Your Private Sky

This book complements the volume R. Buckminster Fuller, Your Private Sky: Design Art Science and gives an authentic insight into the development of Fuller's architectonic, technical and anthropological concepts. This poet of technology was a poet as engineer, a thinker as designer, an artist as researcher who left an immense testament of writings - including texts of visionary importance, great consistency, penetrating linguistic force and not least of urgent topicality. The book documents various aspects of his widely ramified publications. Fuller spoke to the whole world, indeed to Spaceship Earth, the metaphor that he coined in 1950. He did this as one of the greatest and incomparably original individuals of our time in a genuinely American sense. Some of the texts are published here for the first time, such as his first programmatic manuscript Lightful Houses (1928), an informative lecture text on Dymaxion House (1929), his Letter to Einstein (1944) and the convolute Noah's ArkII (1951) as a commented facsimile. Photographs from Fuller's estate complement the texts.

In light of the reawakening interest in R. Buckminster Fuller's works and thoughts, and of their growing importance for our technological world, it is time for a reedition of this comprehensive and legendary publication from 1999. The visual reader Your Private Sky examines and documents Fuller's theories, ideas and projects, and critically deals with his ideology of "rescue through technology." This book provides a highly multifaceted insight into Fuller's world, also showing many of its less known sides. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was one of the most revolutionary technological visionaries of the 20th century. He established new standards that can be seen as decisive for future-capable design. "How to make the world work" - to this task he dedicated his unflagging attention. Convinced that specialists usually create more problems than they solve, he developed his concept for a vision of the whole. As an architect, engineer, entrepreneur and poet, he was a quintessentially American self-made man. But he was also an outsider: a technologist with a poet's imagination who already developed theories of environmental control in the thirties and who anticipated the globalization of our planet. Catchphrases of our time, like "Spaceship Earth," "synergetic," or "think global, act local" - can directly or indirectly be traced back to Bucky.

This title, which complements the volume Your Private Sky: The Art of Design Science (see page 44), gives an authentic insight into the development of Fuller's architectonic, technical, & anthropological concepts. Fuller was the epitome of the poet as engineer, the thinker as designer, the artist as researcher. He left behind a voluminous quantity of writing, including texts of visionary importance & penetrating linguistic force, as well as of urgent topicality. The book documents various aspects of Fuller's widely respected texts. These testaments were intended to be shared with the whole world, or, as Fuller coined it in 1950, with "Spaceship Earth."###3-7643-6072-0

The American architect R. Buckminster Fuller was one of the most imaginative technological innovators of his age as a designer, engineer, mathematician, and social visionary. Eastham takes a look at the artistic applications of Fullers work.

New Book Design showcases the most interesting, influential, and accomplished book designs from the last ten years.It features over 100 titles published around the world, each chosen for their outstanding design qualities, from the publications of large mainstream publishers to those of small independent companies -- and even those from individual artists. Included in its pages are lavishly produced books with unconventional formats and unusual print techniques as well as less flamboyant publications produced for various different markets. A wide variety of books are featured, from paperback novels to architectural monographs, from text-based to profusely-illustrated books. Divided into four main sections -- "Packaging," "Navigation," "Layout," and "Specification" -- the book examines each facet of book design: cover design; contents and structure; image usage; grids; typography; paper; printing; and binding. Clear photography captures each featured book, and interviews with prominent book designers, art directors, and publishers provide extra insight. New Book Design is sure to provide a rich source of inspiration to book designers and bibliophiles alike.

In this book, leading scholars in architecture, design, history, and communications discuss the work of R. Buckminster Fuller in the context of the larger social and cultural patterns of the twentieth century.