual could improve the human condition in a way that governments, large organizations, or private companies could not.
In the course of this lifelong experiment, Fuller wrote twenty-eight books, coining and popularizing terms such as synergy, spaceship Earth, and ephemeralization. He also made many inventions, especially in the fields of architecture, a field in which his best-known work is the geodesic dome. The carbon molecules known as fullerenes took their name from their resemblance to geodesic spheres.
Later in his life, after working on his ideas for many years, Fuller had gained considerable public visibility. He traveled the world teaching and received many honoris causa doctorates. However, most of his inventions were never manufactured, which is why he received criticism in many fields in which he intervened, or he was simply labeled as utopian. On the other hand, Fuller's supporters claim that his work has not received all the attention it deserves. According to philosopher N. J. Slabbert, Fuller had an obscure writing style that has hindered the circulation of his ideas.[1].
Biography
First stage
Richard Buckminster was the son of Richard Buckminster Fuller and Caroline Wolcott Andrews. His great-aunt was the transcendentalist Margaret Fuller. He spent his youth on Bear Island, off the coast of Maine. He was a child naturally prone to designing and building things. He often made things from materials he brought home from the forest and sometimes made his own tools. He experimented by designing a new device for propulsion of small boats. Years later he decided that this kind of experience had given him not only an interest in design, but the habit of being completely familiar and knowledgeable with the materials that his later projects would need. Fuller earned a machinist's certificate and learned how to use the sheet metal bender and other tools used in sheet metal work.