Fuller, Buckminster (1895-1983), was an American engineer and inventor who sought to express the technology and needs of modern life in buildings and enclosures of space. He had an intense interest in expanding people’s ability to control large areas of their environment and still have a close relationship with nature. Fuller believed that solutions should be comprehensive rather than particular. His designs show the influence of such natural molecular structures as the tetrahedron.
Fuller solved many design problems in such diversified fields as automobiles, buildings, and cities. His influence was spread through his lectures, teaching, and writings. A collection of essays he wrote discussing his theories and designs was published as Ideas and Integrities (1963). The title of Fuller’s book Synergetics (1975) was the word he used for the cooperation of nature and design.
Richard Buckminster Fuller was born in Milton, Mass. He gained international attention in 1927 by designing an all-metal prefabricated home called a Dymaxion house. After World War II (1939-1945), Fuller concentrated on designing large, lightweight prefabricated enclosures that he called geodesic domes.
