I seek to develop my artefacts with ample anticipatory time margins so that they will be ready for use by society when society discovers - through evolutionary emergencies - a need for them. R. Buckminster Fuller
In Buckminster Fuller Inc. Architecture in the Age of Radio (Zurich: Lars Müller, 2015) Mark Wigley traced Fuller's work back to the discovery of radio waves. Fuller anticipated that broadcasting would become an imperative in the future and that radio would inspire and allow global mobility. The existence
of radio waves would eventually call for a “radionic” house where the very solidity of physical rooms would be undone by the
possibility of tuning in on
simultaneous but unseen realities. According to Wigley, Fuller's ultimate target was to free people's mind to
receive all possible forms of knowledge about the world and to transmit all
possible ideas to the world. For this reason the house had to be detached from the city grid and turned into a two-way
communication system.
The houses designed by Fuller were relatively light shelters. They revolved around bathroom units with tub, toilet and sink forming a single metallic (later plastic) fitting. Everything else in the interior was thought in plastic. Physically detached, the shelter was connected via wireless to the rest of the world. His hyperexpanded homes were not static points of withdrawal but the site of active engagement with the world, with radio, tv, and the computer as windows onto that which cannot be seen. But as Wigley pointed out, the traditional house is a very slowly evolving and understudied phenomenon. Fuller's mobile plastic buildings never achieved mass production as houses but were instead installed beyond the limits of conventional urbanization to house the continental radar defense system in 1955.
The geodesic dome as an image of the world was also used to gradually encode its surface with layers of information and produce a hyper-map, a comprehensive data display. Fuller anticipated that computers would augment the human brain while communication networks would produce a single planetary society. These “world men” would not be confused by information but would be able to conceptualize it into comprehensive pictures.
The houses designed by Fuller were relatively light shelters. They revolved around bathroom units with tub, toilet and sink forming a single metallic (later plastic) fitting. Everything else in the interior was thought in plastic. Physically detached, the shelter was connected via wireless to the rest of the world. His hyperexpanded homes were not static points of withdrawal but the site of active engagement with the world, with radio, tv, and the computer as windows onto that which cannot be seen. But as Wigley pointed out, the traditional house is a very slowly evolving and understudied phenomenon. Fuller's mobile plastic buildings never achieved mass production as houses but were instead installed beyond the limits of conventional urbanization to house the continental radar defense system in 1955.
The geodesic dome as an image of the world was also used to gradually encode its surface with layers of information and produce a hyper-map, a comprehensive data display. Fuller anticipated that computers would augment the human brain while communication networks would produce a single planetary society. These “world men” would not be confused by information but would be able to conceptualize it into comprehensive pictures.
Wigley described the Geoscope as the most sophisticated window possible, meant to “interface” the audience to incoming information by enveloping
them in a “hypervisual” presentation. Human’s externalized tools have eventually become second nature, "as unconscious as
the automated operation of internal organs".
The books is also a helpful contribution for those who are interested in piecing together Fuller's personal network. Lee de Forest, Serge Chermayeff, John McHale, Gene Youngblood, Charles and Ray Eames, Sigfried Giedion, Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, Costantinos Doxiadis, and Marshall McLuhan are just some of the people mentioned.
The books is also a helpful contribution for those who are interested in piecing together Fuller's personal network. Lee de Forest, Serge Chermayeff, John McHale, Gene Youngblood, Charles and Ray Eames, Sigfried Giedion, Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, Costantinos Doxiadis, and Marshall McLuhan are just some of the people mentioned.
