You Belong to the Universe
Buckminster Fuller and the Future
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- $47.99
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- $47.99
Publisher Description
A compelling call to apply Buckminster Fuller's creative problem-solving to present-day problems
A self-professed "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist," the inventor Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was undoubtedly a visionary. Fuller's creations often bordered on the realm of science fiction, ranging from the freestanding geodesic dome to the three-wheel Dymaxion car to a bathroom requiring neither plumbing nor sewage. Yet in spite of his brilliant mind and life-long devotion to serving mankind, Fuller's expansive ideas were often dismissed, and have faded from public memory since his death.
You Belong to the Universe documents Fuller's six-decade quest to "make the world work for one hundred percent of humanity." Critic and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats sets out to revive Fuller's unconventional practice of comprehensive anticipatory design, placing Fuller's philosophy in a modern context and dispelling much of the mythology surrounding Fuller's life. Keats argues that Fuller's life and ideas, namely doing "the most with the least," are now more relevant than ever as humanity struggles to meet the demands of an exploding world population with finite resources. Delving deeply into Buckminster Fuller's colorful world, Keats applies Fuller's most important concepts to present-day issues, arguing that his ideas are now not only feasible, but necessary.
From transportation to climate change, urban design to education, You Belong to the Universe demonstrates that Fuller's holistic problem-solving techniques may be the only means of addressing some of the world's most pressing issues. Keats's timely book challenges each of us to become comprehensive anticipatory design scientists, providing the necessary tools for continuing Fuller's legacy of improving the world.
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Architect and designer Buckminster Fuller (1895 1983) may no longer hold the kind of counterculture cachet he had in the 1960s, but writer and artist Keats (Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age) emphasizes his ideas without ignoring his often controversial accomplishments in a biography that manages to be enthusiastic without descending into hagiography. Fuller a Harvard dropout, autodidact, and relentless self-promoter believed that technology would liberate man from work and make politics unnecessary. He thrilled audiences "at least until the buzz wore off the following morning," though Keats points out that Fuller's designs did sometimes match his hype. The geodesic dome remains a breakthrough, far lighter and stronger than traditional dome designs. Fuller's Dymaxion world map portrays continents with much less distortion than the popular Mercator or Gall-Peters projections and helped him promote his technocratic "world game" solution to the world's problems. His three-wheeled Dymaxion car had no particular advantages, but his Dymaxion house design circular, domed, and sheathed in aluminum was strong, lightweight, cheap to manufacture, and easy to assemble, though only one prototype was ever built and lived in. Keats's insightful account of this impressive American innovator reveals a man who managed to be "both corporate and antiestablishment," more pragmatic than concerned with resolving contradictions.
