Tag: buckminster-fuller | ArchDaily

When the World Came to Montreal: The Urban Legacy of Canada’s Expo 67

Moises Carrasco — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Canada's Expo 67 stands as one of the most successful world expos ever held, setting records and leaving an enduring impact on Montreal's urban landscape. As part of Canada's 100 years celebrations, the event provided an opportunity for the city to showcase its cultural and technological achievements on a global platform. With over 50 million visitors in just six months, it shattered attendance records, including an astonishing 569,500 visitors in a single day. An unprecedented feat for a world fair at the time. Now, 58 years later, and with the Osaka Expo 2025 set to showcase how to design the future society for our lives, it is worth revisiting the legacy of Expo 67 and exploring the urban transformations it brought to Montreal.

Utopia vs. Public Reality: Lessons from 20th Century Urban Planning

Ankitha Gattupalli — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 07:30:00 +0000

Kenzo Tange's 1960 Tokyo Bay Plan reflected the zeitgeist of a society enamored by rapid technological advancement and post-war optimism. Buckminster Fuller's 1959 dome concept over Manhattan was developed on a belief in humanity's ability to shape its environment on an unprecedented scale. All throughout the mid-20th century, utopian urban planning ideas sprouted in various parts of the world, driven by a unique combination of societal factors and psychological motivations.

Montreal Architecture City Guide: 15 Historic and Contemporary Landmarks in Canada’s Cultural Capital

Moises Carrasco — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Montreal, located along the Saint Laurent River in Southern Quebec, is Canada’s second-largest city. Often renowned for its architectural diversity, its built environment reflects both its colonial past and modern evolution. As a former territory of "Nouvelle France," French language and culture remain dominant, which has in turn influenced the city's architectural character. Notably, Old Montreal features well-preserved buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, most of which are a testament to the city’s industrial growth after the construction of the Lachine Canal. The area's heritage has been protected and restored through efforts by figures like Phyllis Lambert and organizations such as Heritage Montreal, allowing the city’s rich architectural history to coexist with its modern developments.

Designing the Future of Energy: An Exhibition on Design's Role in the Matter Opens at Vitra Design Museum

Maria-Cristina Florian — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 06:30:00 +0000

The Vitra Design Museum presents 'Transform! Designing the Future of Energy', an exhibition running from March 23rd to September 1st, 2024. As energy stands as the cornerstone of modern society, the subject encompasses political, social, and environmental dimensions. The exhibition aims to highlight design’s role in the effort to transform the energy sector into a more efficient, reliable, and sustainable one, relying more on renewable sources, smart mobility systems, and moving towards self-sufficient cities.

MoMA's “Emerging Ecologies” Exhibition Explores the Ecolution of Environmental Architecture

Maria-Cristina Florian — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 06:30:00 +0000

The Museum of Modern Art New York has announced the opening of an exhibition focused on the first realized and unrealized projects that address ecological and environmental concerns. Featuring works by architects who practiced mainly in the United States from the 1930s through the 1990s, the exhibition titled “Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the Rise of Environmentalism” is on view from September 17, 2023, through January 20, 2024. The over 150 works showcased reveal the rise of the environmental movement through the lens of architectural practice and thought.

Bucky Fuller’s Most Complex Invention May Have Been Himself

Michael J. Crosbie — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 03:30:00 +0000

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Floating Cities of the Past and Future

Ankitha Gattupalli — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 07:30:00 +0000

The threat of climate change is looming before us. Sea level rise concerns over 410 million people at risk of losing their livelihoods. Coastal cities are choked with high-rise buildings and traffic-laden roads, consuming land insufficiently. Synthesizing these problems, architects across the world have proposed a potential answer - floating cities. A future of living on water seems like a radical shift from how people live, work, and play. Vernacular precedents prove otherwise, offering inspiration for what our cities could morph into. As world leaders discuss courses of action to tackle climate change at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, ArchDaily dives into the concept of radical water-based settlements.

Is Good Architecture Synonymous with Beauty?

Duo Dickinson — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 03:30:00 +0000

Architecture is not simply building. Over 2,000 years ago, Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio defined two base realities in building: “Firmness” (Safety) and “Commodity” (Use) and then offered what turns building into architecture: “Delight” (Beauty).

The Contemporary Transformation of Traditional Chinese Architecture

Scarlett Miao — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

The American architect, designer, and futurist Buckminster Fuller once defined the Dymaxion principle as “constructing ever more with ever less weight, time, and ergs per each given level of functional performance.”

A New Landscape in Montreal Weaves Together Icons of the City’s Expo 67

Rita Lobo — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 08:00:00 +0000

Encompassing a Buckminster Fuller–designed geodesic dome and an Alexander Calder sculpture, the intervention shows how the city is rethinking its world’s fair treasures.

The Insignificance of Aesthetics: An Exhibition at Vitra Design Museum Adds a Context of Urgency to the Works of Victor Papanek

Alison J. Clarke — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 07:00:00 +0000

This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine as "Design Provocateur: Revisiting the Prescient Ideas of Victor Papanek".

Why Architects Need to Get Dirty to Save the World

Mimi Zeiger — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 09:30:00 +0000

This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine as "Why Architects Need to Get Dirty to Save the World."

Celebrate Buckminster Fuller's Legacy with Never-Before-Seen Posters

Katherine Allen — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 06:00:00 +0000

R. Buckminster Fuller remains, 35 years after his passing, one of architecture’s preeminent minds. His proposals in construction, housing, mapping, and even transportation have a continued influence in the fields of architecture and engineering today, despite many of them having been designed nearly a century ago.

Spotlight: Buckminster Fuller

Dario Goodwin — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Pioneering radical Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983), an inventor, architect and the second president of Mensa, had a massive impact on the architecture and popular culture of the latter 20th century. Most famous for popularizing the geodesic dome, Fuller is also known as the father of sustainability, and was driven by his intention “to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone.”

Tensegrity Structures: What They Are and What They Can Be

Matheus Pereira — Sun, 03 Jun 2018 08:00:00 +0000

Through his extensive research, inventions and structural experiments, Buckminster Fuller created the term tensegrity to describe "self-tensioning structures composed of rigid structures and cables, with forces of traction and compression, which form an integrated whole" [1]. In other words, tensegrity is the property demonstrated by a system that employs cables (traction) and rigidity of other elements (usually steel, wood or bamboo) capable of acting under the intrinsic stresses (traction and compression) together and simultaneously, giving greater resistance and formal stability. It creates an interconnected structure that works biologically like muscles and bones, where one element strengthens the other.

5 Lessons From Norman Foster’s Lecture at the Barbican

Tom Dobbins — Tue, 15 May 2018 09:30:00 +0000

After being knighted in 1990 for services to architecture, winning the 1999 Pritzker Prize and then gaining peerage in the same year, it could be argued that there is no living architect that has had a larger impact on urban life than Norman Foster. In a recent talk, Foster addressed a sold-out Barbican Hall on the future of our growing urban landscape, in the seventh installment of the Architecture On Stage series organized by The Architecture Foundation with the Barbican. While the content was full of grandiose statements and predictions, of a scale similar to the projects Foster's practice undertakes, it was the problem-solving approach he showed that gave more of an insight into the man himself. The following 5 lessons gleaned from the presentation won't guarantee Foster-like levels of success, but they may be able to help you navigate the challenges that architecture can present, both personally and professionally.

The Best Architecture Reads this Spring: 19 New Books Selected by Metropolis Magazine

Metropolis Magazine — Sat, 12 May 2018 09:30:00 +0000

Metropolis Magazine has released a curated list of 19 new books to read this spring, with topics ranging from the evolution of social housing to Stanley Kubrick's unfilmed masterpiece to a fascinating tome on the architecture of Zionism. Not simply volumes detailing well-tread histories, these chosen titles explore every niche category through the lens of architecture. Ever wondered how Buckminster Fuller inspired six former gang members to construct his geodesic dome? Or what metro stations in North Korea look like?

North Face Releases a Geodesic Dome Tent Capable of Withstanding the Toughest Weather

Ella Thorns — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Reinterpreting the teachings of Buckminster Fuller, North Face have announced the latest tent in their collection; a geodesic dome tent. Thanks to the most spatially efficient shape in architecture, it can withstand winds of up to 60 mph as the force is spread evenly across the structure whilst even providing enough height for a six-foot person to stand comfortably inside.