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Everything I Know, Section 10
gist
A Depression sheriff's sale of R. Buckminster Fuller's Bridgeport shop teaches him never to own tools again. He tracks metals and scrap cycles, then collides the DDU grain-bin house, the copper bathroom, and the Wichita House with unions, banks, and manufacturers. The first large installations that actually stay up are Arctic radomes for the DEW line.
ideas
- Never own the shop. After the sheriff sells his Depression machinery, Fuller refuses to own tools so the little individual can keep initiative.
- Scrap is inventory, not waste. Copper returns on about a 22-year lag; wartime scrap overwhelms the mines and breaks the old monopoly.
- DDU and bathroom meet the unions. The $315 grain-bin DDU and the one-piece bathroom work, then plumbers and suppliers shut production down.
- Wichita proves the weight, not the market. Beech builds the house at the 1927 three-ton figure; disbanded backers and banks stop production.
- Radomes go where nothing else works. The first large installations ring the Arctic DEW line under air-delivered logistics.
quotes
“I made up my mind, thereafter that I would never own tools.”
“this was a D.D.U Dymaxion Deployment Unit.”
“where it came out the same 3 tons that I had figured for a Dymaxion House in 1927”
“the first place my domes really ever went was the Arctic”