Michael is the professor vocational theory
at Harvard's Graduate School of Design

co-directors It's October and

I must be among the most influential
scholars in architecture internationally.

And I must add that as interesting
critical theory is on the way in Michael's

work is an inspiring
demonstration of the need for

such scholarship in the issue
of some concern and.

He continued his battle about this
should be at Georgia Tech in seventy six

when going to an amount
of history in theory.

Followed by a Ph D. in architecture and
Environmental Studies from MIT.

He does however remain about just that.

There are many books on how it goes but
he is best known as editor of nine hundred

sixty eight the theory published by MIT
plans in one thousand nine hundred is

supposed to mean book critical reading of
the Experimental of the of the seventy's.

It's titled architecture and will come out
in the spring from an MIT again likely.

Since two thousand.

It's also sort of just at the with
the Museum of American Art and

this is really no one else I think in that
kind of role in a museum in this country.

His first major exhibition was
a retrospective in the work of drawn

Heydrich but
which he we assembled the great side

those students in the audience don't
realize they were created here.

Georgia Tech based on designers by drone.

He was a creator of
the current exhibition but

starting with the universe which
was a capacity of creation

with connections between the two and
drawing from this work.

Michael's talk with me will be
the geological diagrams of the.

Michael Kay Michael Kay thanks

I'm really really honored to be here.

And I'm really honored to be here
as an alumnus of of Georgia Tech.

Thing to some of my classmates.

Spent the week kind of.

You know immersed in the and and
I cannot get the Michael Leman played.

Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon
all the time and

I can't and
I have I can not get it out of my head.

So if I break into you know you'll know.

I notice that all the previous and

all the subsequent speakers or
designers in this Alan has said.

I'm the the teacher.

I'm the historian and theorist.

And I wondered if you'll forgive me
since we are celebrating the school and

its alumni I do want to talk a little
bit and reflect a little bit.

Georgia Tech had everything to do with
my decision to go into history and

theory at a time when really I think all
of us all of us thought we would be all of

us wanted to be designers and design was
absolutely central in the in the school.

We our class took history with Frank back
on our first history courses back and

had studied history at Princeton.

I guess when David Kaufman was there.

And maybe even Donald expert who had
had such an influence on been two or

more in others.

I think it was Bob Craig came later for
us but from back home.

He could teach history to people
who were going to be designers

as distinct from people who were
going to be art historians and it for

me it made all the difference to to see
how an architectural problem was framed

historically how it could be developed
over time how it could be worked on for

years centuries and never be
exhausted keep generating knowledge

it was something that I'd that I learn
from back home that history is not just.

An archive sort of remote and dusty but
it's a constantly emerging a constant

becoming and that and that in it to
think of history as a living force or

living convergence of forces to sort of
diagram it to read off it to rewrite it.

It gives you then a kind of way
of organizing the present and

even the future and and and
that's something I learned I think.

I think very early attack and
it drove my thinking about architecture.

It was from designs critic critics

especially Kant moony Robert Siegel and
John Kelly.

That that we learned again to think
of architecture not as something

functionally driven though program as
important not something even material or

technologically driven.

But before all those things as important
as technologies materials sustainability

program are that really there are ideas
and effects that are architectural

in architectural only they can't be
reduced to words they can't be reduced

to pictures that it's there's something
autonomous about architecture and

that fundamentally before it's before it
solves problems before it keeps the rain

out of architecture produces knowledge
that it's a mode of knowledge.

It's a way that culture
represents itself to itself and

its architecture is a mode of knowledge
I think I learned that here and

and and in some ways that's already theory

that the moment that you realise
that to think takes the material.

You're already doing theory and

usually that material is language we
think linguistically primarily but

that material can also be architecture
it can be music it can be film it can be

dance but but architecture has this
claim to produce cultural knowledge.

It's not paying attention.

I got the space for work.

I was in the class the first
class to go through the first

year of the Paris program which
you still have right of course.

This was the first year and I really
appreciate Randy Short finding this

photograph for me this is Brandy here
looking like a seventy's rock star.

If you find me you get the door prize but
in Paris.

In Paris.

I when I went into the bookstore in Paris

in the first week I was
there we went to live.

And I saw the journal oppositions
published by the fisherman studies.

It was opposition's three I didn't even
know of one and two is oppositions three

and in oppositions three was meant for
adult S a lot.

She took to it all aboot bar which
was his first kind of theorization

of the contempt the architecture that
was contemporary to his own times.

It was life changing at that point
everything all the studios that

I'd taken with Mooney all of
the history courses with Beck and

converged on to something that
was just not even yet but

beginning to be called architectural
theory when I got back from Paris.

I was I spent a year in Atlanta
working in movies office and

reading room Barton Michel Foucault and
applying to MIT and

that was really the moment that I decided
to move into the history and to reprogram

I mean to the into history theory as
a scholar or you really don't you really.

This is Martha I married
her two years later.

This is George Ramsay
these guys don't know.

Ramsey most of the people.

Own Pat yes people.

Kevin Kevin can't lead people.

Kevin can only wear scary.

I know one one had more
hair in the seventy's.

But.

Now one thing I am really.

The two things.

I'm really proud of and
one of them is I founded and

edited the journalist symbol for
ten years.

I'm showing you just the first and
last issues.

I'm proud of it because
it gave in ten years.

It gave a a generation of
thinkers riders architects

It gave a generation a kind of very
open venue for I think really developing

architectural theory it really was
the because a venue that we that

we had I think is interested in the bay
first issue we published Robert Siegrist

article which had appeared in Atlanta
art papers remember it led our papers.

I think it was of extremely important
publication but it's still there.

I didn't realize and I apologize because
extremely important publication but

it didn't at least then
get far out of Atlanta and

we published Siegrist essay which I
still think is one of the best pieces of

architectural writing I had a student
review assemblies just out of interest.

The single most published
author was Jennifer bloomer who

of course was was a class not
a classmate she came after us.

But she was she was here she overlap.

I'm very proud of assemblage
just a few more little little

things liberal entry ody was a classmate
of mine that MIT and now he's back.

If the parent program right
Mark Cottle was a student of mine and

we got to be very good friends with
markings of air and don't now see them but

we're glad that they're both
here in my gamble I don't know

if he might gamble was a was a stew.

And of my.

The other the other thing I'm proud of is
Alan mentioned I really am proud of this

is I say rescuing these these structures
these structures that were in the.

How do you call it atrium

of the building next door had been
placed in a in the basement of a church.

Now they weren't that they weren't
badly placed they were stacked properly

they weren't getting wet but

they were they were getting banged up and
we were able a great experience.

If you can imagine to talk the Whitney
into bringing them to the Whitney and

restoring them and they were exquisitely
restored and then exhibiting them in the.

In the with the in the with the courtyard
and the said Jim Williamson as I'm sure

those were worked on these the Whitney
stored them for a little while.

It's extremely expensive
to store these things and

we did many finally to get them to
the Canadian Center for architecture which

is where all of the other archives of hate
it is and they really do belong there.

They belong with the haiduk archives and
I and

I I'm very very proud of that it's hard.

You can't photograph these things but you
know the you know Broyard Whitney Museum.

It's it has a slightly anthropomorphic or
more fit quality anyway to get this big

windows like it's the norm
as head of a Cyclops.

And it's the exact it's made
in great great granite and

it's exactly the same grey
that Heydrich insisted these

be painted to music kind of seven
layers of airplane paint to

get a very hard finish and when they were
install you really can't photograph it but

when they were installed.

They turned the Whitney
into a hated project.

They they they re framed the Whitney
Museum broilers Whitney into a project.

Jeff Kipnis when he went to New York.

He walked up on the sidewalk and saw
them he called me on the cell phone and

said you did it and
I think he really I think it was.

The second best thing I've ever.

I've ever done.

Now all of these connections and texts.

LAURA.

Texts presents in.

OK very slow but they are.

A point point to something I do
I mentioned briefly which is

the reason that my primary
vocation became not design but

pedagogy and I mean the science and
the profession of of teaching.

I'm very proud to be a teacher and
Bay proud to be a scholar.

I think in teaching I think can
come either through the university

through the museum through the journal or
in other ways.

I'm convinced that whatever
objective transformations we

might achieve in the form of the building
say or in the form of of exhibitions and

form of scholarly analysis those objective
transformations will never be secure

until they're accompanied by
a whole collective reeducation

that develops new reading habits new
modes of perception new ways of thinking

new ways of perceiving you have to
develop these new perceptual apparatus is

along with the new objects in order to
secure the impact of the new object and

that's what I think teachers do and
that's why I think it's a necessary

corollary with with design to
construct new modes of consciousness

that are capable of matching our new
situations and our and our new objects.

It's along those lines
that I want to now present

a most recent project this exhibition at
the Whitney just closed a few weeks ago.

They have exhibition on but

Mr Fuller only because this is
what I want to present tonight.

The only way we would
have the fuller archives.

We.

And there there are a lot of them
are in the Stanford University.

But we think we had almost sixty
sources it was an enormous

effort to to go to different sources to to
get all the material a fuller together.

The only piece that was not you know
a regional folder that was not designed

by Fuller was this kind of curtain which
a colleague at Harvard design using

using parametric designed
to sort of take Fuller's

geodesic into integrity structures and
and bend them in the store them and

then assemble them in these aluminum
rods and the reason we did that was was

say more about this the fuller was someone
who insisted on thinking totalities and

we wanted to get the idea that when he
walked off the elevator into this kind of

film or curtain of tetrahedra we wanted

to sort of be everywhere right in then
through this kind of this kind of lace to

start to glimpse the larger the larger
objects like the geodesic dome and

you can't even see it but
here is a large considerately structure.

I was also very interested.

The famous Broyard ceiling grid
which you can see through here.

I was very interested in playing fuller
off Broyard the ceiling grille and

that kind of it's of course his attention
not just between triangles and squares.

It's an intention but between two entirely
different ideologies about architecture.

We we didn't look at Fuller did you
remember got Fuller came to Emory

while we were here.

I remember I remember seeing him.

I remember it lasting like five hours and
I remember not understanding a word of it

right but we we didn't look at Fuller I
think we were probably taught not to look

at Fuller and so for me it approached
this with some trepidation but

also interest fuller taught.

I just have a few more we reconstructed.

A lie there were we did reconstruct
this isn't original but

a geodesic dome in recycled cardboard
we're interested in fuller partly because

he anticipated sort of a sustainable or
ecologically sensitive design and

the cycle cardboard which cost next to
nothing to make was part of that but

also we recreated some
models of show others.

This is a model we the existing model.

Sorry the the.

The original model of the Expo sixty
seven in Montreal had been destroyed and

we reconstructed this model of the expo
using a three dimensional printer.

It took an entire weekend to print.

If you can if you can imagine and
took even longer than that to

clean the house all that the stuff that
you know the printer the printer leaves.

For taught us to think in totality.

Just when other people were were realizing
that the world was sort of breaking apart

into specialized disciplines specialized
practices dividing itself into

seemingly unrelated objects and
forces in events fuller insisted

this is the main and maybe thinking about
so in one thousand nine hundred nineteen

seventies a school of insisted on the
significant interconnectedness of things

that otherwise might be thought of
a was just detached or even irrelevant.

He thought that everything in our world is
built up from the same basic structures

and systems.

Even those things that seem
to minute to be significant

like like the tetrahedron
which is the only possible

shape that holds four to four points
in equal distance from one another and

he thought that all of
nature was made out of.

The tetrahedron or rays of tetrahedra.

But I also wasn't afraid to
work on very large scale things

like the universe itself.

Listen to.

Listen to Fuller he said I did not set out
to design a house that hung from a pole.

I'll show you this or

to manufacture a new type of automobile to
invent a new system of map projection or

develop a geodesic domes or
entered in a jet it synergetic geometries.

I started with the universe as
an organization of energy systems.

Of which all our experiences and
possible experiences.

With I started with the universe as
an organization of energy systems

of which all our experiences and
possible experiences or

only local instances I could have ended
up with a pair of flying slippers.

In Now this is the first programatic
drawing that we found a fuller it appears

early in one nine hundred twenty seven in
a kind of appears out of out of nowhere.

He's obviously been thinking stuff but
the drawing just appears.

As a drawing in title light full and light
full for fuller means full of light but

it also means light ness.

If the scale of idea is already global.

The direction of thinking is what he
called from inside out that is from local

molecular events to the larger ecological
system in which those events are bedded.

And the prevailing architectural
feature is the central vertical support

you see that and I'm going to say
I'm going to argue that this diagram

that organizes all these these
three components really will

will not change in Fuller's Pro
program but it will it will

guide his entire career though it will be
endlessly modulating and reinterpreted.

Notice how in these concentric circles
the leaning delineate bands in.

An aging from the earth in which
the strange a ray of objects is arranged

the world tree at the top grows from
the earth diametrically opposite.

You see the bottom of a morning tower
with a daredevil attached to it.

A pair of high voltage high high voltage
towers on the right opposite a pagoda.

In between these rise
a lighthouse a skyscraper.

And a ship with a very
tall transmission tower.

In that floating in between these
vertical objects or an airplane.

A sailboat collapsible stool a bird
a tennis racket an umbrella.

An automobile and a steamer trunk.

Now all of these I think
all of these objects

are associated either with structural
tension tennis racquet umbrella

collapsible stool or with mobility and
I think it's those two things tension and

movement which again becomes part of his
diagram and part of his program that will.

Stay with him his entire career and
then finally I don't know if you can see

the text and I apologize for that it's
really hard to photograph this very

very light drawing and I had to crank
up the contrast to even get it to show

in the text just scribbled
around the edge of the drawing.

Are the words time metal
mechanics time explicit

light time slow matter time
fellowship production.

Now the already appears like so many
imaginary objects of desire sort of free

floating without a system
of connections yet

to bring them into a coherent
structure a coherent organization.

Except of course the Earth itself and
its the earth that will.

Will be the core but by thinking
this multiplicity of elements very

unlike elements in a world insist of four
dimensions he keeps repeating the word

time and he will name this world
in his next project four D..

Fuller is already
beginning to conceptualize.

A system a natural system but
also a system of design

in terms of movement distances
patterns intensities.

That are all organized by
the idea of the earth itself

in a diagram that I would
call geo logical and

of course by geological I don't mean
dirt in gym stones like geology.

I mean rather a logic or
a system or an ecology.

I guess that is centered on
the earth both as an environment but

also as a as an organizing force

will be very quickly the very
next year we think this drawing

tidal air ocean world town plan
appears is really interesting drawing

it presents the entire landmass as well as

it presents all the continents as more or

less a continuous land mass a single
land mass in a single ocean.

This is something that will occupy
him he will solve this later in

the I'm actually on map that I'll show but
it's something that will occupy him of

thinking of the world as a single
land mass in a single ocean and here.

It takes a VERY MUCH more common concrete
almost almost a narrative quality.

We see these forty houses
which are these towers here.

And we see them in the most unlikely
places like the Sahara desert or

the North Pole or
the Amazon which is this they

places that at that time were
were unsuitable for Hume.

Habitation a fuller thought that we were
running out of not only resources but

running out of land and
part of his early program would be to find

dwelling systems which which could

which could in which people could live in
these otherwise unsuitable conditions.

The forty towers.

They were Tin Tin decks

suspended from a central mast
remember tension and movement.

The tipped index suspended
from a central mast there.

Sorry I just want to show this
logo is really interesting.

We talk about branding and things now and

in design that fuller
actually spent a lot of time.

Finding a kind of suitable logo for
this four D. project and

he was he was one of the first and
he didn't mind at all.

At a time when most of our current
architects were were resisting kind of

intrigue into a kind of capitalist or
market or free market system for

didn't mind at all trying
to sell these things.

Remind me what time we started six.

This is the forty House again light will
he believe that the weight of the house

was a direct index to its ecological
efficiency or what we might call now it's

sustainability and that of course a single
family house in traditional masonry and or

timber weighed weighed the same or
more than than a ten family house.

It In.

The way these had he wanted to use
the most advanced technology to

produce and and situate these houses
in one thousand nine hundred eight

the most tech not the most advanced
technology was military technology and

he imagines this narrative of
a veritable coming round on the side.

Dropping a bomb creating an enormous
crater in the earth and then followed by

another daredevil carrying the forward the
house with its With its kind of you know

you know root root ball that would just be
dropped into the into the crater and so

ten you know ten family structure
in a in a couple of hours

in the in the forty House the common can.

The kind of concerns of materials
in methods that were valued.

Only according to their performance he
imagine using aluminum alloy and at this

point aluminum was not strong enough to
actually do this kind of structural work

that the aluminum alloy is that we think
of now as being structural didn't yet

exist but he was for seeing that using
high strength steel cable structurally

stable and transparent plastics pneumatic
floors doors made of lightweight.

And dynamic sort of dynamic
apparatus that slid and

all of these could be air transported
erected anywhere in the world and

all he imagined would be built by a single
under a single contract just like

an automobile rather than by
multiple contracts and unions.

He caught a chill quickly
some of the structural

structural ideas he imagines not a very
good slide but he imagined one version

where the whole thing was wrapped in
a transparent plastic wrapper to help

help not only control but capture when
parents used them for ventilation.

But also for energy.

I mean he didn't he didn't
have the windmill idea yet

but he imagined using Win for energy.

He described this one as an energy valve
in a continuum of energy transfers.

I want to quote again.

There were different version
of the single this is a single

family version which I'll
show more of in a second.

I want to quote.

Because he thinks of this house we.

I think we were taught not to look at
these things because architecture.

There are problematic they have
some some formal issues let's say

he didn't think of them
as formal problems.

He thought of he thought of these houses
or the form of these houses as nothing

more than a kind of mapping of
of connections connections to

of material to material connection and
intersections of energy flows and

resources and connection of people to
objects this in the way he describes it.

These subsidiary systems dwelling
devices which are the houses resultant

to comprehensive processing or
equivalent to electronic to.

Which may be plugged into
the greater regenerative circuits

of the electronic communication system so
we see of these houses as being plugged in

to a larger network of
energy communication and

transportation house he says in
comprehensive designing would be

as incidental to the world around
network dwelling service as is

the telephone trade transceiver instrument
to the energy processing in communication

systems are you getting Fuller's language
that there is equivalent to a transmitter

connected into an enormous global
system of commute of communication so

flows of energy flows of
communication transportation.

And this itself he said in turn would
be within the universal systems

of macro cosmically in micro cars but
really pertinent evolutions.

I remember now.

I didn't understand it but.

Now there were decorative versions this
is a watercolor done by folders wife.

But when he presented these things
he really wanted to get these things

manufactured.

But when he presented them.

Of course nobody you know nobody
could imagine living in one so

he had his wife make
pretty pictures of them.

I just had to show that and
some very beautiful drawings of pattern.

As in the pneumatic flooring.

Now I want to show you.

A little film clip it.

If the sound is very bad quality
because it's just this is the film.

Fuller's really young and he's very
awkward and he has this main accent.

New England sort of accent.

But but
listen the way he describes the house.

Now in this system.

And you really have to think of it in
that quotation about how everything is

interconnected.

Of course you would have to get to
the houses in the Imagine literally like

like tubes plugged into
a communication inner G. system.

He also imagine vehicles that would
would connect globally these towers

the powers would be like at this point an
airplane could not fly around the earth.

Of course so an airplane would have to
refuel as it traversed the globe and

the four deep omni
transportation unit which he

imagined as an amphibious it
could travel as a in water air or

he didn't call it driving he called
it extended taxiing on the land.

It was only extended taxiing because
he really wanted to fly so he now this

of course never went into production as
such he imagined in in this version with.

Pneumatic inflatable wings but
then he did make three prototypes of

just the land based model.

These are drawings from
Museum in Chicago there.

This is almost the size of the drawing
the really expects now for

didn't make these drawings these
were drawn by engineers but

we had these in the exhibit the really
explicit drawings and again a logo with

a flying fish for the for
the dime actually on transport unit.

So the diagram.

I want to say that Fullers
designs his machines

even his buildings should really
be thought of as diagrams of

of of systems of the vectors
of forces of movement

structure transportation and
communication this is a drawing

this is one of my favorite
drawings in the whole show.

It's us.
This is

sketch of Fullaway's defining synergy.

But he's drawing he doesn't yet have the
geodesic structure as such as we now know

it but he's but he's already drawing it he
realizes that is that is going to be and

he's going to find a geometry with
which he can map which for him or

really vectors of force.

It was the historian
Rainer Bantam who was the really

the single advocate in
architectural circles of of Fuller

in his nine hundred sixty book theory and
design of the first machine age bene

present Fuller as the contemporary
analogue of Benham's hero Futurist

architect and Tonio set sent to layout and
this and this avatar as sent away it

was avatar of the first machine age Fuller
was the avatar of the second machine age.

I just want a brief quote from Bantam
because he almost gets at the point I'm

trying to make he says fuller
Fuller also shared centrally as.

Aim of her harmonizing environment and
man and

exploiting every benefit of science and
technology.

Furthermore in the idea of a central core
he's talking about the forty House in

the idea of the central core distributing
services throughout the surrounding space

there is a concept that strikingly Echoes
but she only has field theory of space

with objects distributing lines of
force through their surroundings.

Now it's very abstract but
the final point is remarkably suggestive

that somehow these designs
distribute lines of force.

No Banham couldn't develop
this idea of of lines

of force to develop it would take it would
take some notion of of an architecture or

of a design organization that
is anti representational that is

that is vitalistic And
this open to sort of multiple and

divergent experiences out of a single
manifestation or it would take as full or

put it the everywhere and
everywhen non simultaneously enter

transforming differently and
during differently energized independently

episodic an overlapping
eternally regenerative laws.

That's what it would take
to conceptualize this.

Now for for everything that exists is
a modification of the single law or

the single substance call it nature
call it God He called it universe but

this doesn't mean that the geological
diagram is just an abstraction

that transcends all possible experience
of it I think it started that way.

Now I don't I can't show you for

me the single best demonstration of
the real experience in cognitive

possibilities of this kind of diagram is
in a project that he called the Geo scope

which he never realized I'll give you
a glimpse of it by showing that it start.

It's with this map as
again a way of mapping

the earth surface and fuller used it
to play what he called the world game.

This is the map spread out on the floor.

We reproduce this by
the way in the museum.

You could you could see the earth.

All it wants as a single
landmass in a single ocean and

then through you know he's doing it still
by hand but you can imagine of taking

different statistics different data and
plotting it on this map so

that you can see the interconnectedness
of that data across the globe.

This is a publication from Forbes magazine
which talks about energy consumption

this is one thousand nine hundred
fifty three already talking about

a kind of ecological crisis and
in the west of energy consumption.

This is close as he got in one
thousand nine hundred fifty two.

He built a scale model at Cornell.

Of what would have been the globe
two hundred feet in diameter made up

of triangular panels analogous
to the democracy on a map and

further with he imagine with ten
million tiny pixels of light

all controlled by a giant computer
this is nine hundred fifty two.

So he's imagining enormous mainframe
computers running lightbulbs but

of course that's nothing
other than to a video screen.

He doesn't call it that but
it's nothing than a video screen

are using cybernetic data gathering and

feedback all organized by the computer
this what he called the Geo

scope would graphically
display the inventory and

pattern Patterns of
Global Resources in the.

He said it could display it
in real time in slow down or

in speeded up time it could displace
several different kind of inventories and

patterns simultaneously for
study and comparison.

He imagined.

Recording everything from energy
consumption to stock trading to voting

trends and weather patterns from tourist
routes to to military movements.

It was it really think of it like
an inverted It's like an inverted

Google Earth.

It's this kind of Google Earth turn turned
inside out where you could zoom in and

get enormous amounts of
data at any point but

this comparative display of flows patterns
intense and intensities of population and

climate sociology finance and
all their distributions and interactions.

P.P. proposed that one be built right
outside the United Nations building so

that as the world leaders debated
they could actually test out you know

which which country we're going varied
next door or which are which country.

We were going to send you know corn to and
actually test out

the global consequences of their decisions
before they actually implement them.

So I think it was the Geo scope this kind
of this kind of geo info video dome that

that was a real concrete embodiment
of the possibilities of this diagram.

When he got the commission and this
was really the only really significant

building he ever did and he did it with
showed us that our the architect for

the Expo Center one thousand and

Expo in Montreal in one thousand nine
hundred sixty seven he originally imagined

that this would be the building of
the Geo scope and it just the technology

in sixty seven was still or and
the money that it would take to build it.

Technology was still not there.

It's interesting that
that it in its present

state it is an ecological sent center now.

I want to show.

I want to leave time for
some discussion and question so

I'm going to speed up a bit.

I do want to show some drawings that
we had in the exhibition that I think

have never been seen never
published to kind of

become a show you that as he moves into
this study of the geodesic system.

He thinks of it as lines of force.

He doesn't think of of
just just structure and

load bearing as I think we think of the
geodesic dome is primarily something that

spans large can house large volumes but
he thinks of it as a kind of mapping

of forces this is really one
of my favorite drawings.

He says both man and universe are indeed
only complex aggregates of motion

this this idea that it's that
it's not it's not space but

motion is a space in
itself is meaningless.

We can have spatial relationships but
not space.

So everything everything is is is motion.

Along with the geodesic structure is this
structure that he called the tin secretary

structure which goes back to that very
very first drawing that it exists

by tension that it supports itself not by
bearing the weight of heavy members but

but by pushing out and stretching and
holding itself together intention.

The.

So so I want to consider.

Now the geometry real quickly

the geometry of what he decided
was the kind of basic unit

of this geode what I'm calling this
geological system or geological diagram.

It's what we know if the cube octahedron.

He called it vector the better equilibrium
it comprises fourteen surfaces six

squares a triangles twenty four identical
edges twelve identical vertices

two triangles and two squares meeting
at each of these for the C's.

The way to the way you derive it is
through what he called the closest packing

of twelfth Here's now twelve
spheres after after three the next.

Smallest the closest packing a spheres.

Is twelve around one.

If you take the center of each of those
twelve spheres including the central

one and
connect those centers with vectors you get

the cube octahedron which he referred
to as vector equilibrium all

of these lines including
the ones from the center or

equal length or he insisted equal
frequency is thinking of as

frequencies as its force for
specters in hits vector equilibrium.

The thing goes a little too too slow.

We were just working with it with
with students trying to show.

There are all sorts of geometries that can
come out of this we haven't been able to

get them all in yet we run them we
just have it is this in the square.

It also if you fill in
the sum of the triangles.

It has the feature that it
can actually perform what

fuller called the jitterbug operation
which is collapsed in on itself.

In in collapsing in on itself.

It goes through several other geometrical
figures and including the double decker

Hedron but it but
it can be reduced down to two octahedron.

Octahedron but
stacked two pyramids stacked together.

Now if you take the axes
of those two pyramids here.

And double them and then spread each
of those three X. Y. Z. axes out

doubled them and spread them out parallel
you end up with a with an analogous but

different structure which if you
then apply tension members to each

of it you get the considerately version
of the cube octahedron So one is the.

The is the geodesic version and
one is the version.

It also has the feature
that if you cut the story

the sides on axis or
through vertices you map.

What are called the great
circles of the globe which was

fascinated with great circles but because
they would be the way that eventually

airplane transportation would
be the shortest shortest point.

Line between two points and this out of
that same story this shows the unity of

his thinking it's out of that same system
that he actually was able to conceive

the DI Maxie on map the DOM actually
on map is nothing other than a cube

octahedron unfolded with the earth
projected projected onto it.

So I wanted to show the kind of
unity of that way of thinking.

I'm going to go very quickly.

So as to leave time for
questions I want to show this other I've

had three favorite growing so far I guess
but this is this is really is my favorite.

It's where he takes the this idea of
the closest packing of spheres and tries.

I mean this is really I guess I guess this
is the first parametric architecture.

You've got fascinated with parametric
here that they are Harvard and

this is what he's trying
to do is is is unpack or

generate out of that system of
closeness packing US fears all

of the patterns the mathematical but it's
really not it's really not high in math.

It's really just.

Just patterns it's really patterns and

parameters that can emerge out
of that out of that diagram.

There are some beautiful
objects in the exhibition.

This is of course he didn't have three D..

Three D.
Max to model the jitterbug operation.

So he built a model this
actually is a model that moves

through that jitterbug operation that
I try to show in the and I'm a show.

In this thing this is the close
this is also the closest.

Packing with fear.

This is the next stage
up I can't remember.

I can't remember after twelve
what the what the next stage of

my guess is one hundred forty four.

And some of the most beautiful

objects we had in the show were actually
experiments what he's mapping here

are these are you can see the these
are the edges of the spheres you can

see the sphere here and he's looking at
the kind of inverse of the great circles

can you see that the fierce dip still
packed but they're starting to move out.

And these are the these are very
simple the great circle.

Progressions.

And then the kind of mathematics
of the great circle.

This is a really big drawing on vellum.

You know Fuller's engagement I'm going to

I'm going to skip over this because
if you know Fuller at all it would be

the democracy on house that you
know what it is the develops.

Out of the forty House and at least a
prototype there's one prototype remaining

We couldn't it was too big for us to get
into the show but we had the drawings.

Again looking at trying to use wind
currents both for ventilation and for

energy production he never
quite worked that out.

This is the model that we had I
can't see the date forty six.

Now you starting to imagine then.

Collect How do you how do you
been Deal move from single family

habitation to collective habitation.

This is a photograph we found a few.

Autograph in the archives.

No notes.

No other photographs.

No indication but it was so with us.

It was so
weird that we wanted to recreate it and

have it work with the students at Harvard.

You know regionally we wanted
to read this is nineteen.

I think this is still the one
nine hundred thirty S.

but it looks already like the one
nine hundred fifty S. right.

We wanted to create it a three dimensional
model as if it would be a black and

white photograph but it didn't work.

It really died it got very flat so
we tried instead to go to go hyper real

These were little cheeseburgers
were were cut were cut on later.

Again a three D. printer and
then we just put a little sandwich of of

plexi sanded it so that it would glow in
then and then put an L E D underneath.

I love the sing a lot

of you know the movie
The Day The Earth Stood Still.

The movie was after this.

And we got these the line
hundred fifty people.

The other.

Attempt to now take the idea

of energy valve and
bring it to the scale of the city.

The first attempt was a dome over
Manhattan which of course of course

is a purely corrective he's doing this
just because of the enormous amount

of heat loss.

He said that in ten years the money saved
on snow removal alone would pay for

the dome.

He he actually engineered
this engineered this to

capture the rain runoff and
recycle it right.

Of course it makes no sense but

he to him it made perfect sense but
but the other a to.

To figure out how to now build this

in this exactly the same
diagram as the forty House.

You lose the central mast.

But still all of the collective services

schools shopping would be in the center
just like the services are in the center

of the house and all of the dwellings
would be on the exterior so

as to have of course natural light and

elation he imagined these in
San Francisco and in in Tokyo.

One was published.

We have the plate from the from the
Playboy photograph it one was published in

in Playboy this is because this is
a sample now this is the also in Japan.

And these would float on the ocean
they would dock and if and

then you know they they could
they could move he would further

to the inhabitants not as developers but
as passengers.

So for him.

It really is a a movable system now and
then and then one final thing.

It turns out that.

Because the geodesic dome the sphere is so
efficient that the larger

it gets the lighter of course is the ratio
of volume to the weight of the structure.

So theoretically if it gets large enough.

It acts the ratio actually becomes so
light that it would float that

the slightly hotter air the slightly
hotter air inside would would

cause it to float and
he imagined these these cities tethered

this is now fifty nine imagine
these tethered over in climates

where otherwise I said you couldn't
wouldn't be able to inhabit.

Now with Fuller we have to think beyond
the view that technology architecture and

individuals are discrete things and
systems we have to think of.

Instead of a kind of differentiated
totality where the distinctions between

buildings humans and their environments.

No longer whole we have to think the flow
of air that boy is these enclosures

as the same part of the same system that
supplies oxygen for the inhabitants.

We have to think the sun and

the snow as part of this is part
of the architectural system that

that you know that supports these
are all part of they're all connected.

We have to think of movements
of bodies in and out.

Movements of nutrients and
fuels and resources in and

waste coming out and
we have to think of the movement of these

enclosures through space we have to think
of the movement of capital to produce and

sustain these we have to think of the
movement of the enclosures through self in

the enclosures themselves in this kind
of kind of post terrestrial being

on the show you just a few more objects
without comment a poem written to fuller

by John Cage and I think this will be
another whole lecture to think about.

For is part of a generation
of people like cage and

others who still believe in totality.

I mean you know Cage is music you really
trying to capture the same kind of

totalities.

I'm going to end with a quotation.

This is the prediction
of the great aesthetic.

Which will inaugurate
the twenty first century.

Will be the utterly invisible
quality of intellectual integrity

the integrity of the individual dealing
with his scientific discoveries

the integrity of the individual in
dealing with conceptual realisation

of the interrelatedness of all events
the integrity of the individual

dealing with the only
experimentally arrived at.

Information regarding
invisible phenomenon.

And finally the integrity of all
those who formulate invisibly and

with their minds who formulate invisibly
with only the mathematically dimensional

and advanced technologies available who
formulate on behalf of their fellow man.

So such as the promise of
Fuller's geological diagrams.

Thanks very much.

Thank you thank you

Michael thank you very much and we have
the most we can have some questions

where you have or

I think I had not thought of Fuller.

In in that connection to my own work I
do think that what fuller opened up for

me was something that I'm interested.

Generally in which is this
interconnectedness that

that lead listless step back and

think of a more can be in general
analysis of a building in a situation.

The idea now that.

You know I think now we have the notion
of carbon footprint as one way

is just one one way of
conceptualizing the more.

Total consequences of buildings of

of life of habits but
I think as a historian.

I think I'm more and more interested
in thinking of buildings as a kind of

representation of a convergence of forces
social forces technological forces

cultural forces that the building comes to
be seen as a diagram or a representation.

I don't mind using the word
representation and in that sense and

I think of my work up.

I've often if you know the article for
example on the Seagram Building.

I tried to see for example nice a secret.

Building as a representation of
a change perceptual apparatus

in the one thousand nine
hundred fifty sixty's and

attention to surface in the building kind
of kind of becomes a manifestation of

a convergence of many different forces
now fuller helped me push that further.

I think your your question is exactly
right that to really do the full job.

You would have to consider
his his own connections to

the military use Eisenhower toward
the military industrial complex

you would have to consider
the the politics of of that

of the technology that he he insisted
on using the most advanced technology

which we now know will not always
result in the most ecologically

sensitive project but
he thought that he thought that it would.

So we would have to consider.

I think those political and ideological
consequences with which I have not.

That would be the next step and
I think you're absolutely right

to point that out and I don't want
to make who are out to be a hero.

What I do what I do think it's also
helpful to think fuller and this is

not the architecture I like to look at OK
I don't even know if this is architecture.

I'm not sure but it helps me to
think about fuller that that forms.

Can be thought of as maps of material and
immaterial forces.

And I think I think that opens up a
dimension that we have we could bring into

architecture that that could be quite and
I think I do think

recent work that is
generated out of parametric

you know calculations and
processes and operations.

I do think that this in some ways might
be a way of thinking precedence for

for that I think

yeah no it's true you know and I think
you're actually right those the drawings

that I showed with all the calculations
and patterns I mean imagine and who knows

what's going on in his head but it's
obviously if he had had some software.

It could have done it in seconds.

Whatever And
I think that's absolutely true.

But the other thing I mean he on
the other hand by moving slowly.

I mean he convinced himself that what
he was after that what he was about

to discover what was the geometry of
the universe itself that this is what

the universe would look like
if you know geometrically and

you know what current work
in nano technologies.

Bear out a lot of that if you
look at some of the the the Nano

machinery that's being used both in
medicine and also just experimentation.

It is often he's often right about
the geometry what is the famous earlier in

the fullerene the carbon sixty molecule.

It is a geodesic sphere.

It's a carbon carbon sixty doesn't occur.

Except in extreme temperatures and
stuff but it does it does occur.

They I think the guys who
theorized it was a theoretical

molecule first before they actually found
one but it it it is a geodesic sphere so

that that's calls for a pause call for.

Yeah yeah yeah

yeah yeah

yeah yeah yeah we there were two.

I co-created the show with
Dana Miller an art historian and

then her first impulse
because in her world in art.

He's also had in the normal simple
as the cage was just a glimpse

of Josiah McEnaney someone who.

For example is directly connected
contemporary artists to fuller and

there are a lot of artists.

Her first impulse was to show those
connections My first impulse and

I actually did some work you mentioned
Gail Vincent Scully insists that

the ceiling in the art gallery
con ceiling in the art gallery.

That's comes directly out of constant
contact because they were teaching

together at Yale and
the other one the skyscraper project

skyscraper project is
like a geodesic tower.

So I had begun and I had not.

Part of the.

I mean Roger's in some ways
could claim to be the living

legacy of Fuller in in many ways.

ROGERS.

I think I can say this The rumor is
that Richard Rodgers is going to rebuild

the car and he can he could but
right he could be the region and

we thought we were working on the show the
archive is in San Francisco telling us.

Well when we would be able to get
these court drawings of the car

back as Richard Rodgers really wants.

So I think it's going to reveal
the car and it was simply

when we saw in the show come
the course an edited version of

the material that we found and we decided
just to play it as straight as possible so

you actually saw the show and it was
straight and we actually got criticized

by despite the display
it was too banal and but

I think we took to take the step
toward his influence for

us opened up so much that we didn't know
where to stop because I would have liked

to have plotted it up to the president in
the way that we've been talking about it.

I don't know quite how I don't
know who it would be but

I think a lot of work in
the present could be linked and

it was just we did decided
just to play it straight.

The it was really interesting that two

shows a Museum of Modern Art Some
of almost simultaneous

was the prefabricated house show
which connected in interesting way.

The other one in what was called
something my plastic mind the plastic.

Which showed contemporary
parametric designs by artists and

architects just preceded the fuller show
so we hope and when it goes to Chicago.

It will go to Chicago in October.

You know March is October and.

In March all over Eliason
will be on the for.

Or below.

So you'll start to get at
least those connections.

But I think our hope is that you
know because I'm now the catalog and

I can get you a library copy the catalogue
that maybe I think Fuller's for

I think it's architecture it's
really really problematic but

I think as is designed thinking it could
really open up some possibilities for us.

Still you saw the show.

This is in the courtyard of
the Museum of Modern Art where this.

Trust wasn't really.

This and I know it's I can't imagine.

Growing you like the screen
to show the child church.

It showed the son.

I mean he was a conscious middle position
of belief kind of so conscious profit.

Yeah.

Yeah I didn't even mention it because
I don't know what to do with him.

I want you to explain
to me Look my politics.

I thought you know I think
I really think he he.

Never.
The only time he used the word God in

publication.

He wrote the famous poem and then
the title of the book was God is a verb.

And I think he was he was precisely
the metaphysician I think

you've got the right you
have the right word.

He he I think he truly thought that there
was a unifying force in the universe.

And he was gone and some people would call
it God He called it universe capital you

not the universe but
without the article but

I think I think he thought it was God he
was he was really I think philosophically

he was you know he believed

in the in the deep sovereignty
of the individual and

at the same time he believed that
the universe was a unified unified.

System and he never really reconciled the
the in the insistence on the Sabbath even

the visual with this in the think you know
God can do that you know and he never.

That was a problem and you see
the problem in in architecturally when he

builds those collective
those collective structures.

I mean I mean of course they would be
dreadful environments I mean you can't

you can't think of those as
really you would live in them.

You have to think of them as diagrams for

something that he was that would
be worked out differently.

OK So he was from a he was
from a wealthy family.

He got into Harvard College and
I think with some

sort of stipend or some sort of chunk of
money either a scholarship or a stipend.

Or maybe it was even for his family.

I'm not sure.

On a single weekend trip to
New York with some friends.

He spent his entire stipend.

Yeah.

And and was six and was expelled.

Now later you know if you noticed one
of those logos had the Harvard society.

Later he was invited back to Harvard
to give the Norton lectures the famous.

The same ones getting in gave and
was given a degree or

a degree from Harvard he did
not have a college degree.

He was in the military and

I don't know for how many years and
he learned a lot about you.

Can you can imagine how this plays and
he learned a lot about navigation and

even and I don't understand navigation
in the one nine hundred twenty S.

but it was you know it was by stars
I suppose still more of arts and

whatever those things are but you can
kind of see that that that interest in

in navigation I think a lot of his
education was really in the military.

I don't know so much about the early
biography as I should yet.

All always adding say again

but I still think it would be.

I still would be adding I guess I
think that one of the things we do as

designers and scholars and

just as cultural producers aren't
we constantly trying to find

new ways of producing difference and out
of different different ways of thinking

different ways of living different
ways of different politics right.

And it seems like to me if we produce
different differences that expansive and

it expects conceptual expansion but
also experience expanded experiences

is always better than then and I'm not
sure I'm getting a question but that

somewhere the answer would be along those
lines that you always produce difference

and you always try to open your shirt
open things up not close things down.

Robert

I'm really of two minds
about this where we're at.

We're in a discussion at
the moment at Harvard.

You know for a long time the faculty
wanted to rename the Graduate School of

Design The Graduate School of
Architecture because it was thought that

that architecture.

It has a history and
a definition as a discipline.

That didn't.

We're actually are deciding now that that
we're going to try to play the word design

better to think of architecture but

think of architecture as a process and
as a discipline as some as a way

of thinking in organizing
ideas space resources

as a way of organizing
large material systems that

sometimes might be buildings
sometimes might be furniture

sometimes might be cities or sometimes
they might be things even larger.

So I think at the moment.

What my definition of
architecture would be.

The organization of material
systems that sometimes

results in buildings I don't want
to I don't want to tie architecture

on the immobility to building.

Now as soon as I say that I can see
I can see my faculty colleagues at

Harvard going crazy because in assisting
that if you're going to if that is I

believe say that that architecture
comes out of its own history and

its own history is a history of buildings
then then you contradict yourself so

I I don't have this worked out but I think
it does follow on the last question that

I really think to to think of architecture
something bigger than buildings.

I think I would believe in and I think it
is interesting because you know in this

interior We also think about pedagogy and
we think about where the school is going.

I do I do believe this training
in architecture is actually very

good training for doing lots of different
things other than than than building

a lot of our students in the.

You know in the bike systems designers.

Obviously they're graphic components but
but.

Just we're finding also as Bio Sciences
as different kinds of bioengineering and

Bio Sciences in emerge.

They have trouble imaging and
mapping their concepts and

I think what architects are really good
at is imaging and mapping ideas and

that but might be another way of both
expanding into of a pedagogic but

also rethinking what we
mean by architecture.

I would use Think of the New Deal.

Thank you.

A Q A.