Often alluded to as a 20th-century Leonardo da Vinci, R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was a visionary of the modern age. As an architect, inventor, engineer, writer, mathematician, and educator, his utopian humanism was evident in the way he devoted his life to designing objects, including buildings and cars, that would solve many of the problems of modern living. He was an early proponent of geodesic domes--semispherical structures made up of incredibly light and extremely strong triangular components--which he recommended for economical and energy-efficient housing and other purposes. An entire chapter in this engaging book is devoted to domes; other chapters cover Fuller's far-reaching ideas on the Dymaxion House, Dymaxion Transportation, Synergetics, and Megastructures. ("Dymaxion" was a term Fuller coined to describe getting the most output from minimal input of energy and materials.) With more than 200 black-and-white photos and drawings, this is a wonderfully nontechnical introduction to and celebration of the man, his remarkable inventions, and their modern-day relevance.


From Publishers Weekly
A useful, informal introduction to visionary engineer Buckminster Fuller's ideas, discoveries and inventions, this survey is illustrated with some 200 photographs, drawings and plans that help demonstrate how Fuller nurtured concepts from paper napkin to finished gizmo. Baldwin, an editor of Whole Earth Catalog and Whole Earth Review, is an inventor who worked closely with Fuller (1895-1983) and who has designed and built experimental domes. Along with Fuller inventions and blueprints such as the aluminum, aerodynamically modeled Dymaxion car, the geodesic dome, "Lightful House" 12-deck residential towers and energy-efficient corrugated cottages with silo tops, Baldwin explains synergetics, Fuller's system purporting to describe the coordinates and energy flow of the universe. He also discusses the World Game Institute, founded by Fuller in 1972, which conducts workshops demonstrating how a small fraction of the world's military expenditures could be redeployed to eliminate starvation and malnutrition, stabilize the population and provide clean, safe energy. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Architect, mathematician, engineer, inventor, educator, and more, Buckminster Fuller was twice kicked out of Harvard. Eventually, he joined the navy, which appealed to his sense of organization and interest in engineering and invention. Baldwin met Fuller at the University of Michigan while a freshman design student and studied and worked with him for the next 30 years. His book, which reflects its subject's eclectic nature, tries to capture both the breadth and depth of Fuller's ideas and creations. Photographs of the early prototypes are intriguing, and Baldwin's comments that many of Fuller's engineering concepts are just now becoming viable due to the development of appropriate construction materials shows us how far ahead of his time Fuller was. The structure of this book is somewhat unclear, but the content is always fascinating. For popular science collections.Hilary Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Livermore, Cal.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Book News, Inc.
A celebration of the designer and inventor's ideas, by a fellow inventor who worked with Fuller for three decades, describing his life-affirming vision of science and technology. Includes some 200 b&w photos and drawings, excerpts from lectures and conversations, and details on plans and working models for domes, structures, and transportation. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

One hundred years after his birth, Fuller's ideas, discoveries and inventions offer solutions to many of the world's most severe problems. Baldwin worked with Fuller on and off for 33 years and his book synthesizes Bucky's major concepts and inventions into language that will inspire readers to think about alternative ways of living and building a better future. Features 200 photographs and drawings from The Buckminster Fuller Institute that have never before been published.

FROM THE CRITICS

Philip Leggiere

"Buckminster Fuller was the last American thinker to really believe in the future," observed architect Philip Johnson after Fuller's death in 1983. Which may account for the anomalous position the charismatic utopian futurist holds at the fin de siècle. Technology we surely have -- as cyber-cultural commodity fetish or nightmare ecological and social nemesis -- but in an era of postmodernist pessimism, Fuller's trademark technological humanism appears almost an oxymoron, more quaint than relevant. Fuller, to be sure, is fondly remembered, but seldom read and even more seldom considered terribly salient to business and politics as usual.

In this context, J. Baldwin's BuckyWorks comes as a pleasant surprise. Eschewing the twin biographical temptations of hagiography and cynicism, Baldwin, a former student of Fuller's and editor of the Whole Earth Catalogue, succeeds (no mean achievement) in making Fuller unsafe for intellectual nostalgia.

Baldwin concentrates primarily on Fuller as inventor, the occasionally successful (or, more often, ahead of his time) entrepreneur and maverick engineer of the visionary. He sketches, in extensive detail, high points of 60-plus years of design, ranging in focus from the cosmos to, literally (with Fuller's energy efficient "Packaging Toilet"), the commode. Included are discussions (complete with illustrations, diagrams and photos) of Fuller's major projects -- the Dymaxion House and Dormitory, Dymaxion Car, Geodesic Domes and Fuller's Synergetic-Energetic System of Geometry -- as well as marginalia and humorous curiosities such as the "Steak-Prune and Jello" diet Fuller followed and his pioneering of the "power nap".

As a historian of design and technology, Baldwin presents Fuller's schemes warts and all, unflinchingly describing the leaks which plagued Fuller's domes, the poor insulation in the Dymaxion home prototype and the erratic back steering system of his three-wheeled Dymaxion Car. However, far from seeing these as merely eccentric dead ends or esoteric museum pieces, Baldwin persuasively makes the case that Fuller's prophetic forays into ecologically sustainable alternative technology (and the vision of post-scarcity abundance which inspired them) are likely to become ever more influential and relevant as we enter a new century. -- Salon

Publishers Weekly

A useful, informal introduction to visionary engineer Buckminster Fuller's ideas, discoveries and inventions, this survey is illustrated with some 200 photographs, drawings and plans that help demonstrate how Fuller nurtured concepts from paper napkin to finished gizmo. Baldwin, an editor of Whole Earth Catalog and Whole Earth Review, is an inventor who worked closely with Fuller (1895-1983) and who has designed and built experimental domes. Along with Fuller inventions and blueprints such as the aluminum, aerodynamically modeled Dymaxion car, the geodesic dome, "Lightful House" 12-deck residential towers and energy-efficient corrugated cottages with silo tops, Baldwin explains synergetics, Fuller's system purporting to describe the coordinates and energy flow of the universe. He also discusses the World Game Institute, founded by Fuller in 1972, which conducts workshops demonstrating how a small fraction of the world's military expenditures could be redeployed to eliminate starvation and malnutrition, stabilize the population and provide clean, safe energy. (Apr.)

Library Journal