巴克敏斯特·福乐R Buckminster Fuller

被称为巴克敏斯特·福乐（或Buckie 福乐），他作为工程师、数学家和建筑师而闻名。福乐的家族来自新英格兰，他从小就对造船和捕鱼着迷，这是缅因州海岸生活的一部分。他[2]：-

……继承了那种浪漫理想主义与北方实用主义的融合，这使他成为本杰明·富兰克林和Emerson的精神继承人。

他于1917年与著名建筑师的女儿Anne Hewlett结婚，并于1917年至1919年在美国海军服役。两次被哈佛大学开除，他作为小股东的建筑公司遭遇商业灾难，以及他四岁女儿的去世，使他几近自杀。大约在1927年[1]：-

他发现自己滞留在芝加哥，没有收入，感到疏离、沮丧、困惑。

然而，他决定致力于证明：-

……技术能够拯救世界于自身，前提是使用得当。

1927年，他设计了Dymaxion住宅，旨在容纳人们生活所需的技术。其线材结构绝非出于美学考虑，而是旨在成为一台完全实用的居住机器。多年来，福乐致力于建筑理念的研究，最终形成了使他最为著名的结构。

他研究了一种基于四面体的向量几何体系——能量-协同几何学，该体系以最小结构提供最大强度。这导致他于1947年获得了测地线穹顶的专利，这种建筑的强度只需随其尺寸的对数增长[2]：-

这些由轻金属和塑料制成的球形结构，基于大圆数学（其实际应用受到一些建筑师的质疑，正如其结构受到许多数学家的质疑一样），在理论上没有尺寸限制，福乐在其中看到了一种普遍且廉价的庇护形式，可覆盖从住宅到城市的一切。

已建成超过20万个这样的穹顶，最著名的例子是1967年蒙特利尔国际博览会的美国馆。

福乐的另一项目始于1928年，涉及设计一种高度非传统的汽车。它被称为Dymaxion汽车，一种三轮机器，可搭载12名乘客，能穿越田野，最高时速近200公里。其机动性允许它在自身长度内转弯，这是一个非凡的构想，开发持续到1943年。然而，它从未作为商业项目推出。

福乐是多部著作的作者，包括Nine chains to the Moon（1938），这是他的第一本书。后来有No more second-hand God（1962）、Utopia or oblivion（1969）和Education automation。最著名的是他1969年的经典之作Operating manual for spaceship Earth，但他还出版了Earth, Inc（1973）和Critical Path（1981）。他的文集于1970年出版，名为The Buckminster Fuller reader。

福乐于1959年至1968年任南伊利诺伊大学卡本代尔分校研究教授。他于1962年被任命为哈佛大学查尔斯·艾略特·诺顿诗歌讲席教授。1968年，他成为南伊利诺伊大学校级教授，并保留此职位直至1975年退休。

福乐获得了许多荣誉，包括英国皇家建筑师学会会士。该学会于1968年授予他皇家金质奖章。他还于1968年获得国家艺术与文学学会金质奖章。

在[2]中，他被描述如下：-

作为我们时代最具争议的建筑人物之一，他为前所未有的结构类型设计了方案，这些方案反映了他对现代技术益处的信念和乐观。

在2看来，他最大的贡献可能令人惊讶：-

……然而，人们可能会认为，福乐最大的贡献在于教育领域。他是一个 compulsively 健谈的人，并将这一特点引导为具有非凡时长的神奇即兴讲座——通常长达一天甚至更久，中间有吃饭的休息时间。通过这些讲座，他将对自己思想的热情传递给了世界各地一代又一代的学生。

[1]中对福乐的评价是这样开始的：-

福乐——建筑师、工程师、发明家、哲学家、作家、制图师、几何学家、未来学家、教师和诗人——确立了他作为20世纪下半叶最具独创性的思想家之一的声誉。他将人设想为宇宙飞船上的乘客——一个其唯一财富在于能量和信息的乘客。

Known as R Buckminster Fuller (or Buckie Fuller), he was famed as an engineer, mathematician and architect. Fuller's family were from New England and he grew up with a boyhood fascination for ship-building and fishing which were part of life on the coast of Maine. He [2]:-

... inherited that blend of romantic idealism and Yankee practicality which made him the spiritual heir to Benjamin Franklin and Emerson.

He married Anne Hewlett, daughter of a well-known architect, in 1917, and he served in the US Navy from 1917 to 1919. Twice expelled from Harvard University, business disasters with the construction company in which he was a minority stockholder, and the death of his four year old daughter, brought him close to suicide. Around 1927 [1]:-

He found himself stranded in Chicago, without income, alienated, dismayed, confused.

However, he decided to devote himself to proving that:-

... technology could save the World from itself, providing it is properly used .

In 1927 he designed the Dynaxion House which was intended to house the technology needed for people to live. With its wire construction it was in no way intended to be aesthetic but aimed to be a totally practical machine to live in. For many years Fuller worked on ideas for buildings, eventually arriving at the structure for which he is most famous.

He examined a vectorial system of geometry, Energetic- Synergetic geometry, based on the tetrahedron which provides maximum strength with minimum structure. This led to his patent of a geodesic dome in 1947, a building the strength of which need only increase as the log of its size [2]:-

These spherical structures, of light metal and plastic, based on great circle mathematics (whose practical application was questioned as much by some architects as their structure was by many mathematicians), were in theory without limitation of size and Fuller saw in them a universal and cheap form of shelter to cover everything from houses to cities.

Over 200,000 of such domes have been built, the most famous example being the United States pavilion at the 1967 international exhibition at Montreal.

Another of Fuller's projects, which he began in 1928, involved the design of a highly unconventional car. It was called the Dymaxion car, a three wheeled machine capable of carrying 12 passengers, of crossing fields as well as having a top speed of nearly 200 km per hour. With a manoeuvrability which allowed it to turn within its own length this was a remarkable conception and development continued until 1943. However, it was never launched as a commercial venture.

Fuller was the author of many books, including Nine chains to the Moon (1938) which was his first book. Later came No more second-hand God (1962), Utopia or oblivion (1969), and Education automation. Most famous of all is his 1969 classic Operating manual for spaceship Earth but he also published Earth, Inc. (1973), and Critical Path (1981). A collection of his writings was published in 1970 as The Buckminster Fuller reader.

Fuller was research professor at Carbondale, Southern Illinois University, from 1959 to 1968. He was appointed as Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University in 1962. In 1968 he became a university professor at Southern Illinois University and retained this post until he retired in 1975.

Fuller was awarded many honours, including a fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects. This Institute awarded him their Royal Gold Medal in 1968. He also received the Gold Medal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1968.

In [2] he is described as follows:-

One of the most controversial architectural figures of our time he produced designs for unprecedented types of structure which reflected his belief and optimism in the benefits of modern technology.

His greatest contribution, in the view of [2], may come as a surprise:-

... it may be thought, however, that Fuller's greatest contribution lay in the field of education. He was a compulsive talker and he canalized this trait into magical extempore lectures of extraordinary duration - often of up to a day or more with breaks for meals. Through these he transmitted an enthusiasm for his ideas to generation after generation of students across the world.

The assessment of Fuller given in [1] begins:-

Fuller - architect, engineer, inventor, philosopher, author, cartographer, geometrician, futurist, teacher, and poet - established a reputation as one of the most original thinkers of the second half of the 20th century. He conceived of man as a passenger in a cosmic spaceship - a passenger whose only wealth consists in energy and information.