All Hail Bucky
Possibly the greatest innovator of the 20th Century, Buckminster Fuller was a genius, casting off old form and function and looking at everything holistically to find true value. Essentially most famous for his geodesic domes, Bucky combined math and reality to ignore the constraints of the present. His inspiration faded as he was not received well publicly. Now, in the times of our global warming, international mistrust, and insecurity about the future, we are Bucky-less when we most need his kind of enthusiasm about technology’s potential. While many now put stock in technology to solve our problems, but then cast it off as the work of higher powers for another time, Fuller took action and created solutions. At the time, many ignored his bombastic, imaginative designs and few took him seriously. At the present, however, there are no leaders as daring as he to rethink everything altogether.
One of Bucky’s eccentricities was that he would wear 3 watches at one time so that he could keep up with the time at home, where he currently was traveling to, and where he was going next. This speaks to the futurist mindset that made him so great.
Now, with the BFI in his name (Buckminster Fuller Institute), we remember what could have been an astounding beginning. Instead, in many ways we are only left with familiarity of his ideas, but few who threaten to dream and act on concepts in the way that Bucky did. A sad loss to America’s history, his name recognition is now far overshadowed by the likes of modern day reality t.v. stars.
His utopian ideals did not take off, but we could probably use another Buckminster Fuller again any day now – if not just to shake up our perceptions.
Leave a Reply