What do you think?
Rate this book
Buckminster Fuller's Universe: His Life and Work
Buckminster Fuller, the brilliant and eccentric futurist philosopher best known as the inventor of the Geodesic Dome, was one of the most creative contributors to innovative thought and technology in the twentieth century. Incomparable designer, engineer, and architect, he proved that a lone genius, through sheer initiative, can have an astounding impact on the world. In this inspiring account of Fuller's life and legacy, Lloyd Steven Sieden brings new light to Fuller's belief system and recognizes his many contributions to humanity.
511 pages, Paperback
First published April 21, 1989
20 people are currently reading
684 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 3, 2015
I suppose I blame Basics Books. And myself.
I think of Basic as publishing quality non-fiction, and so I trusted this book without doing enough looking-into before getting it. I wanted to learn something about R. Buckminster Fuller, and the description sounded like this book would fit the bill. Not really.
I cannot blame the author. Sieden was upfront about what this book was and was not. It was not a biography he said in the front matter. And that's true, although it is arranged chronologically (for the most part) and uses Fuller's life story as the narrative driving force. Sieden said he wanted to explain Fuller's ideas--and to show their continuing utility. Which makes it kind of sound like an intellectual history; but, to its own detriment, the book is not that, either.
It's best understood as a fan's appreciation, which is a fine enough thing to be, though at 500+ pages, a bit too appreciative. It's not exactly what I was looking for, or what I expected from Basic Books.
"Buckminster Fuller's Universe" starts as a fairly typical biography, looking at Fuller's early life and family history: he was descended from a long-line of Harvard-educated Yankees, and followed their path--except that he was never one to follow paths or keep to traditions. (Even so, he constantly found himself running up against Yankee predilections bred deep into him.) He was expelled from Harvard twice, and seemed to be more interested in drinking, partying, and carousing than formal education. But he was wildly curious.
Fuller served in the navy during World War I, and borrowed a lot of that institution's bureaucratic practices for his own life, in particular keeping a chronological file of his life. (Later, this would famously be updated every fifteen minutes, making his one of the best chronicled life in history; too much so, one thinks, the map and the territory becoming the same.) He married, and had a daughter, who died young, crushing him.
During the 1920s, Fuller had trouble finding his footing. He took jobs but did not like taking directions. He drank too much, partied too much. There's a few hints, here and there, that he may have slept around, too. But his wife remained ferociously faithful to him, and they had another daughter, Allegra.
A turning point, of sorts, came in 1927, and he became more focused, less willing to work for others, and took his own imagination and curiosity more seriously. He spent the year without talking, just studying. A lot of the innovations he would work on over the next several decades came out of this time. He was interested in shelters--he blamed the death of his first daughter on the poor housing in which they lived--the coming of the future, communications, travel--especially via airplanes--peace, and globalization.
Even so, he continued some of his Bohemian ways, at least into the 1930s, when friends of his--Theodore Dreiser and other writers--embraced communism and came under government surveillance. He wrote poetry. He continued his drinking, his partying, though to a lesser extent. He continued jumping from one job to another, and the only real way to follow his career is to trace it in the chronology Sieden gives in an appendix.
The bulk of the book covers the period to 1948, when Fuller invented the Geodesic Dome. By that point, he and his family had become much more comfortable, and he was earning quite a bit lecturing. Sieden stresses that Fuller did not like self-promotion, but his ideas became widely known, through the press and his various employers. The last hundred or so pages covers the rest of Fuller's life, in which he was mostly trying to put into practice ideas he had earlier developed. He won back respect, getting a position at Southern Illinois University for a time, as well as an appointment at Harvard as a poet, and the University of Pennsylvania, after SIU self-destructed over student protests.
This is last section is by far the weakest, with Sieden straining for effect and to show Fuller's genius: he studied his grandchildren, and determined that different generations respond differently to technology, depending upon whether it is rare or ubiquitous when they grow up! He grew fat with affluence and decided to go on a diet! (In defense, kind of, of this last point, Fuller had developed a theory to account for his diet, an early form of the paleo diet: the sun provides the earth's energy, plants are the best source of this energy, and cows the next, because they eat only the sun-enriched plants, so he ate beef and vegetables.)
I do admit that I learned some of what I wanted earlier in the book. I thought of Fuller as a mathematician-type, and there is certainly some of that, but he's better thought of as a kind of mystic, a latter-day John Dee. His mathematics were rooted in a metaphysical understanding of the world that united the cosmic and the individual (as above, so below). Humans were energy waves--waves that persisted beyond death--momentarily held in the vessel of the body. There was a sacred geometry to the universe, one based, especially around the number four.
For the most part, though, the book fails to deliver real insights into Fuller be cause it eschews the work of the intellectual historian for the easier path of the fan. Paragraph after paragraph begins, "Fuller studied . . ." and then mentions some subject, which he apparently mastered in its entirety, coming to understand completely the history of human economic development or the history of geography or cartography, which he then interpreted into his own terms, with suggestions for how his ideas could be put into practice. Most of these suggestions were themselves impractical, even judged by their description in this book, with Fuller insisting upon using the most up-to-date materials.
Famously, though, Fuller was mostly ignored, and Sieden makes this point repeatedly throughout the book; that ideas Fuller came up with in the 1920s and 1930s still have not been put into effect. There's the persistent myth--I've looked into it, and find no evidence to support it--not mentioned in this book--that Fuller was the subject of the Beatle's song "Fool on the Hill," which plays into this stereotype of the ignored genius.
The problem here--and elsewhere--is that the book is so decontextualized. It never leaves Fuller's brain, so we have no reason to know why his ideas were, for the most part not put into effect. One wonders if there wasn't some reason beyond him being too advanced. Maybe I'm wrong, but looking at the one idea of his that was adopted--the Geodesic Dome--I can start to see that perhaps the reason is that the idea was not as transcendental as Fuller (and Sieden) seem to think, never mind how sacred the number four is or how excellent a tetrahedron is at modeling the human intellect. The last part of the book has a number of pictures of domes, used to protect radars, used as hippie homes, and used in grand civic displays--The Montreal Exposition, the Houston Astrodome, Ford Field. Most of those places--the radar covers the chief exception--no longer exist. And the pictures of them look incredibly dated: the past's idea of what the future should look like. Similar to reading an old Life magazine spread on flying cars and personal jetpacks. There's some limitation on them, some way in which they are rooted in Fuller's intellect--free in his imagination but hampered in the real world.
This lack of context hurts the book in other places, too. Sieden places a lot of emphasis on Fuller's development of a map that could display the world on a flat surface with a minimum of distortion. It forms the basis for Sieden's description of Fuller's understanding og the earth as a spaceship, humans as a single community, and the breakdown of geopolitical borders to bring about peace, unity, and the sharing of resources, especially energy over a single grid that encompasses almost the entire world. (Australia is excluded.)
Fine, as a structuring strategy. But the discussion of maps is too limited. Not once does Sieden mention B.J.S. Cahill or his Butterfly Map, which flayed the planet and laid it on a plane. Maybe Fuller never came across Cahill's work--although that wouldn't seem to be allowed in Sieden's world, since whenever Fuller studied a subject, he took in the entirety of it--but even so, it would have been an important point of comparison for understanding the state of cartography at the time, rather than the constant hating on the Mercator Projection (which is bad).
The same problem recurs in Sieden's description of Fuller's work on shelters, vehicles, and globalization. He was not the only one thinking on these subjects, even if his thought may have been different than others. But the book makes it seem as though no one int he world had ever considered doing cars differently than Ford, or thought of prefabricated houses--as though Sears did not exist--and certainly no one else had seen the interconnectedness of the globe in light of new communication and travel technologies.
I see why a fan-boy might approach Fuller this way, but for anybody else wanting to understand Fuller it is far too limited a perspective. Fuller operated in a wider world, and to really understand his thinking, his ideas, his imagination; to judge his creativity; to do any of this requires understanding the rest of the world that surrounded him, and not in the vague ways this book offers--there was Depression in the 1930s, war int he 1940s, etc., etc.
Not even a partially-full accounting of Fuller's thoughts, then, and so in the end the book fails on its own terms.
I think of Basic as publishing quality non-fiction, and so I trusted this book without doing enough looking-into before getting it. I wanted to learn something about R. Buckminster Fuller, and the description sounded like this book would fit the bill. Not really.
I cannot blame the author. Sieden was upfront about what this book was and was not. It was not a biography he said in the front matter. And that's true, although it is arranged chronologically (for the most part) and uses Fuller's life story as the narrative driving force. Sieden said he wanted to explain Fuller's ideas--and to show their continuing utility. Which makes it kind of sound like an intellectual history; but, to its own detriment, the book is not that, either.
It's best understood as a fan's appreciation, which is a fine enough thing to be, though at 500+ pages, a bit too appreciative. It's not exactly what I was looking for, or what I expected from Basic Books.
"Buckminster Fuller's Universe" starts as a fairly typical biography, looking at Fuller's early life and family history: he was descended from a long-line of Harvard-educated Yankees, and followed their path--except that he was never one to follow paths or keep to traditions. (Even so, he constantly found himself running up against Yankee predilections bred deep into him.) He was expelled from Harvard twice, and seemed to be more interested in drinking, partying, and carousing than formal education. But he was wildly curious.
Fuller served in the navy during World War I, and borrowed a lot of that institution's bureaucratic practices for his own life, in particular keeping a chronological file of his life. (Later, this would famously be updated every fifteen minutes, making his one of the best chronicled life in history; too much so, one thinks, the map and the territory becoming the same.) He married, and had a daughter, who died young, crushing him.
During the 1920s, Fuller had trouble finding his footing. He took jobs but did not like taking directions. He drank too much, partied too much. There's a few hints, here and there, that he may have slept around, too. But his wife remained ferociously faithful to him, and they had another daughter, Allegra.
A turning point, of sorts, came in 1927, and he became more focused, less willing to work for others, and took his own imagination and curiosity more seriously. He spent the year without talking, just studying. A lot of the innovations he would work on over the next several decades came out of this time. He was interested in shelters--he blamed the death of his first daughter on the poor housing in which they lived--the coming of the future, communications, travel--especially via airplanes--peace, and globalization.
Even so, he continued some of his Bohemian ways, at least into the 1930s, when friends of his--Theodore Dreiser and other writers--embraced communism and came under government surveillance. He wrote poetry. He continued his drinking, his partying, though to a lesser extent. He continued jumping from one job to another, and the only real way to follow his career is to trace it in the chronology Sieden gives in an appendix.
The bulk of the book covers the period to 1948, when Fuller invented the Geodesic Dome. By that point, he and his family had become much more comfortable, and he was earning quite a bit lecturing. Sieden stresses that Fuller did not like self-promotion, but his ideas became widely known, through the press and his various employers. The last hundred or so pages covers the rest of Fuller's life, in which he was mostly trying to put into practice ideas he had earlier developed. He won back respect, getting a position at Southern Illinois University for a time, as well as an appointment at Harvard as a poet, and the University of Pennsylvania, after SIU self-destructed over student protests.
This is last section is by far the weakest, with Sieden straining for effect and to show Fuller's genius: he studied his grandchildren, and determined that different generations respond differently to technology, depending upon whether it is rare or ubiquitous when they grow up! He grew fat with affluence and decided to go on a diet! (In defense, kind of, of this last point, Fuller had developed a theory to account for his diet, an early form of the paleo diet: the sun provides the earth's energy, plants are the best source of this energy, and cows the next, because they eat only the sun-enriched plants, so he ate beef and vegetables.)
I do admit that I learned some of what I wanted earlier in the book. I thought of Fuller as a mathematician-type, and there is certainly some of that, but he's better thought of as a kind of mystic, a latter-day John Dee. His mathematics were rooted in a metaphysical understanding of the world that united the cosmic and the individual (as above, so below). Humans were energy waves--waves that persisted beyond death--momentarily held in the vessel of the body. There was a sacred geometry to the universe, one based, especially around the number four.
For the most part, though, the book fails to deliver real insights into Fuller be cause it eschews the work of the intellectual historian for the easier path of the fan. Paragraph after paragraph begins, "Fuller studied . . ." and then mentions some subject, which he apparently mastered in its entirety, coming to understand completely the history of human economic development or the history of geography or cartography, which he then interpreted into his own terms, with suggestions for how his ideas could be put into practice. Most of these suggestions were themselves impractical, even judged by their description in this book, with Fuller insisting upon using the most up-to-date materials.
Famously, though, Fuller was mostly ignored, and Sieden makes this point repeatedly throughout the book; that ideas Fuller came up with in the 1920s and 1930s still have not been put into effect. There's the persistent myth--I've looked into it, and find no evidence to support it--not mentioned in this book--that Fuller was the subject of the Beatle's song "Fool on the Hill," which plays into this stereotype of the ignored genius.
The problem here--and elsewhere--is that the book is so decontextualized. It never leaves Fuller's brain, so we have no reason to know why his ideas were, for the most part not put into effect. One wonders if there wasn't some reason beyond him being too advanced. Maybe I'm wrong, but looking at the one idea of his that was adopted--the Geodesic Dome--I can start to see that perhaps the reason is that the idea was not as transcendental as Fuller (and Sieden) seem to think, never mind how sacred the number four is or how excellent a tetrahedron is at modeling the human intellect. The last part of the book has a number of pictures of domes, used to protect radars, used as hippie homes, and used in grand civic displays--The Montreal Exposition, the Houston Astrodome, Ford Field. Most of those places--the radar covers the chief exception--no longer exist. And the pictures of them look incredibly dated: the past's idea of what the future should look like. Similar to reading an old Life magazine spread on flying cars and personal jetpacks. There's some limitation on them, some way in which they are rooted in Fuller's intellect--free in his imagination but hampered in the real world.
This lack of context hurts the book in other places, too. Sieden places a lot of emphasis on Fuller's development of a map that could display the world on a flat surface with a minimum of distortion. It forms the basis for Sieden's description of Fuller's understanding og the earth as a spaceship, humans as a single community, and the breakdown of geopolitical borders to bring about peace, unity, and the sharing of resources, especially energy over a single grid that encompasses almost the entire world. (Australia is excluded.)
Fine, as a structuring strategy. But the discussion of maps is too limited. Not once does Sieden mention B.J.S. Cahill or his Butterfly Map, which flayed the planet and laid it on a plane. Maybe Fuller never came across Cahill's work--although that wouldn't seem to be allowed in Sieden's world, since whenever Fuller studied a subject, he took in the entirety of it--but even so, it would have been an important point of comparison for understanding the state of cartography at the time, rather than the constant hating on the Mercator Projection (which is bad).
The same problem recurs in Sieden's description of Fuller's work on shelters, vehicles, and globalization. He was not the only one thinking on these subjects, even if his thought may have been different than others. But the book makes it seem as though no one int he world had ever considered doing cars differently than Ford, or thought of prefabricated houses--as though Sears did not exist--and certainly no one else had seen the interconnectedness of the globe in light of new communication and travel technologies.
I see why a fan-boy might approach Fuller this way, but for anybody else wanting to understand Fuller it is far too limited a perspective. Fuller operated in a wider world, and to really understand his thinking, his ideas, his imagination; to judge his creativity; to do any of this requires understanding the rest of the world that surrounded him, and not in the vague ways this book offers--there was Depression in the 1930s, war int he 1940s, etc., etc.
Not even a partially-full accounting of Fuller's thoughts, then, and so in the end the book fails on its own terms.
January 1, 2012
This is an absolutely wonderful book about well, Buckminster Fuller's universe! Sieden is intimately familiar with Bucky's thinking and philosophy and has managed an outstanding, brilliant translation of Bucky's more esoteric theories into a comprehensible language. All is embedded into a biography of Bucky and the reader takes part in the journey how his thinking took shape. If you never understood the dymaxion concept, the world peace game, tensegrity, his geometrical ideas, philosophy, how he got expelled from Harvard two times - and how it all connected with his spiritual thinking, this is the book to read!
May 13, 2010
my love for Bucky is unfortunately not enough to get me to finish this book. while the author may be knowledgeable, he is no writer, repeating himself over and over, and not always convincingly. I will try another book on him, and the new DVD on his life and work. the thing is, 'so much to read, so little time'. . .
February 16, 2008
crap biography that restated things over and over, but still managed to describe a fascinating man. I wish I had half the vision and half the self-discipline (at least as it related to thinking and doing, since he was apparently a party man)
February 8, 2008
Demonstrates his genius. he got a little goofy toward the end of his life when people stopped listening to him. Not sure if my 4 star rating is a rating of the book or a rating of his actual life.
January 24, 2024
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was a self-described “comprehensivist” who took a long view of history and applied his abilities for the general good of humanity in whatever way was most relevant at the moment. He played the roles of poet, designer, architect, philosopher, inventor, and teacher, but he never categorized himself as any one of these things. He was above all an optimist, believing that technological advances would make resource scarcity a thing of the past, thus making systems born of an “us or them” mentality obsolete. Cooperation, not competition, would signify the next step of human evolution. To this end, he urged leaders of government and industry to focus not on weaponry, but on what he called “livingry”–the tools necessary to promote peace and prosperity for the entire planet’s population. It was he who coined the term “Spaceship Earth” and introduced the concept of “One World Town,” which inspired Marshall McLuhan’s oft-quoted “Global Village.”
Early experiences as a U.S. naval officer in WWI (which he later referred to as the first global civil war) and as president of an innovative construction company showed him that bureaucracies exist to preserve their own power and influence and thus often hinder the individual from fulfilling his or her vision. At the age of 32, he dropped out of society for a 2-year period of self-imposed silence, study, and meditation, after which he resolved not only to never again work for anyone else, but also to never let monetary considerations influence his choice of what to work on next. He deduced that if he worked for the good of humanity and Universe, all his needs would be provided for. “Leap and the net will appear.” Time proved him correct.
His first significant invention was the Dymaxion Map, which for the first time presented a 2-dimensional view of Earth which did not distort the proportions of surface features. Also, rather than showing the typical sidelong equatorial view of land masses seemingly divided by bodies of water, he adopted a top-down view which showed the basic interconnectedness of all Earth’s land, thus taking a vital early step in promoting a unified worldview. The Dymaxion Map’s modular construction (similar to a tangram set) allowed the focal point to be shifted to any perspective. For example, putting the South Pole at its center shows unmistakably One World Ocean, not the outdated divisions which have persisted since the Age of “Discovery” 500 years past.
Fuller is perhaps best known for his invention of the geodesic dome, which is basically a hollow sphere constructed of triangular components, far stronger than any structure based on the right angle geometry which dominated architecture unquestioned for hundreds of years. The perfect simplicity of his design was later confirmed by virologists when they discovered that the hard shells of viruses are built the same way.
Again, this confirmed Bucky’s notion that all ideas are in Nature, whether or not we consciously perceive them. He believed in ESP and intuition, convinced that our senses are underutilized (some as yet unknown) and constantly evolving. To Fuller, the only obstacle to progress was entrenched thought, the reflexive conditioning of institutions which create barriers to critical thinking and are skeptical of inspiration.
Fuller’s epitaph reads simply: TRIM TAB. A trim tab is the tiny, trailing part of a ship’s rudder. Slight pressure on the trim tab moves the rudder, which in turn directs the ship. In a recent editorial, Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner suggests that the events of 9/11 will be seen as the “pivot of history.” We are all trim tabs, tiny pivots affecting the overall direction of humanity. As Fuller advised, it is time to take a long view. Zoom out, look at where we’ve been and where we might be going. See it? Now choose your path and act accordingly.
[ Originally posted at http://www.zverina.com/2001/1003.htm ]
Early experiences as a U.S. naval officer in WWI (which he later referred to as the first global civil war) and as president of an innovative construction company showed him that bureaucracies exist to preserve their own power and influence and thus often hinder the individual from fulfilling his or her vision. At the age of 32, he dropped out of society for a 2-year period of self-imposed silence, study, and meditation, after which he resolved not only to never again work for anyone else, but also to never let monetary considerations influence his choice of what to work on next. He deduced that if he worked for the good of humanity and Universe, all his needs would be provided for. “Leap and the net will appear.” Time proved him correct.
His first significant invention was the Dymaxion Map, which for the first time presented a 2-dimensional view of Earth which did not distort the proportions of surface features. Also, rather than showing the typical sidelong equatorial view of land masses seemingly divided by bodies of water, he adopted a top-down view which showed the basic interconnectedness of all Earth’s land, thus taking a vital early step in promoting a unified worldview. The Dymaxion Map’s modular construction (similar to a tangram set) allowed the focal point to be shifted to any perspective. For example, putting the South Pole at its center shows unmistakably One World Ocean, not the outdated divisions which have persisted since the Age of “Discovery” 500 years past.
Fuller is perhaps best known for his invention of the geodesic dome, which is basically a hollow sphere constructed of triangular components, far stronger than any structure based on the right angle geometry which dominated architecture unquestioned for hundreds of years. The perfect simplicity of his design was later confirmed by virologists when they discovered that the hard shells of viruses are built the same way.
Again, this confirmed Bucky’s notion that all ideas are in Nature, whether or not we consciously perceive them. He believed in ESP and intuition, convinced that our senses are underutilized (some as yet unknown) and constantly evolving. To Fuller, the only obstacle to progress was entrenched thought, the reflexive conditioning of institutions which create barriers to critical thinking and are skeptical of inspiration.
Fuller’s epitaph reads simply: TRIM TAB. A trim tab is the tiny, trailing part of a ship’s rudder. Slight pressure on the trim tab moves the rudder, which in turn directs the ship. In a recent editorial, Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner suggests that the events of 9/11 will be seen as the “pivot of history.” We are all trim tabs, tiny pivots affecting the overall direction of humanity. As Fuller advised, it is time to take a long view. Zoom out, look at where we’ve been and where we might be going. See it? Now choose your path and act accordingly.
[ Originally posted at http://www.zverina.com/2001/1003.htm ]
November 15, 2008
I heart Buckminster Fuller, the most under-rated genius of the 21st Century. I haven't read any other books about him, but this one does an excellent job of weaving details of Fuller as a person with his career. Fuller was so ahead of his time that he was constantly facing opposition over his ideas on sustainability, that he just started simply collecting information for future generations to utilize when the time is right. Hopefully, we'll see more of his ideas come to fruition soon.
August 30, 2011
Buckminster Fuller thought that design could make the world a better place for the common man. He is famous for designing a vehicle that could carry 11 people and get upwards of 30 mpg, in the 1930s. He also developed plans for housing that was cheap, portable, and self-sufficient (closed loop). He had a lot of ideas back in the beginning and middle of the 20th century that are now being taken up by the environmental and sustainability movements. He was also on the forefront of globalization and recognized that the world is becoming more and more interconnected. He thought that if more people understood the interdependencies and relationships between countries, the world would be more peaceful.
An interesting read for anyone, but especially those interested in design, architecture, engineering, urban planning, or environmentalism.
An interesting read for anyone, but especially those interested in design, architecture, engineering, urban planning, or environmentalism.
February 21, 2017
Book that tells the perceptions of Buckminster Fuller about the life and the world. The creator of the geodesic domes and inspirator of the PMDome Workshop I created, he is presented as a visionary with a unique critic of the current values of the world. Despite of being a cansative reading, it is worth reading.
Livro que conta as percepções de Buckminster Fuller sobre a vida e o mundo. O criador dos domos geodésicos e inspirador do PMDome Workshop criado por mim, ele é apresentado como um visionário que tem uma critica singular dos valores do mundo. Apesar de ser uma leitura um pouco cansativa, vale a pena ser lido.
Livro que conta as percepções de Buckminster Fuller sobre a vida e o mundo. O criador dos domos geodésicos e inspirador do PMDome Workshop criado por mim, ele é apresentado como um visionário que tem uma critica singular dos valores do mundo. Apesar de ser uma leitura um pouco cansativa, vale a pena ser lido.
August 4, 2016
Very well done biographical capture of Buckminster Fuller's work, theories, and life. I have been a fan of Fuller's work and have read over a dozen of his books, but outside of Critical Path and I Seem to Be a Verb, I struggle to recommend any of his works to someone new to it. This is a great start for someone looking to learn more about Fuller and his work. It remains unclear to me how he could be so renowned for his inventions and thought leadership when virtually everything he created was a commercial failure though.
April 12, 2008
If you're interested in the lives of creative people this book is worth the read. I worried that the book was going to get too heady at chapter two, but Sieden takes that section to talk some basic geometry and the importance of experiential learning in Fuller's thought experiments- the rest is fascinating, enjoyable, and informative.
March 2, 2013
Book that shows the contributions of Buckminster Fuller for the society. The creator of the geodesic domes and inspirator of the PMDome Workshop I created.
Livro que mostra as contribuições de Buckminster Fuller para a sociedade. O criador dos domos geodésicos e inspirador do PMDome Workshop desenvolvido por mim.
Livro que mostra as contribuições de Buckminster Fuller para a sociedade. O criador dos domos geodésicos e inspirador do PMDome Workshop desenvolvido por mim.
August 4, 2014
Not knowing very much about 'Bucky', I was astounded that this book was not required reading in high school or college. Introducing this inventor/visionary to the world should be paramount. The only downside for me was there was so much information to absorb. One day I will pick it up again and reread it for a better understanding of the scope of the man's visions.
December 13, 2016
My friend who is an architecture prof. asked me to read this because he couldn't get past the first 4 pages without gagging. I speed read, thank goodness, the pain of reading it was over in about an hour.
June 18, 2007
The life of Buckminster Fuller and his enormous creativity is inspiring.
Read
May 25, 2008Comprehensive book on Bucky's life, motivations and achievements.
August 24, 2011
Should be required reading, and most people don't even know who he is.
December 8, 2012
An encompassing portrait of one of the most fascinating people of the 20th century. http://michaelprager.com/Buckminster_...
January 4, 2024
One of the most important books in history. Bucky was a genius par excellence and we have a lot to learn from his societal thinking.
September 21, 2022
This definitely paints Fuller as a hero of the human population. And I can't see another way around that story. I'm sure the man had his flaws, but after seeing a 7 hour interview with Werner Erhard, I was inspired to look deeper. This book gave me all I needed. And it made Fuller's own writings much more accessible.
When I start to feel my thinking get narrow or limited in scope, I pull out this book. Fuller had many of the solutions for the plagues of modern times. Perhaps we would do well to apply them now?
For instance, when governments were creating 'war games', Fuller advocated 'Peace Games.' He thought that eventually, most learning would happen through two-way screens, and people would be most adaptable if they were more mobile (mobile homes).
When I start to feel my thinking get narrow or limited in scope, I pull out this book. Fuller had many of the solutions for the plagues of modern times. Perhaps we would do well to apply them now?
For instance, when governments were creating 'war games', Fuller advocated 'Peace Games.' He thought that eventually, most learning would happen through two-way screens, and people would be most adaptable if they were more mobile (mobile homes).
Read
February 28, 2023Buckminster Fuller's Universe: His Life and Work by L. Steven Sieden (2000)
November 28, 2023
Having at first become aware of Buckminster Fuller's IDEAS at Grammar School • whilst taking my GCE 'A' Level Exams in Maths Pure, Maths Applied, Physics & ART • in preparation for my training as a Pilot and Upper Airspace Air Traffic Controller, my life-long appreciation of an in depth understanding of his importance was first revealed by way of his very concept of Vector Equilibrium.
http://letschangetheworld.ning.com/pr...#
... and there has been for me no better in depth revelation of his Life and Work than that written by Lloyd Steven Sieden
http://letschangetheworld.ning.com/pr...#
http://letschangetheworld.ning.com/pr...#
... and there has been for me no better in depth revelation of his Life and Work than that written by Lloyd Steven Sieden
http://letschangetheworld.ning.com/pr...#
Read
March 8, 2018Thorough but dry. Did not finish.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews