Monday, June 23, 2014

Buckminster Fuller: The Genius I was Too Busy to Meet

In the late 1960s, when I was a student at Southern Illinois University, I had the opportunity to seek out a gifted genius in architectural design who was on staff there. R. Buckminster Fuller was a professor lecturing on staff there at the time, and for some reason it never occurred to me until after I had left, that I should have met the man.

Fuller's genius is as undeniable as my own stupidity in this neglect. I can imagine no greater embarrassment for me unless Frank Lloyd Wright had been there, as well. And I certainly have no excuse, as in 1967, I went on a family vacation that included the world's fair in Montreal, Expo 67. There, the United States exhibit was housed in a giant biosphere designed by Fuller, a geodesic dome 200 feet tall with a 250-foot diameter. His most famous architectural contribution, geodesic domes became a sort of trademark. One of my own characteristics, a lack of foresight, became my trademark for a while.

Fuller and I both returned to SIU to go our separate ways, him to gain a full professorship and me to flounder in scholastic indecision for another couple years before the campus was shut down due to the Kent State affair. By the time I returned to finish a degree, Fuller and my chance to meet him were both gone.