BuckyWorks: Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today

Often alluded to as a 20th-century Leonardo da Vinci, R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was a visionary of the modern age. As an architect, inventor, engineer, writer, mathematician, and educator, his utopian humanism was evident in the way he devoted his life to designing objects, including buildings and cars, that would solve many of the problems of modern living. He was an early proponent of geodesic domes--semispherical structures made up of incredibly light and extremely strong triangular components--which he recommended for economical and energy-efficient housing and other purposes. An entire chapter in this engaging book is devoted to domes; other chapters cover Fuller's far-reaching ideas on the Dymaxion House, Dymaxion Transportation, Synergetics, and Megastructures. ("Dymaxion" was a term Fuller coined to describe getting the most output from minimal input of energy and materials.) With more than 200 black-and-white photos and drawings, this is a wonderfully nontechnical introduction to and celebration of the man, his remarkable inventions, and their modern-day relevance.