Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller (often referred to as "Bucky") (1895-1983) was an American visionary, designer, architect, and inventor. He was concerned with the question of whether humanity has a chance to survive successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how. He devoted his life to this question, trying to find out what an individual like him could do to improve humanity's condition, feeling that large organizations, governments, and private enterprises were unable to do so.
Fuller has designed a house that can be built by a single person in a matter of days, user-friendly plumbing technology, buildings which self-air condition via ventilation design, world energy grid, etc. He has also designed a comprehensive world-saving plan, including such things as architectural designs and a world energy grid, outlined in his book Critical Path. He called his book Critical Path because he felt that humans will not implement this plan until they have reached a state of emergency.
Fuller wrote twenty-seven additional books, coining and popularizing terms such as "spaceship earth", ephemeralization, and synergetics. He also created a large number of inventions, mostly in design and architecture, notably the geodesic dome. His work is a major source of inspiration for the Hexayurt. Most of his inventions never made it into production, and he was strongly criticized in most of the fields that he tried to influence (such as architecture), or simply dismissed as a hopeless utopian. Fuller's proponents believe that his work has not received the attention it deserves.
Late in his life, he traveled the world giving lectures.
Quotes
"To make the world work for a 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation and without ecological offense or the disadvantage of any one." / Sustainable livelihood
"Of course, our failures are a consequence of many factors, but possibly one of the most important is the fact that society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking."
|
"If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do ...
|
"We are here as local information harvesters, local problem-solvers in support of the integrity of eternally regenerative Universe. The fact that we get away from physical problems doesn’t mean we go away from problems. The problems are really rarely physical." Only Integrity is Going to Count (1983)
"There is something patently insane about all the typewriters sleeping with all the beautiful plumbing in the beautiful office buildings — and all the people sleeping in the slums."
|
Wendell Berry · Buckminster Fuller · Gandhi · Carl Sagan · UK
Quotes about community action and the power of community
Interwiki links
- Wikipedia:Buckminster Fuller
- Buckminster Fuller on wikiquote
References
This page includes Creative Commons Licensed content from the Sustainable community action wiki on Wikia. |