Richard Buckminster Fuller Jr. was born in Milton, Massachusetts in 1895 to Richard Buckminster Fuller Sr., a merchant-importer, and Caroline Wolcott Andrews. Buckminster or “Bucky” was plagued by poor eyesight from a young age and struggled in school, especially geometry, its abstract explanations were incomprehensible to him. Fortunately, Buckminster was able to find solace in creating. Many childhood summers with his family were spent in Bear Island, Maine, where he experimented with mechanical design, including the invention of a human, propelled umbrella-like apparatus for boat propulsion. [1]

As a young man, Buckminster joined the ranks of five generations of Fuller men before him and began studies at Harvard University. The males were not the only ones with ties to the prestigious college, Buckminster’s great-aunt, Margaret Fuller, a well-known author, and feminist was the first woman allowed to study in Harvard’s libraries. No doubt his family had high hopes for his academic success. Buckminster did not share this dream and was dismissed from Harvard his freshman year for cutting his midterm exams to invite a chorus line to an expensive dinner in New York which he billed to his family’s tab. After the expulsion, he was sent to work in a cotton-mill in Quebec where he developed a practical understanding of machinery and engineering. His accomplishments as a machinist would allow him to be re-admitted to Harvard but he was again dismissed, the second time for what was determined to be an insufficient interest in the offered curriculum. After leaving Harvard, Buckminster went to New York to work at the meatpacking firm Armour and Company.

In 1917, with World War I in full swing, Buckminster joined the U.S. Navy and married Anne Hewlett. Working on a crash boat patrolling the coast of Maine, he designed and utilized a boom for quickly rescuing aircraft and their pilots out of the water before either succumbed to drowning. After the war ended, his technological contributions landed him a period of study at the Annapolis Naval Academy. Unlike the Harvard courses, Buckminster understood the Naval studies’ focus on global communications, complex systems, efficiency, and technology- which would later become the inspiration for his future work. [2]

Buckminster’s first foray into building occurred in 1922 when he founded the Stockade Building System with his father-in-law, James Monroe Hewlett. The company manufactured fibrous blocks made from compressed wood shavings or Excelsior. The blocks were punctured by holes which were then filled with concrete and attached by concrete lintels. [3] The very same year the Fullers four-year-old daughter Alexandra passed away from complications related to contracting influenza, polio, and spinal meningitis. The Fuller’s second daughter Allegra was born in 1927. Shortly after Allegra’s birth, financial issues forced Hewlett and Buckminster to sell the Stockade Building System Company. Unemployed, Buckminster became severely depressed and contemplated suicide, blaming himself for his failed career and Alexandra’s death, primarily his inadequacy to provide her with appropriate living conditions, and vowed to do better.

Over the course of his life, Fuller completed many projects including 4D Lightful Towers, the 4D Dymaxion House, the  Dymaxion Dwelling Machine, the Dymaxion car, the Dymaxion Bathroom, the Dymaxion Deployment Unit, the Dymaxion map, and the Geodesic Dome. Buckminster Fuller would write up to thirty books and receive forty-seven honorary doctorate degrees. He passed away on July 1, 1983

By: Tara Seaver

[1] Michael John Gorman, Designing for Mobility (Milan: Skira editore, 2005), 20.

[2] J. Baldwin, BuckyWorks: Buckminster Fuller’s Ideas for Today, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996), 4.

[3] Michael John Gorman, Designing for Mobility (Milan: Skira editore, 2005), 21.