720 Architecture
Baldwin, J. BuckyWorks: Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today. (Illus.) NY: Wiley, 1997. xi+243pp. $19.95 (paper). 95-26003. ISBN 0-471-19812-9. Index; C.I.P.
YA–T, GA +
This book is a combination of Buckminster Fuller's personal history and architectural ideas, presented in an easy-to-read, breezy style with short chapters and numerous photos and illustrations. The extremely stable nature of geodesic patterns is exhibited in nature in some vertebrate animals; in tiny radiolaria, enabling them to withstand deep sea pressures; in viruses; and in the 60-atom carbon molecule C60 named buckminsterfullerene, whose stability is explained by its pentagon-hexagon pattern, also seen on a soccer ball. Synergetics (his term) requires 60-degree, not 90-degree, angles. Two 60-degree triangles, arranged synergetically, make a tetrahedron of four triangles, an enormous advantage in efficiency of structure. The book has diagrams and explanations of these and other ideas applied to housing, cars, and boats; it also discusses airflow inside Fuller's domelike buildings and the resultant "chilling effect." Fuller's personal ideas were controversial and not accepted by the scientific community. He lacked credibility among scientists because he had no earned college degrees (although he did receive 47 honorary degrees). He openly studied numerology, disputed Darwin, and stated that apes are not the ancestors of humans, but represent instead the devolution of humans ("If gymnasts only married gymnasts, we'd come to monkeys very quickly.") Other of Fuller's views are that dolphins evolved from Polynesians who swam a lot and that homosexuality is a natural aspect of evolution in a species that no longer needs a high rate of reproduction. He denounced religion: "The next most dangerous thing to the atomic bomb is organized religion." Author Baldwin speculates that the difficulties Fuller's geodesic domes had in gaining acceptance among mortgage lenders and building code inspectors may have been influenced by his reputation as a radical. The world needs thinkers; he certainly was that. The author studied with him and knew his ideas well. This book is an interesting overall view of a complex man and his contributions to architecture.—Sonja Johansen, Georgetown, ME
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