The Symbiosis of The Past and Future Through the Prism of Buckminster Fuller

·        Was this possibility of a vision architecture a medium through which architects conveyed the visual stimulation of an experience?

·        Does Music, sound or light still govern the way we design as Peter Cook predicted in the 70’s?

Since its very beginning architecture has always been a profession interested in pursuing what is beyond, what we can’t grasp, while at the same time, informing and being informed by the tension between possibilities along the way. From the 18th century and Piranesi, this out of the box emerging ideas did not only shape the way we are practicing architecture today, but shaped our dogma, our approach towards the challenges that we set out to deal with. Thus, the true manifestation of the way we are practicing architecture could be interpreted in Fuller’s phrase “Often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.”[1]

Peter Cook during the 70’s in his book about experimental architecture conveyed just that. By introducing this book to the public, he highlighted the capacity of dwellings to “become instruments for discovering (or that there might, at any rate, be a general breakdown between the closed notion of work, play, education, movement and the rest.)”[2] He saw architecture as not something static, but rather as something resembling more a living organism as shown in figure 1. An organism in the process of metamorphosis, “as the fundamental element in survival, whereas in the past architecture tended to solidify around certain points in the general progress.”[3]

If Le Corbusier’s radiant city is for some the epitome of imposed “arrogance” upon a city’s fabric, then, on that base Fuller’s projects can be seen through a prism of conniving or even misleading utopianism. From his proposal of the Tetra City – an underwater city powered by nuclear submarines, the Triton City – a pyramid shape floating city housing thousands in Tokyo bay. The Ninth cloud, an air balloon inflatable spherical city in the clouds that has the ability to travel in the atmosphere and anchor in specific places along the way. To the most eccentric project of his for some, as it intervened with the familiarity of an existing structure, a transparent protective geometric dome covering NYC and more specifically Manhattan’s Midtown.

Fuller was an engineer, mathematician, architect, poet, philosopher, and an environmentalist. His work conveyed and in my opinion still conveys primitive principles of design, like the individual or community housing autonomy, the ephemeral characteristics of human activity, rejecting any short of “structure”, especially financial structure, by designing what we resemble today as sci-fi spaceships of the future. His project called Dymaxion House conveys just that. A structure refusing to touch the realistic conditions of our given context, the ground, while his floating cities could and should be seen as autonomous entities that ‘refuse to pay rent to any short of landlord.’

Richard Buckminster Fuller was among the very few architects that drafted a budget sheet for the majority of his utopian projects in an effort to present the architect as a producer that is subjected to the laws of the free market as much as any other profession.[4]  There was interest in  mass-producing some of his utopian projects, however, his hardcore approach towards the dedication he had in relation to his design made it very difficult for investors to devote in his projects. Many, blame him that because of that obsession of his, the world failed to experience ‘yesterdays the projects of tomorrow’, however, his abnegation shows his dedication towards his proposed counter realities, as if you can’t do the world a better place, you have to at least try not to make it worst. Maybe, the world was not ready for an alternative, or maybe this alternative was not what the world needed at the time. In any way, the struggle for utopia is an unorthodox - non linear process.

[1] Blauvelt, Andrew, Greg Castillo, and Esther Choi. Hippie Modernism the Struggle for Utopia. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2015, p.73

[2] P. Cook. “The Future of Architecture Lies in the Brain” in Experimental Architecture. New York:

Universe, 1970: 139

[3] P. Cook. “The Future of Architecture Lies in the Brain” in Experimental Architecture. New York:

Universe, 1970: 138

[4] Blauvelt, Andrew, Greg Castillo, and Esther Choi. Hippie Modernism the Struggle for Utopia. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2015, p.135