"Cloud Structures" 1962 by Buckminster Fuller

Here's a rather unusual painting that I found. I haven't seen anything about the painting on ATS, although there are some references to the artist. He's a rather interesting guy. The "cloud structures" are probably his geodesic dome designs, but look similar to some of the sightings of orbs that I've seen reference to.

Could there be any link between the his geodesic dome designs, the painting, and orb sightings. Is he a possible designer of floating orbs?

I can't find any additional information about the painting. Has anyone one else come across this before?
www.basenow.net...

Buckminster Fuller, Cloud Structures, 1962.

en.wikipedia.org...

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983)[1] was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist.

Fuller published more than 30 books, inventing and popularizing terms such as "Spaceship Earth", ephemeralization, and synergetic. He also developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, the best known of which is the geodesic dome.

Fuller taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina during the summers of 1948 and 1949,[11] serving as its Summer Institute director in 1949. There, with the support of a group of professors and students, he began reinventing a project that would make him famous: the geodesic dome. Although the geodesic dome had been created some 30 years earlier by Dr. Walther Bauersfeld, Fuller was awarded United States patents. He is credited for popularizing this type of structure.

Fuller was a pioneer in thinking globally, and he explored principles of energy and material efficiency in the fields of architecture, engineering and design

Fuller documented his life copiously from 1915 to 1983, approximately 270 feet (82 m) of papers in a collection called the Dymaxion Chronofile

As well as contributing significantly to the development of tensegrity technology, Fuller invented the term "tensegrity" from tensional integrity. "Tensegrity describes a structural-relationship principle in which structural shape is guaranteed by the finitely closed, comprehensively continuous, tensional behaviors of the system and not by the discontinuous and exclusively local compressional member behaviors. Tensegrity provides the ability to yield increasingly without ultimately breaking or coming asunder."

Here are a few links that reference the artist or painting:
en.wikipedia.org...
www.cabinetmagazine.org...
www.answers.com...

reply to post by isyeye


There is a very strong, very light weight structure that has been discovered and named after those paintings and/or theories.

Fullerene, aka "Bucky" Balls

The Carbon lattice structure has been touted for everything from an elevator to the moon to super-futuristic space and automobiles to healthcare devices.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I've looked at several dozen sites regarding the paintings of Fuller, but I haven't been able to find any more pictures of his paintings.

If anyone finds some...please post them to the thread.

It isn't a painting. It's a photo-montage.
Another version:

Partially inspired by the incipient space program, the utopian architecture of the 1960s yielded visions of floating communities hovering among the clouds. Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao created such a concept, entitled “Project for Floating Cloud Structures (Cloud Nine) in 1960.” Fuller’s imaginary floating sphere-enclosed cities are given a sense of feasibility through technical explanations that would seem to render them possible. The visionary architect drafted plans in the early sixties for spheres that would hover above the earth and hold several thousand “passengers.”

cup2013.wordpress.com...


The two had a successful collaboration. One result being the creation of the geodesic dome for Expo '67

reply to post by Phage


Thanks for the information Phage.....Judging by some of the post I've seen by you, you seem to have alot of knowledge rattling around in that brain of yours.

reply to post by isyeye

I've been a fan of Bucky but this time I just used this handy dandy thingy.
images.google.com...

Here's another interesting picture:

Fuller and Shoji Sadao's dome over Manhattan 1962

www.bluejayway.net...

A couple more interesting pictures on the topic of Fuller:


scodpub.wordpress.com...

Here's a few more:

Here in St. Louis, the Missouri Botanical Garden has had a geodesic dome since 1960, based off of Fuller's ideas.

It is called the Climatron.



en.wikipedia.org...

Yeah, Bucky's Cloud Nine idea is a doozy that I've always wanted to see tried. It's all scale-based engineering. The geodesic dome is special in that it's the most efficient way to enclose a volume. That is, it encloses the most space with the least amount of materials possible. Due to cube/square considerations, this effect becomes more pronounced the larger the space enclosed.

Bucky figured that if you scale up a full sphere to about half a kilometer or more (I think. Pulling the numbers from memory here.) then the heat generated by sunlight reflecting off the aluminum struts, as well as any people or industry within, would make the whole thing neutrally bouant in air. That is, it would float. The beuty is that you don't even really need an outer 'skin' for the sphere -- the framework alone would be enough.

Neat stuff.

reply to post by isyeye


Nice find OP.

I would love to live in one of those. Imagine waking up every morning to an awesome view like the one in the painting.