Customer Reviews

American Dreamer: Bucky Fuller and the Sacred Geometry of Nature

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In the post-dome era, Bucky Fuller has slid out of the collective consciousness. Eastham's exploration of his roots in American (esp. Northeastern) thought, the echo of his ideas in ancient religions, and the clear relevance of his geometry to modern science, brings this genius back out of the woodwork. Although Eastham's reading list is a LOT more extensive than mine and many of the specific references he makes are well past me, his summaries bring the many tracks and paths he follows back to coherence. His folksy, conversational writing style makes complex often academic thoughts and ideas accessible to the lay reader. The quotes of Fuller's that are included make it obvious why he is not well read - he couldn't simplify his thoughts for the rest of us to understand, except by creating beautiful models like the Wholes. The appendix on Wholes alone is worth the price of the book. Concise and clear, it offers the reader a great first step into experiencing Fuller's ideas for him(her)self. It takes a Fuller fan with a mind like Eastham's to plum the depths and make Fuller readable for the rest of us.

It seems clear to me that more scientists, designers, and engineers (maybe artists?) need to read this book and think a little harder about how to advance our mathematical systems to reflect nature's ways. Nature may even cooperate and show herself more easily if we look through the correct lens.

Not always easy going, but worth the effort.

"Synergetics: The exploratory strategy of starting with the whole." (R. B. Fuller)

It was in the 1940s that Buckminster Fuller developed a series of spherical models which embody and illustrate the principles of his synergetic geometry. This study of Fuller's life, works, and geometrical principles describes in vigorous detail how these spherical figures reveal themselves in both natural structures - molecules, flowers, crystals, etc. - and cultural forms, especially in religious art and sacred architecture. Fuller's `omnitriangulated' geometry offers a key to structures of meaning and value in more than one symbolic world.

The author first assesses the legacy of Fuller, scientist-artist-engineer extraordinaire, by examining how he drew his inspiration from an alternative American dream, a way of life based on cooperation rather than competition. The book then offers an enthusiastic and sympathetic portrayal of the creative science of a man whose character was as multifaceted as the geodesic domes he built.

Discover why the straight lines and boxes of conventional science and maths are inadequate to model Nature's spherical and cyclical patterns of growth. Explore the many startling ways in which Bucky's synergetic figures appear in the ancient iconographies of the world's great religious traditions. Open up future artistic applications of Fuller's `whole systems' by learning to think `outside the box.'

"Many commentators seem to think Bucky's ideas stand or fall by the success or failure of the dome-building industry. I beg to differ. I find his fundamental re-envisioning of technology as `what Nature does,' and his deployment of 'Nature's Coordinate System' to be initiatives more far-reaching - and even more durable - than the domes themselves."

"I'll never think of Bucky as a technocrat again."
Edward Goldsmith, Founder of The Ecologist