Richard Buckminster Fuller Prosthetic Hand Made In 1961 Pyramid At Giza (Top). Timber-Framed House Under Construction (Bottom) Early Steel-Framed Structures In Chicago

About this talk

Running time: 29 minutes

Richard Buckminster Fuller, who was born in 1895, committed himself in 1927 to the service of all humanity, especially "to reforming the human environment by developing tools which cope more effectively and economically with evolutionary challenges, in concert with the proposition that Nature is always giving off energies, and is therefore continually transforming the environment".

He set out over half a century ago to discover "what one little individual by himself could do for humanity". The present recording (distilled from a talk he gave at the International Design Conference at Aspen, Colorado, in June 1980) gives some idea of the breath taking nature of this quest. He says that he now has "a large logistic control of environment all around the world" by which we will be able "to phase out the use of fossil fuels and atomic energy". And in the realm of construction: "There are already 200,000 geodesic domes around the world, most of them in places where no other structures would do at all. We are on the brink of being able to air-deliver domes wherever we want". Like his early Dymaxion House, these will be self-sufficient autonomous units: "We have reached the dead end of the old way of building buildings".

After his talk Professor Fuller continued to travel the world, sharing his knowledge with whoever sought it.

Please note that a transcript of this talk is available - please contact us for further details.

Richard Buckminster Fuller


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