2.5.1 When there is time perspective on Ford equivalent to the 400 year interval between ourselves and Leonardo DaVinci, which enables us to appraise Da Vinci as the greatest artist of the Middle Ages, Ford will undoubtedly be acclaimed by the people of that later day as certainly the greatest artist of the 20th century. (Fuller, 1938, pg. 196)

2.5.2 Buckminster Fuller's inspiration and consequent interpretation of Einstein's theory of relativity is a clear example of how artists may latch onto a scientific concept and create an entire new body of work out of it. Nine Chains of the Moon (1938) is Fuller's first work that made a significant ripple in the intellectual community. It is as if he tapped into an entire stream of consciousness through thinking about the implications of the theory of relativity resulting in creative ideas about housing, politics, economics and culture.

2.5.3 Fuller also provides us with a clear example of how an "Aniticipatory Design Scientist" may intuit what science later explains and materialises. His work with triangles, domes, and principles of tensegrity have foreshadowed some of the scientific discovery on life's architecture. A year after his death, two Americans and a Briton won a Nobel prize in chemistry for their discovery of a spherical form of carbon that was not supposed to exist. Its form so remarkably resembled Fuller's domes that they named them Buckminsterfullerene, also known as "buckyballs." The buckyball findings have spurred a revolution in carbon chemistry and may lead to a profusion of new materials, polymers, catalysts, and drug-delivery systems. (Suplee, 1996, pg. A3) This kind of acknowledgement supersedes any that he would rightfully have had in many other fields, thus promising a possible relationship of respect and dialogue. (I will return to discussion of the Buckmnisterfullerene in chapter 7 when addressing Information Architectures.) [top]