BuckyWorks: Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today

by J. Baldwin

"A pleasure to read." -Architectural Review

"A wonderful, nontechnical introduction to one of this century's most fascinating minds." -Whole Earth Review

"Original . . . [and] valuable, because it describes . . . Fuller's original techniques." -Architectural Record.

Architect, mathematician, engineer, inventor, visionary humanist, educator, inspirational orator, and bestselling author, R. Buckminster Fuller has been rightly called "the 20th-century Leonardo da Vinci." Written by a fellow inventor who worked with Fuller for more than three decades, BuckyWorks is an inspiring celebration of the man, his ideas, his inventions -and his legacy for our future. Featuring over 200 photographs and drawings, plus dozens of fascinating excerpts from Fuller's lectures and conversations with the author, this book offers a breathtaking inside look at one of the truly great minds of our time.

J. BALDWIN is an inventor and teacher who worked under, with, and for R. Buckminster Fuller for more than three decades. He served as an editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and the Whole Earth Review for 25 years.

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture, Design, Science

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 16, 1996

Reviews

[Ruth Temple · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved Bucky Fuller's brain - and works - since I was a child. So there's a fellow who has built a one-man theatrical work based on his life, as if given by himself as a talk at some point in his vibrant eighties. We saw it years ago, presented by the author. We saw it again in 2014 in San Jose, with a new actor who gets the idiom right; with an added soundscape; with live video (see the tiny camera there?) cutting in and out with the lovely projections on the back scrim just artfully - and it was indeed as moving. J Baldwin worked with Bucky for several decades, and here tells many of the stories; a trufan for all the right reasons, holds out hope that someone will come along and pick up this or that invention and bring it to practical production. It could happen. A practical engineer, he also explains exactly why domes are always going to leak, and what to do, or move on to tensegral structures or fly-eye designs like the blue thing on the cover; faults in early designs are laid out to view along with the genius that came up with so very many amazing ideas. Well worth any creative person's reading.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My notes and quotes:

Today's automobile fleet, for example, is about 6% efficient overall. Out of every $100.00 spent on fuel, about $94.00 is wasted in various ways. Some of the waste is inherent in entropic physical processes, but there is enormous room for improvement. That pathetic 6% efficiency is not the result of greedy plotting by auto and oil companies, it is the result of widespread ignorance. Few people think about their car's radiator, for example, a component engineered to throw away heat that their money just bought. Producing that heat also produced pollution. Both are waste. Waste is always a sign of poor design; pollution is a measure of inefficiency. The toll on consumer finances and the environment is enormous. Approximately 1% of humanity is scientists or engineers, and most of them are too specialized to understand the global effects of their work. The rest of humanity is technologically (and ecologically) illiterate. (p. 64).

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, solid (if a bit superficial) intro to the life and work of R. Buckminster Fuller. I've used it to teach a college class and found I had to supplement with other texts. Fuller was a fine thinker, but a poor communicator, largely owing to his propensity for coining tone-deaf neologisms. And he was not always as original a thinker as he and others made him out to be (Alexander Graham Bell was working with geodesic structures long before Fuller), but he was a magnificent dreamer, and this book offers a nice peek into some of those dreams. Great illustrations!

Kenner's Bucky: A Guided Tour of Buckminster Fuller does a better job of getting to the heart of Fuller's thinking, and if you want to go directly to the font, Fuller's own Critical Path is a nice place to start.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not an easy read. Parts of it are quite technical, but it's always interesting. Buckminster Fuller was definitely a visionary, ahead of his time. He was an architect, artist, scientist, inventor, and philosopher.

Bucky's ideas are still valid today. One of my favorite things about Bucky is that he was concerned with making everybody's lives better, thru architecture, construction, manufacturing, and design. He was concerned with not just one country's people, not just people of means. He was a true humanitarian who was always looking for ways to make the world more livable.

[David Schuster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. What a fun looney. I was impressed by Bucky's dedication and humility, but he was cray cray. The author was clearly one of his disciples, and was correspondingly gentle when discussing his majorly weird stuff - Synerhypergeticallity, etc. It was a very quick read, and I'm glad I know more about the man. I might take a decade and eat only steak, prunes, and strong tea, too. Who knows.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting descriptions of Bucky's theories and works, though the author's tone of "this is obviously the best idea ever" becomes tiresome quickly. Lots of photos and drawings.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit wacky toward the end, but I think that's just the way Bucky would have wanted it. Amazing pictures and explanations.