R. Buckminster Fuller was born on July 12, 1895 in Milton Massachusetts. He was known to most as a designer, architect, poet, educator, engineer, philosopher, and environmentalist. He believed that many of the world’s problems were due to hunger and homelessness, so he spent his life solving these issues through inexpensive and efficient design. Recognizing the inefficiency of the automobile, Bucky spent the late twenties designing a car that would incorporate the engineering advances of the airplane. In 1933, he presented the first prototype of the Dymaxion car. The Dymaxion car could hold twelve passengers, go 120 miles per hour and used half the gas of the standard car, utilizing aerodynamics construction and only three wheels. Another one of his projects was the 4D tower, a lightweight, prefabricated, multi-storey apartment tower to be delivered anywhere in the world by airship. Once delivered the towers would generate their own light and heat with an independent sewage disposal system. The project that made Fuller’s name was the 1929 Dymaxion House, which he unveiled in the interior decorating department of the Chicago department store, Marshall-Field. The name Dymaxion was coined by the marketer Waldo Warren who, after listening to Fuller talk for two days, devised endless combinations of syllables taken from his highly idiosyncratic vocabulary. Finally he found the word which seemed to him best to dramatize Fuller’s personality. Made from lightweight steel, duraluminium and plastic and suspended from a central mast from which the rooms radiated in a hexagonal plan, the Dymaxion House was conceived not as private property, but rather as temporary, transportable space that could be rented, rather like a telephone issued by a telephone company.
Works Cited.
R. Buckminster Fuller, About R. Buckminster fuller. Dec. 12th, 2001. PBS.