|
|
 |
The super-efficient prefab houses he designed in the '50s were originally called 4D homes, but he soon changed the company's name to something flashier: Dymaxion Homes. These super-smart structures were constructed of airplane materials, which were in abundance after World War II. And since no single piece weighed more than ten pounds, the entire house could be built by one person. They looked like space ships, and included rooms whose stated purposes were things like "grilling, music and dancing." They never went mass market, but pictures of Dymaxion homes dazzled the public.
His Dymaxion cars were equally snazzy; by the '60s, Fuller had switched his focus from individual spaces to communal living — which consumes fewer resources — and his cars reflected that. Each teardrop-shaped automobile held eleven passengers, got thirty miles to the gallon (very high for the time) and could travel at 120 miles per hour on a V8 engine. (They were early prototypes for a rocket-propelled model he never got around to.)
 |
| A model of Fuller's Dymaxion car, with a Dymaxion home standing behind it. (Dymaxion House and photograph from the Collections of The Henry Ford, Dearborn, MI. 1934 Dymaxion "2" 4D Transport courtesy of the National Automobile Museum, the Harrah Collection, Reno, NV.) |
For Fuller, being hip was a means to an end. |
But his most enduring renderings are of fantastical structures that depicted a future straight out of science-fiction: spheres (each housing several thousand "passengers") that would hover in midair high above the earth, and designs for floating cities in the sea that would free up fertile land on the continents. These weren't mere drawings, but actual diagrams — schematics — backed up by scientific principles that Fuller said proved they would work. With these, he managed to make the public confront the reality of its out-of-control resource consumption without alienating them by presenting a depressing, dystopic future. He was trying to show that a more earth-friendly lifestyle could be glamorous.
Which projects Fuller seriously thought could work is anyone's guess — I'm not sure he honestly believed we'd all move into giant spheres suspended in the air. But he must've thought the Dymaxion homes and cars could catch on. Unfortunately, they never did — as the suburbs metastasized into the wilderness, people stuck to their familiar ways, building the destructive, inefficient tract housing many of us still live in today. By the time his geodesic dome appeared at Montreal's World's Fair in 1967, it already looked retro.
 |
| A Dymaxion community as envisioned by Fuller. Such designs reflect the mid-century suburban ideal; later, he would shift his focus from individual to communal dwellings. (Model of Dymaxion Dwelling Machines community, ca. 1946, refabricated 2008. Photograph by Patrick Hobgood, Iannis Kandyliaris, and Ilias Papageorgiou.) |
But the drawings and blueprints he left behind are more than archaic curiosities. Whether we recognize it or not, much of the modern environmental movement's appeal is now rooted in aesthetics. Environmentalists are beginning to think like Fuller; they're realizing that societies are more easily cajoled than forced when it comes to making big changes, and as such, they've put significant effort into the design aspects of today's "green" market. The most stylish car is a Prius, the most stylish market a Whole Foods, and the most stylish home an environmentally friendly one. They may not be Dymaxion, but Fuller obviously grabbed our attention.
n°
Title image: Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao
Dome Over Manhattan, ca. 1960.
Black-and-white photograph mounted on board
13 3/4 x 18 3/8 in. (34.9 x 46.7 cm)
Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries
Image courtesy the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller.
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
 |
Will Doig writes for all sorts of fabulous and exciting magazines. He was
raised in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Today he lives in Brooklyn. |
©2008 Will Doig and Nerve.com |
|
|
|
