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You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the future by Jonathon Keats <\/p>\n IN 1927 the suicidal manager of a building materials company, Richard Buckminster (\u201cBucky\u201d) Fuller, stood by the shores of Lake Michigan and decided he might as well live. A stern voice inside him intimated that his life after all had a purpose, \u201cwhich could be fulfilled only by sharing his mind with the world\u201d.<\/p>\n And share it he did, tirelessly for over half a century, with houses hung from masts, cars with inflatable wings, a brilliant and never-bettered\u00a0equal-area map of the world<\/a>, and concepts for massive open-access distance learning, domed cities and\u00a0a new kind of playful, collaborative politics<\/a>. The tsunami that Fuller\u2019s wing flap set in motion is even now rolling over us, improving our future through degree shows, galleries, museums and (now and again) in the real world.<\/p>\n Indeed, Fuller\u2019s\u201dcomprehensive anticipatory design scientists\u201d are ten-a-penny these days. Until last year, they were being churned out like sausages by the design interactions department at the\u00a0Royal College of Art<\/a>, London. Futurological events dominate the agendas of venues across New York, from the Institute for Public Knowledge to the\u00a0International Center of Photography<\/a>. \u201cScience Galleries\u201d, too, are popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain, from London to Bangalore.<\/p>\n In\u00a0You Belong to the Universe<\/i>, Jonathon Keats, himself a critic, artist and self-styled \u201cexperimental philosopher\u201d, looks hard into the mirror to find what of his difficult and sometimes pantaloonish hero may still be traced in the lineaments of your oh-so-modern \u201cdesign futurist\u201d.<\/p>\n Be in no doubt: Fuller deserves his visionary reputation. He grasped in his bones, as few have since, the dynamism of the universe. At the age of 21, Keats writes, \u201cBucky determined that the universe had no objects. Geometry described forces.\u201d<\/p>\n A child of the aviation era, he used materials sparingly, focusing entirely on their tensile properties and on the way they stood up to wind and weather. He called this approach \u201cdoing more with less\u201d. His light and sturdy geodesic dome became an icon of US ingenuity. He built one wherever his country sought influence, from India to Turkey to Japan.<\/p>\n Chapter by chapter, Keats asks how the future has served Fuller\u2019s ideas on city planning, transport, architecture, education. It\u2019s a risky scheme, because it invites you to set Fuller\u2019s visions up simply to knock them down again with the big stick of hindsight. But Keats is far too canny for that trap. He puts his subject into context, works hard to establish what would and would not be reasonable for him to know and imagine, and explains why the history of built and manufactured things turned out the way it has, sometimes fulfilling, but more often thwarting, Fuller\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n This ought to be a profoundly wrong-headed book, judging one man\u2019s ideas against the entire recent history of Spaceship Earth (another of Fuller\u2019s provocations). But\u00a0You Belong to the Universe<\/i>\u00a0says more about Fuller and his future in a few pages than some whole biographies, and renews one\u2019s interest \u2013 if not faith \u2013 in all those graduate design shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the future by Jonathon Keats reviewed for New Scientist,\u00a011 June 2016. IN 1927 the suicidal manager of a building materials company, Richard Buckminster (\u201cBucky\u201d) Fuller, stood by the shores of Lake … Continue reading
\nreviewed for New Scientist,\u00a011 June 2016.<\/a><\/p>\n