Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) is receiving renewed scrutiny in major exhibitions and in scholarly books. Loretta Lorance's Becoming Bucky Fuller (2009) is a highly original, often fascinating investigation of how Fuller laid the groundwork for his later fame and fortune after a series of early setbacks. More thoroughly than any prior scholar, Lorance uncovers crucial differences between Fuller's and his admirers' portraits of his younger days as the alleged victim of both personal and professional setbacks and what actually happened. It is now evident that Fuller's greatest invention was himself.
Buckminster Fuller's fame reached its peak in the
1960s and 1970s, when his visionary experiments struck a chord with the
counterculture and his charismatic personality provided the media with a
good story—that of a genius who could play the role of artist,
scientist, and entrepreneur all at once. In Becoming Bucky Fuller,
Loretta Lorance shows that Fuller's career did not begin with the lofty
goals hailed by his admirers, and that, in fact, Fuller's image as guru
and prophet was as carefully constructed as a geodesic dome.
Fuller determined early on how the story of his life in the 1920s and 1930s should be portrayed. But, drawing on a close reading of Fuller's personal papers (in particular, the multivolume scrapbook, Chronofile), Lorance looks at Fuller's first independent project, the Dymaxion House, and finds that what really happened differs from the authorized version. According to Fuller himself and most secondary sources, after a series of personal crises in the 1920s—including the death of his young daughter, thoughts of suicide, and a "year of silence" during which he pondered his purpose in life—Fuller resolved to devote himself to the betterment of society by offering the public economical, efficient, modern manufactured housing. But the private papers tell a more nuanced story; one of his rapid honing of a set of inspirations into the Dymaxion House design, and setting out to manufacture it. When that didn't work, Fuller began to emphasize its possibilities rather than its practicalities, and to curate a compelling story out of his personal experience. By the mid-1930s, Lorance shows, Fuller the public figure had gone from being an entrepreneur with a product to being a visionary with an idea. He had become Bucky Fuller.
Fuller determined early on how the story of his life in the 1920s and 1930s should be portrayed. But, drawing on a close reading of Fuller's personal papers (in particular, the multivolume scrapbook, Chronofile), Lorance looks at Fuller's first independent project, the Dymaxion House, and finds that what really happened differs from the authorized version. According to Fuller himself and most secondary sources, after a series of personal crises in the 1920s—including the death of his young daughter, thoughts of suicide, and a "year of silence" during which he pondered his purpose in life—Fuller resolved to devote himself to the betterment of society by offering the public economical, efficient, modern manufactured housing. But the private papers tell a more nuanced story; one of his rapid honing of a set of inspirations into the Dymaxion House design, and setting out to manufacture it. When that didn't work, Fuller began to emphasize its possibilities rather than its practicalities, and to curate a compelling story out of his personal experience. By the mid-1930s, Lorance shows, Fuller the public figure had gone from being an entrepreneur with a product to being a visionary with an idea. He had become Bucky Fuller.
Endorsements
"Becoming Bucky Fuller is an intellectual experiment singular enough to have pleased the prodigious polymath himself. By refusing the biographical conventions Fuller forged into his own life story, Loretta Lorance demonstrates how in the late 1920s he formulated not only the Dymaxion House, but his own public persona as well. Based on close readings of deep archival research, Becoming Bucky Fuller makes clear that one more item must be added to the long list of Fuller's inventions: himself."Sandy Isenstadt, History of Art, Yale University
"Historians of architecture and material culture have never quite known what to do with the figure of Buckminster Fuller. In her careful new study, Lorance takes on his first successful inventionBucky himself. Becoming Bucky Fuller offers important insights into the formation of this compelling persona: an American hero of mid-twentieth-century counter-culture."
Andrew Leach, School of Geography, Planning, and Architecture, University of Queensland, Australia, and author of Tafuri: Choosing History
"Everything in this book is illuminating. As Loretta Lorance reveals, long before Bucky Fuller became a 'visionary,' his life struggles in the hard-knocks business world of the 1920s shaped both his autobiography and his brilliant contributions to American modernism."
Carol Willis, Director, The Skyscraper Museum
Becoming Bucky Fuller is an engaging look at the persona and development of the genius commonly known as Bucky Fuller. Loretta Lorance breaks new ground in her insightful study of Richard Buckminster Fuller’s early years... Lorance presents a strong case for her contention regarding his constructed persona... The use of color reproductions is targeted and adds value for the dollar. Certainly this book should be in academic libraries and those public libraries with advanced collections in the arts and technology. Bucky Fuller is again being studied by a new generation. Loretta Lorance’s book will help them to understand the man behind the myth.
Barbara Opar, Architecture Librarian, Syracuse University Library
Links
MIT Press, https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/becoming-bucky-fuller
Buckminster Fuller Institute: https://bfi.org/publications/book/becoming-bucky-fuller
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