     |
|
||||
|
Notes 1. R.B. Fuller and R. Marks, The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1973, p. 20. In Volume 35 of the Chronofile, Fuller's collected personal papers, there is an article outlining the AIA's strong stance against standardization of architectural design, Cities Becoming 'Peas of One Pod,' Architects Warn, dated May 17, 1928, from the St. Louis Star. Fuller claimed that he presented the house on May 16 at the AIA's annual meeting in St. Louis. Neither Fuller nor the Dymaxion House are mentioned in it. (Chronofile, Volume 35, 1928, The R. Buckminster Fuller Papers, Stanford University, Stanford, CA) 2. Citation as reprinted in Richard Guy Wilson, The AIA Gold Medal, New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1984, p. 210. 3. For a complete inventory of Fuller's housing designs see James Ward, ed., The Artifacts of Buckminster Fuller, New York: Garland Publishing, 1985. Two other excellent sources for Fuller's housing designs are J. Baldwin, BuckyWorks: Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today, New York: J. Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996, and The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller. 4. The 4D House is, by nature, a living environment. This aspect of the geodesic dome is often overlooked since it is usually employed for industrial or commercial applications. Fuller considered the geodesic dome to be an environmental valve that could "envelop living quarters, gardens, lawns, acres or cities" and could cause "the conventional house to become, if not obsolete, at least increasingly superfluous." (The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, p. 65) 5. In the introduction to Forget Fuller?, ANY No. 17, Reinhold Martin describes the ambivalent attitude of the architectural profession toward Fuller: "The architectural establishment treated Fuller with a mixture of deference and skepticism during his lifetime, despite his prodigious achievements. He endured rejection at the hands of the American Institute of Architects early in his career, only to be celebrated in the inaugural issue of Perspecta in 1952 as one of three "new directions" in architecture, along with Philip Johnson and Paul Rudolph. Whereupon Johnson in turn acknowledged a certain respect for Fuller even as he dismissed him as a delirious technician in "The Seven Crutches of Modern Architecture," published two years later in the same journal." (ANY, No. 17, 1997, p. 15) 6. Loretta Lorance, Fuller, R. Buckminster, International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture, Volume 1: Architects, Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 1983, pp. 281-3: 283. 7. For typical treatments of Fuller's work see Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 3rd ed., 1992, which discusses Fuller's work as an alternative to modernist architecture; William J.R. Curtis, Modern Architecture Since 1900, 3rd ed., 1996; and Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, 1960, which praises Fuller's use of technology. Fuller's designs, especially the Dymaxion House and the Wichita House, are usually treated as prototypes for futuristic housing as in Yesterday's Houses of Tomorrow: Innovative American Homes 1850 to 1950, H. Ward Jandl and others, 1991. 8. Fuller had no professional training in any field and described himself as an anticipatory comprehensive designer which means he was a generalist trying to use present technology to anticipate future needs. (BuckyWorks, pp. 62-65) He did receive "limited formal education" at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, where he spent "a few months" in 1917. (The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, p. 13, and BuckyWorks, p.4) 9. Fuller used mathematics to justify his radial or circular design: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. A circular configuration is preferred because in a circle there is a consistent distance, the diameter, from the center to all points on the perimeter. In a house with a radial plan all parts would be quickly and easily accessed from the center. Therefore, this configuration would help its inhabitants save time which he believed was the most important commodity of modern living. Fuller believed time was replacing gold as the economic standard: "Without legislation recognizing it, the world is now on a time standard instead of a gold standard in temporal things. Wasting time is exactly the same as throwing away gold used to be. Therefore, we are forced to design and figure in the fourth dimension which is time." (R. Buckminster Fuller, 4D Time Lock, Chicago: The Author, 1928, p. 10) There is second explanation on page 15 and a third on page 16. 10. No documentation has been found to date to verify that Fuller actually made the presentation at the 1928 AIA convention. Drafts of two texts that appear to be the speech he could have given to the AIA and a rejoinder he wrote upon his return are in Volume 33 of the Chronofile. As far as appreciating Fuller's contributions to architecture, architects, historians and critics differ widely in their evaluation of Fuller's significance. The misunderstanding of his intentions still evokes dismissal of his work. For example, in what the publishers describe as a "pioneering critical survey of the most significant European and North American statements of architectural theory," Hanno-Walter Kruft writes: "With...Fuller...we find all conventional concepts of architecture scattered to the winds. Fuller saw architecture as applied technology — an arrangement of universal laws expressed in terms of energy, mathematics, rationality...Fuller's lightweight constructions serve a function as large temporary buildings for exhibitions and similar purposes but they cannot be considered as architecture, nor should the principles behind them be considered as relevant to architecture." (A History of Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to the Present, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994, pp. 438-9). Curiously, Kruft seems to have included Fuller simply to discredit him. If the two references to Fuller listed in the bibliography and footnotes are his primary sources of information, it is easy to understand Kruft's misreading of him. 11. Cities Becoming 'Peas of One Pod,' p. 5. 12. Ibid., p. 5. 13. Fuller sent 4D Time Lock to an impressive list of prominent people including Henry Ford, Bruce Barton, Ralph T. Walker, Christopher Morley, and the presidents of Harvard University, M.I.T. and the University of Chicago. A complete list, with replies, is given on pages 38-54 in the 1972 edition of the book. 14. The Chronofile documents the extensive network of acquaintances in the architectural and building professions Fuller developed as President of Stockade Building System. Stockade was acquired by the Celotex Company in 1927 after Hewlett sold his shares and Fuller was forced out. (Chronofile, Vols. 27-32, 1923-1927) 15'Dymaxion' is a combination of 'dynamism,' 'maximum,' and 'ion.' Fuller claimed that the word 'dymaxion' was the result of a collaborative effort between himself and Waldo Warren, an advertising specialist. To date, no confirmation or contradiction has been found in either Fuller's or Marshall Field's archives. For an account of the process through which 'Dymaxion' was developed see The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, p. 21. 16. Marshall Field asked Fuller to display the model in the Interior Design galleries because the store was promoting furniture recently purchased in Europe. Fuller claimed that the store's intention was to make the 'advanced design' of the furniture appear conservative in relation to the design of the house. (The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, p. 21) There is a two-minute clip in the movie Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud (Simon & Goodman, 1997) that shows Fuller presenting the model. In the movie, Antonio Salemme, a sculptor, explains that Fuller made the model in six months while staying in Salemme's Greenwich Village studio and then presented it to the Architectural League. Salemme must be talking about the second model for the Dymaxion House even though the clip shows the model displayed at Marshall Field. Fuller was living in Chicago when the first model was made and did not move to New York until after April 1929. (Chronofile, Vols. 35-36, 1928-1929) 17. These included a electric stove, dishwasher, 3-minute laundry unit, and a central ventilating system that removed dust from the air and maintained an optimal temperature. For a more complete inventory see Joseph Corn and Brian Horrigan, Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, pp. 67-69. 18. This calculation is based on the fact that the first model was exhibited at the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art from May 20-25, 1929, and the second model was exhibited in the same gallery from March 12-14, 1930. (Chronofile, Vol. 35, 1929 and Vol. 37, 1930) 19. This second model is the one that is most well-known and its metallic, spaceship-like appearance is one aspect that contributed to its being classified as fantastic or futuristic. Although the use of aluminum for the frame (such as the 1931 Aluminaire House by A.L Kocher and A. Frey) or for the cladding of a building (most notably Otto Wagner's Die Zeit, 1902) was explored, the convention of an orthogonal footprint was maintained unlike Fuller's hexagonal living area suspended above the ground from the central mast. In addition, there are a number architects who have investigated the possibilities of a central mast building throughout the twentieth century including Frank Lloyd Wright (St. Marks Tower Project, 1929, and Johnson Wax Research Tower, Racine, WI, 1949), George Keck (House of Tomorrow, Michigan City, IN, 1933), Richard Neutra and Peter Pfisterer (Diatom-One-Plus-Two House Project, 1926). A second factor strongly contributing to the relegation of the Dymaxion House to the realm of futuristic housing was the inclusion of the numerous appliances and mechanical systems. This was not as fantastic as critics and historians claim. Although some of the appliances Fuller specified, especially the 3-minute laundry unit, were too complicated for production in the late 1920s, the majority of the appliances and systems Fuller included were available. (See my article Promises, Promises: Household Appliances in the 1920s, Part 3: Architecture, June 1998) 20. According to Fuller: "The new tool of this age is metal from which has been born mechanics or directed mechanical motion, which is governed fourth dimensional design. It is metal that has made possible the automobile, the railroad, the airplane, telephone, wireless, the clothes on our back and all our food, our city skyscraper. Generally, and structurally speaking, we use it in our houses in the form of nails only. Structurally the characteristic of the new tool, metal, different from any of the tools of other ages, is its fibre or tensile strength, tremendously in excess of any other tensile unit ever created." (4D Time Lock, p. 4, italics in the original) 21. This is somewhat ironic because, except for the geodesic dome, Fuller intended that his houses be taken apart, crated and shipped to the site for assembly by hand when relocated. Ideally, the geodesic dome would be flown to its new site. See note 39 below. 22. The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, p. 13. 23. Fuller claimed that his understanding of architecture and building was learned from practical experience only and primarily during his years at Stockade: "That is when I really learned the building business...And the experience made me realize that craft building — in which each house is a pilot model for a design which never has any runs — is an art which belongs in the middle ages." (The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, p. 13) 24. Fuller's knowledge of 1920s architecture and architectural theory was much more greater than he admitted. In Vol. 34 of the Chronofile is a five-page reference list for 4D Time Lock. Although it cannot be known how many of these items Fuller actually read, the fact that he included them indicates his familiarity with the architectural currents of the 1920s. These two are items number 4 and 56 on his reference list. (Chronofile, Vol. 34, 1928) 25. Wright first presented "The Art and Craft of the Machine" as a lecture in 1901. He reworked it into an essay. In The Cause of Architecture consisted of two separate series published in Architectural Record during 1927 and 1928, respectively. Wright continued the argument of The Art and Craft of the Machine in the 1927 series in which he discussed the pros and cons of the use of the machine, or, as he described it, "the architect's tool." In the 1928 series, Wright was more concerned with design. In both he argued against allowing standardization to destroy the art of building. 26. Frank Lloyd Wright, In the Cause of Architecture: What "Styles" Mean to the Architect, The Architectural Record (Vol. 63, No. 2) February 1928, pp. 145-151: 146. This idea is expressed in Wright's textile block houses from the first half of the 1920s, as seen in the 1923 house, La Miniatura, he designed for Alice Millard. Wright used pre-fabricated and mass-produced components but in a traditional manner: different elements were brought together to produce a unified and aesthetic building. 27. 4D Time Lock, p. 79. It is not clear to what Fuller is referring when he describes Corbusier's "telegraphic style of notion." It may be that he thought Corbusier was clear and concise. 28. Chronofile, Vol. 30, 1927-28. Fuller Houses was the original name of the 4D/Dymaxion House project. Fuller reused "Fuller Houses" for the company he created in 1945 to manufacture his post-World War II housing design. 29. There is no documentation in the Chronofile for the beginning of the Fuller Houses project. It is first mentioned on November 22, 1927 in the diary by Fuller's wife, Anne, who noted that Fuller talked about 'Fuller Houses' with a salesman from Stockade. (Vol. 30, 1927-28) Therefore, how much influence Towards a New Architecture might have exerted on Fuller is unknown 30. Only the most significant similarities will be discussed in this essay. For Le Corbusier, the page numbers in the following notes are from: Towards A New Architecture, New York: Dover Publications, 1986. 31. Fuller claimed that "The new Ford cost approximately $43,000,000 for its first single unit, but on a basis of an infinity of reproductions, each of the latter cost but $500...Price varies with models and sizes." Therefore, Fuller believed, mass-production would serve to lower the cost of housing in the same manner: "It was inevitable...that a complete house with every requirement, industrially to be fashioned, should eventually be evolved...Tho [sic] it cost 100 million if but one unit were constructed, the machinery, thereto attendant, and distribution system having been set up, replicas may be had for close to the material cost, or on a weight basis as all shipping or machinery is sold." (Buckminster Fuller, "Tree-Like Style of Dwelling Is Planned," The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, December 18, 1928, p. 5) Le Corbusier briefly mentioned this under the heading of A question of a new spirit. (Towards A New Architecture, p. 264) 32. Towards A New Architecture, pp. 242-43. 33. Towards A New Architecture, pp. 247-48. See note 13 for a brief discussion of Fuller's interest in servants and housekeeping. 34. Corbusier introduced this phrase in Towards A New Architecture, see p. 4. Although truncating Corbusier's phrase would have been a typical word game for Fuller, "machine for living" is thought to have first been associated with Fuller in the article "Buckminster Fuller: The Dymaxion Architect," Time, Vol. 83, No. 2, January 10, 1964, p. 48. Amusingly, the article refers to Corbusier's axiom "machine for living in" (machine à habiter) as "machine-for-living." Ed Applewhite, who compiled a the four volume Synergetics Dictionary, a catalogue of Fuller's words and sayings, believes "machine for living" was first used relationship to Fuller's work in The Dymaxion Architect. 35. Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989, p. 326. 36. As with Fuller and the Dymaxion House, the maturation of the ideas Corbusier expressed in the Villa Savoye resulted from a long period of development. The Villa Savoye is considered to be the culmination of ideas which were initiated with Corbusier's 1919-1920 project for the Citrohan House. For a history of this development see Tim Benton, Villa Savoye and the Architects' Practice, in H. Allen Brooks, ed., Le Corbusier: The Garland Essays, New York: Garland, 1987, pp. 83-105 and Tim Benton, The Villas of Le Corbusier, 1920-1930, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. 37. Fuller addresses the issue of mobility in 4D Time Lock on page 63 as part of The 4D Letters Patent where he writes: "In a dwelling intended for quick and easy and erection and subsequent moving from place to place with relatively great facility, the weight of the structure itself becomes a significant item." A lengthy discussion of mobility is provided in the reproduction of his August 31, 1928 letter to George Buffington. The excerpts relevant to the issue of mobility are as follows:
38. The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller, p. 13. 39. Ibid., pp. 17-18. In the 1950s, Fuller's ideal of transporting houses by air was realized when geodesic domes were transported by helicopters. Fuller was enamored by the technology of the airplane and the potential he saw in using the sky as a second "ocean." According to Fuller, the sky ocean, unlike the water ocean, completely surrounds the Earth and provides direct access to all points on it. In terms of using the airplane as a means of transporting assembled buildings, there are limitations placed upon the size and weight of the structures. Of course, reducing the weight of buildings was one of Fuller's design criteria. And, ground transportation systems do impose limitations upon the design of mass-produced housing. For example, Allan Wallis argued that the width of trailers was restricted by the width of highway lanes in Wheel Estate: The Rise and Decline of Mobile Homes, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 40. Mies van der Rohe, "Industrielles Bauen", G, no. 3, June 10, 1924: 8. This quote was taken from the translation in Philip C. Johnson, Mies van der Rohe. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1947. 41. For a brief history of the magazine and Mies's relationship to it, see Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 105-108. Fuller did study German while a student at Harvard in 1913, but, received a "D" in the class. (Harvard University Archives, Richard Buckminster Fuller Student Record Card) Whether or not he was proficient enough in German to read Mies's article in the original remains unknown. 42. 4D Time Lock, p. 8. |
||||
