Tension Integrity Sphere
This model, currently displayed at the Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center in downtown Asheville, was actually constructed by R. Buckminster Fuller.
This model, currently displayed at the Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center in downtown Asheville, was actually constructed by R. Buckminster Fuller.
I'm beginning to believe in fate again.
I find myself in Asheville, North Carolina.
My wife and I relocated to Asheville because our eldest daughter, Anna, lives here with her husband, Justin. In looking for a place to retire, besides having family here, we chose Asheville because it has a very active and diverse art and music community, wonderful educational opportunities, is located in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, and has a friendly southeast population.
A fact that I had not known when we relocated to Asheville was that it happens to be only a few miles from Black Mountain, the former home of Black Mountain College, a school that I remember from my college days as being one of the places that my hero, Bucky Fuller, taught in 1948.
Black Mountain College was "created as an experiment of education in a democracy, with the idea that the creative arts and practical responsibilities are equal in importance in the developement of the intellect".
I discovered Bucky Fuller while a film student in Los Angeles in 1970. For a reason I can't remember, I got a copy of Bucky's Utopia or Oblivion: the prospects for humanity. It was a difficult read with many long, spiraling sentences that frequently required rereading to uncover Bucky's comprehensive meaning, but worth every second to anyone wanting to delve into his provocative but practical theories.
Reading Bucky's book was life-changing for me.
For years after reading it, I constructed many geodesic models from plastic straw struts with cut eraser hubs, and many large functional glass terrariums. I also read many more Bucky books. But, when my film making career kicked into gear, I generally left behind my Bucky hobby for the pleasures and responsibilities of family life. Besides, having stacks of sharp-edged cut glass triangles waiting for assemblage into terrariums around a home populated with small children seemed counter-productive.
About a month ago, I was alerted by my daughter in Asheville, Anna, that there was a play about Bucky currently playing at the NC Stage Theater called R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe. Watching that great play from our front-row seats re-inspired me to revisit Bucky and his extraordinary solutions for the success of all humanity.
In the words of Robert W. Marks found in the introduction of Utopia or Oblivion, describing Bucky,
"There is . . . no one who has more important things to say, no one whose ideas are more directly pointed to the attainable goals of a free and abundant life, no one more functionally attuned to the structural symbiosis of science and society."
My purpose in authoring this blog is to create interest in R. Buckminster Fuller's ideas as I rediscover his scientifically fueled, attainable goal of humanity's possibility to solve the physical problems of its existence utilizing the real wealth of the world: information and energy.
My wife and I relocated to Asheville because our eldest daughter, Anna, lives here with her husband, Justin. In looking for a place to retire, besides having family here, we chose Asheville because it has a very active and diverse art and music community, wonderful educational opportunities, is located in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, and has a friendly southeast population.
A fact that I had not known when we relocated to Asheville was that it happens to be only a few miles from Black Mountain, the former home of Black Mountain College, a school that I remember from my college days as being one of the places that my hero, Bucky Fuller, taught in 1948.
Black Mountain College was "created as an experiment of education in a democracy, with the idea that the creative arts and practical responsibilities are equal in importance in the developement of the intellect".
I discovered Bucky Fuller while a film student in Los Angeles in 1970. For a reason I can't remember, I got a copy of Bucky's Utopia or Oblivion: the prospects for humanity. It was a difficult read with many long, spiraling sentences that frequently required rereading to uncover Bucky's comprehensive meaning, but worth every second to anyone wanting to delve into his provocative but practical theories.
Reading Bucky's book was life-changing for me.
For years after reading it, I constructed many geodesic models from plastic straw struts with cut eraser hubs, and many large functional glass terrariums. I also read many more Bucky books. But, when my film making career kicked into gear, I generally left behind my Bucky hobby for the pleasures and responsibilities of family life. Besides, having stacks of sharp-edged cut glass triangles waiting for assemblage into terrariums around a home populated with small children seemed counter-productive.
About a month ago, I was alerted by my daughter in Asheville, Anna, that there was a play about Bucky currently playing at the NC Stage Theater called R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe. Watching that great play from our front-row seats re-inspired me to revisit Bucky and his extraordinary solutions for the success of all humanity.
In the words of Robert W. Marks found in the introduction of Utopia or Oblivion, describing Bucky,
"There is . . . no one who has more important things to say, no one whose ideas are more directly pointed to the attainable goals of a free and abundant life, no one more functionally attuned to the structural symbiosis of science and society."
My purpose in authoring this blog is to create interest in R. Buckminster Fuller's ideas as I rediscover his scientifically fueled, attainable goal of humanity's possibility to solve the physical problems of its existence utilizing the real wealth of the world: information and energy.
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