R. Buckminster Fuller: Inventions and Models

Edward Cella Art & Architecture presents R. Buckminster Fuller: Inventions and Models, an exhibition of original prints, models, and objects by 20th-century visionary, architect, engineer, inventor, and artist R. Buckminster Fuller.  Organized thirty-five years after his passing in Los Angeles, the exhibition is the first of its kind in the city and represents an opportunity to reflect upon his comprehensive perspective on the world and humanity. The exhibition will be accompanied by two public programs collaboratively organized and presented with the Buckminster Fuller Institute.

R. Buckminster Fuller: Inventions and Models surveys many of Fuller’s most important inventions and cultural contributions.  The exhibition centers around the Inventions portfolio, a limited-edition print collection of Fuller’s key innovations including the 4D House, the Dymaxion Car and the Geodesic Dome, representing just a few of the more than thirty patents he holds.

An extraordinary group of wire and steel tensegrity models, representing architectural systems that explore structural design and are based on repeatable geometric elements, are the highlight of the exhibition.  They include The Triad, a group of his most significant innovations and the only set of works existing outside of a major museum collection. Other examples of larger sculptural models included in the exhibition are the Closest Packing of Spheres, the Duo-Tet Star Polyhedras, and the functional Dymaxion Rowing Needle, a 21-foot dual hull rowing shell intended for use on choppy waters.

Produced in the last years of his life, these works are part of a group of multiples that explore and present his theories of structural design. Fuller’s objects and prints function not only as models of the mathematical and geometric properties underlying their construction but also as elegant works of art. As such, the works represent the hybridity of Fuller’s practice, and his legacy across the fields of art, design, science, and engineering. The exhibited works were produced in collaboration with Carl Solway Gallery and have been long held away from public view in several private collections.

Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th Century and his legacy is increasingly relevant in our age of diminishing resources and increasingly complex technological advancements. Beginning in the 1920s he re-imagined housing, transportation, mapping, engineering, and construction systems anticipating advancements and innovations that are commonplace today. Although he is probably most associated with the invention of the architecturally iconic geodesic dome; it was his ability to think across disciplines, connecting the worlds of science, engineering, architecture, design, and art that was one of his most important and lasting contributions.

The exhibition reveals Fuller’s dedication to the potential of innovative integrated design and technology to revolutionize construction and improve human life. Fuller thought this was possible by doing “more with less”. Inspired by basic geometries and the forces of nature, Fuller applied the tetrahedron and tensegrity forms in structural systems that offered unprecedented solutions to specific human problems. These forms are an essential part of most of his designs, which span in scale from domestic to global. This exhibition includes a group of unique and editioned structural models built of steel and thermoplastics, limited edition prints and rarer works of ephemera which highlight the structural systems and their practical applications in architecture, housing, transportation, and cartography. Also included is the short film Bucky Fuller & Spaceship Earth, produced by Ivorypress it traces Fuller's life and career without leaving aside its tragicomic touch and focusing on the milestones of his work, which paved the way for the discoveries of future thinkers that affect our world today.

PUBLIC EXHIBITION PROGRAMS

Thomas T K Zung: The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller
Saturday, September 22, 2018 | 3:00 PM

Join Thomas T.K. Zung, partner of Buckminster Fuller, Sadao & Zung Architects for an illustrated talk on Fuller’s life and work. Zung is uniquely positioned as a student, collaborator, and partner of Fuller and author/editor of Buckminster Fuller, Anthology for the Millennium, a new volume on Fuller’s legacy. He will sign copies of his book afterward.

Thomas T K Zung established Thomas T.K. Zung Architects, Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio and the following year, 1968, designed the first elongated geodesic dome in association with Buckminster Fuller Synergetics organization. Thomas T.K. Zung Architects and R. Buckminster Fuller merged to form Buckminster Fuller, Sadao and Zung Architects designing numerous Geodesic domes, tensegrity structures, vector equilibriums, museum exhibitions, publications, and Fuller’s last invention, ‘Hang It All’. A founding member of the Buckminster Fuller Institute and the Synergetics Collaborative (SNEC) at the Rhode Island School of Design; he is a Distinguished Senior Fellow to the Stanford University Libraries; and author/editor of Fuller’s Anthology for a New Millennium published under St. Martin’s Press.

In Conversation: Allegra Fuller Snyder with David McConville
Saturday, October 13, 2018 | 3:00 PM

Join Allegra Fuller Snyder, Buckminster Fuller's daughter and Founder of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, and its current Board President David McConville for a special conversation about Fuller, his legacy and the ongoing projects of the Buckminster Fuller Institute. Co-organized by the Buckminster Fuller Institute.

Allegra Fuller Snyder, Founder, and first President, now Board member emeritus of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, Allegra is Bucky’s only living child. She is also Professor Emerita of Dance and Dance Ethnology, UCLA. She won the 1992 American Dance Guild Honoree of the Year, was the former Chair of the Department of Dance; and founding Coordinator of the World Arts and Cultures Program. She has been on the Dance Faculty at Cal Arts as well as Professor of Performance Studies at New York University. She began her career as a performer and choreographer and has been concerned with the relation of dance to film since the late 1940s. She has made several prize-winning documentary films on dance. She has researched dance around the world and is the recipient of several Fulbright Scholarships. Among many special projects, Snyder was a Core Consultant on the PBS series DANCING for WNET/Channel 13. Recently returning to performance Jennifer Fisher of the LA times said of her in "Spirit Dances 6: Inspired by Isadora," "She was a haiku and an epic."

David McConville is chairman of the Buckminster Fuller Institute. He designs and develops experiential learning environments that integrate storytelling, scientific data, and immersive media technologies to visualize complex systems and explore regenerative principles across disciplines and scales. He has a PhD in Art and Media from the Planetary Collegium at the University of Plymouth.