Fuller was born in 1895 in Massachusetts. He moved to Chicago in the 1920s after he and his father-in-law developed the Stockade Building System, which manufactured blocks of compressed wood-shavings, similar to contemporary concrete blocks, with vertical holes for reinforced cement.
In 1927, his second daughter, Allegra, was born and he was ousted as president of the Stockade Midwest Corporation. As the myth goes, he went to Lake Michigan to end his life. Instead he was struck by his purpose: “You do not belong to you, you belong to the universe.” Thus, he began his 56-year experiment of “guinea pig B” (“B” for “Bucky”) to see what “an average, healthy human being” resolved to solve problems “on behalf of all humanity” could accomplish.
Motivated by the guilt of his first daughter’s death in 1922 from pneumonia, a condition he blamed on their drafty house, he set out to design better forms of housing. He also wanted to change the building world, which was inefficient, expensive, and behind in contemporary technology.
He designed a hexagonal, single-family house suspended from a central mast that could be mass-produced as quickly, efficiently, and inexpensively as an automobile. In April 1929 at Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, Fuller displayed a model of his 4D house. Marshall Field’s marketing department named it “Dymaxion,” a combination of the terms “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “ion.” It was designed to be fully automated, solar-powered, deliverable by air, autonomous, and low-priced.
Employing similar materials and principles as the Dymaxion house, the first prototype of the Dymaxion car, was presented at the Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago in 1933 and again in 1934. The Dymaxion car, which accommodated 11 passengers, achieved a top speed of 120 mph and 30 mpg.
In the fall of 1948, Fuller began teaching at the Institute of Design in Chicago. He charged his students to develop an Autonomous Dwelling Structure for use in a disaster, which would be affordable, portable, and completely sustainable. They investigated recirculating water purification, water capture systems, the use and control of natural light, pneumatic floor systems, and ways to eliminate fatigue. This was later developed into the Standard of Living Package for use inside a geodesic dome.
In 1958 Fuller completed the largest dome to date – 100,000 square feet – for the Union Tank Car Company, which manufactured railroad cars.
In 1959, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, offered Fuller a research professorship. Carbondale became Fuller’s home base for his extensive research of global allocation of resources to address global problems.
Fuller received the Graham Foundation’s first fellowship and largest grant to date – $15,000 – in 1966. His application letter said, “I am now 71. I am becoming apprehensive that I will not have the time to complete my life’s work.”
In 1969 Fuller led his first public World Game workshop at Southern Illinois University. The World Game focused on global resource allocation to foster understanding of how technology, ecology, renewable resources, and solar and wind energy could work for everyone.
In 1971 Fuller collaborated on a proposal called Old Man River, a large dome-covered, low-cost housing complex for East Saint Louis, Illinois. He said, “I have never engaged in a development that I have felt to have such promise for all humanity.”
