R. Buckminster Fuller, ca. 1917.

Lesson / Koan : Do more with less.

CUPtopia has always been a fan of Bucky’s spirit and his environmental attitude.

BTW,

At 116 years old, Bucky is as fresh as ever…as so is his utopia of ideas.

NOTE :

Fuller published more than 30 books, inventing and popularizing terms such as “Spaceship Earth“, ephemeralization, and synergetics.

Lesson / Koan : Doing whatever is okay.

Drop City by T. Coraghessan Boyle, 2003.

When individuals think of the perfect society, it is inevitably something different from that in which we currently reside. It usually involves less work, more wealth, less responsibility and more freedom. The presumption is that these aspects of life are not mutually exclusive. But the disappearance of working utopias in the world suggests that utopia is a much easier to write about in theory than execute in reality. T.C. Boyle’s ninth novel, ‘Drop City’, visits a working utopia not of the future, but of the past. Set in California and Alaska in the year 1970, Boyle’s vision of utopia is not particularly utopian. The grubby and spoiled children of America, given the chance to do exactly what they want to do. This naturally leads to conflict. Given this utopian vision, the world of the present seems much less surprising. Boyle’s vision is centered on his characters, however, and their humanity exhibits power and beauty as well as reprehensible pettiness.

"Pythagorean Tree ", by Drop Artists, 1967

America’s fascination with the 1960′s and 1970′s may tend to obscure what Boyle achieves with this novel. Still very close to the described time period, so it’s difficult to realize that Boyle is writing a historical novel. While Boyle himself clearly lived through these years, he writes about them as if he were merely very, very well-informed about them via factual research. It gives ‘Drop City’ a sense of power and distance, while Boyle’s characterizations and descriptive talents lend it the sense of immediacy the subject matter deserves. ‘Drop City’ will definitely leave readers with an entirely imperfect world in your grasp. Utopia eludes those characters who search for it outside of themselves.

BTW,

Drop City was an artists’ community that formed in southern Colorado in 1965. Abandoned by the early 1970s, it became known as the first rural “hippie commune”.  As Drop City gained notoriety in the 1960s underground, people from around the world came to stay and work on the construction projects. Inspired by the architectural ideas of Buckminster Fuller and Steve Baer, residents constructed domes and zonohedra to house themselves, using geometric panels made from the metal of automobile roofs and other inexpensive materials. In 1967 the group, now consisting of 10 core people, won Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion award for their constructions.

NOTE :

The first epigraph in ‘Drop City’ is from Ktaadn, by Henry David Thoreau :

Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks!  The solid earth!  The actual world!  The common sense!  Contact! Contact!  Who are we?  Where are we?

“So visually seductive that you want to own it, to have the voluptuous physicality of it in your garage.”

Top and head-on views of the new Dymaxion Car, #4...as commissioned by Norman Foster.

Three-quarters of a century after the last of the original models, Car #3, rolled off the production line, a new Dymaxion Car has been created, Car #4. Based on the drawings of Car #3 and painstaking analysis of Car #2, it was built in the English countryside in the East Sussex workshops of Crosthwaite & Gardiner, which specializes in restoring 1930s racing cars. The new car was commissioned by Norman Foster.

The quote above, also by Mr. Foster, describes a personal love affair with both the Dymaxion Car, and with R. Buckminster Fuller.  The affair is one uncommon in today’s age of the digital moment.  Dymaxion Car#4 was constructed in a time span of two years.  The uncommon nature of the affair involves Nostalgia.  In all the materials printed on Mr. Fuller and his wildly exaggerated feats, was Nostalgia ever part of his bag of tricks?

A fuel-efficient vehicle was the goal for any Fuller model of the Dymaxion Car.  A vehicle capable of 35 miles to a gallon, twice the standard when the Dymaxion Car debuted in 1933.  Mr. Foster’s deep pockets provide for the re-creation of physical form only for beauty’s sake.

“Beauty only refers to itself.”  Roland Barthes

Mr. Foster has done an excellent job on more than one front.  In combination with the development of Dymaxion Car#4, is the accompanying book, Buckminster Fuller. Dymaxion Car published by Ivorypress.  Ivorypress is owned by Mr. Foster’s wife, Elena Ochoa Foster.  The Dymaxion Car#4 in on display through Oct. 30 at the Ivorypress Art + Books gallery in Madrid.  Considering the Ivorypress book documenting the process of analysis & construction is priced at approximately $120.00 a copy, the Foster’s profit margin will be achieved quickly.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is an annual international design Challenge awarding $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.  Now in its fourth year the Buckminster Fuller Challenge has been called “Socially-Responsible Design’s Highest Award.” The model set forth by Mr. Foster & partners in the Dymaxion Car#4 project is one which design students need to approach with extreme caution.  The exclusive nature, rather than inclusive nature of humanity is the exact opposite message students & professionasl need in this financial climate from Mr. Foster’s pet project.

Bucky Fuller’s legacy will live on in the mission of the Challenge named after him.  Buckminster Fuller Challenge “Solutions are regionally specific yet globally applicable and present a truly comprehensive, anticipatory, integrated approach to solving the world’s complex problems.”

The names Fuller and Foster begin with the same letter…that is all they will ever have in common.

A working model of Leonardo da Vinci’s 1478 3-wheeler. It was completed in 2004 and took technicians 7 years to make.

BTW,

In recent history, there have been other three wheeled cars re-built for different reasons.

on Saturday April 23rd 2004…

Leonardo da Vinci was yesterday credited with anticipating the car when a model of one of his drawings was hailed as the first self-propelling vehicle conceived. The wooden 5ft by 5ft 6in model, featured in an exhibition at Florence’s Science History Museum, is driven by springs. It is also the first projected vehicle with programmable steering.

While the drawings of the car, made in 1478, have long been known to scholars, understanding how it worked has been an enduring mystery.

The model presented yesterday took seven years to make, after Prof Pedretti identified drawings of coiled springs concealed in drums beneath the car as its most likely source of power “It’s a very sophisticated device,” Prof Pedretti, the director of the Armand Hammer Centre of Leonardo Studies in Los Angeles.