1895-1983

American Architect and Inventor and Mathematician

R. Buckminster Fuller was among the most original thinkers of the twentieth century. He is best remembered for developing the geodesic dome, the only practical type of building that has no inherent size limitations beyond which it can not support its own structure. He conceived of human beings as passengers on "Spaceship Earth" and concerned himself with finding ways to maximize the social benefits to be derived from a limited set of resources.

Fuller was born on July 12, 1895, in Milton, Massachusetts, the descendant of a long line of New England intellectuals. His great-aunt Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was an influential philosopher of the Transcendentalist movement, a social reformer, and an ardent campaigner for women's rights.

Despite his pedigree, Fuller never completed his formal education, twice being expelled from Harvard for cutting classes. After serving in the United States...