by Martin Pawley
Taplinger Publishing Co., 1990
Comments: Buckminster Fuller was one of the great design thinkers of my generation and I'd been looking for a good book about him for quite some time. I was pleased to recently find this one by the noted British architecture critic Martin Pawley, done as part of a series on important designers of the 20th century. The book contains much worthwhile source material, such as photographs, drawings, quotes, charts, etc. Unfortunately, the narrative about Fuller's life seems burdened by an unfortunate encounter between the two men early in Pawley's career. His analysis mostly focuses on Fuller's relatively minor failures, while failing to fully appreciate his substantial positive impact on the science of spatial design. Pawley's preconceptions were clearly an impediment to his objective treatment of the importance of Fuller's work. From my own prior knowledge of Fuller I understood him to be a complicated character, influenced certainly by both failure and success, but with an important legacy as a revolutionary thinker. Pawley really fails to capture that spirit here. So while I may recommend the book for its supporting material, I'm afraid I'll need to find another biography of Fuller to get a more objective picture of his complex life.
Copy Notes: Hardback, first edition, with photographs and illustrations
