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67-530: Cloud City may refer to: Floating city (science fiction) Cloud City, a floating city on the planet Bespin in the Star Wars universe Cloud City, a nickname for Allianz Field , a soccer stadium in Saint Paul, Minnesota, inspired by its broadly similar appearance to the Star Wars location and as a reference to the team's long-standing supporter's group,

134-494: A Verb , he wrote: "I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe." Fuller wrote that the universe's natural analytic geometry was based on tetrahedra arrays. He developed this in several ways, from the close-packing of spheres and the number of compressive or tensile members required to stabilize an object in space. One confirming result

201-552: A commitment to "the search for the principles governing the universe and help advance the evolution of humanity in accordance with them ... finding ways of doing more with less to the end that all people everywhere can have more and more." By 1928, Fuller was living in Greenwich Village and spending much of his time at the popular café Romany Marie 's, where he had spent an evening in conversation with Marie and Eugene O'Neill several years earlier. Fuller accepted

268-432: A family inheritance. Fuller associated the word Dymaxion , a blend of the words dy namic , max imum , and tens ion to sum up the goal of his study, "maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input". The Dymaxion was not an automobile but rather the 'ground-taxying mode' of a vehicle that might one day be designed to fly, land and drive — an "Omni-Medium Transport" for air, land and water. Fuller focused on

335-440: A full skin of concrete it was not until 1949 that Fuller erected a geodesic dome building that could sustain its own weight with no practical limits. It was 4.3 meters (14 feet) in diameter and constructed of aluminium aircraft tubing and a vinyl-plastic skin, in the form of an icosahedron . To prove his design, Fuller suspended from the structure's framework several students who had helped him build it. The U.S. government recognized

402-485: A habit of being familiar with and knowledgeable about the materials that his later projects would require. Fuller earned a machinist 's certification, and knew how to use the press brake , stretch press, and other tools and equipment used in the sheet metal trade. Fuller attended Milton Academy in Massachusetts, and after that began studying at Harvard College , where he was affiliated with Adams House . He

469-551: A job decorating the interior of the café in exchange for meals, giving informal lectures several times a week, and models of the Dymaxion house were exhibited at the café. Isamu Noguchi arrived during 1929— Constantin Brâncuși , an old friend of Marie's, had directed him there —and Noguchi and Fuller were soon collaborating on several projects, including the modeling of the Dymaxion car based on recent work by Aurel Persu . It

536-469: A new apparatus for human propulsion of small boats. By age 12, he had invented a 'push pull' system for propelling a rowboat by use of an inverted umbrella connected to the transom with a simple oar lock which allowed the user to face forward to point the boat toward its destination. Later in life, Fuller took exception to the term "invention." Years later, he decided that this sort of experience had provided him with not only an interest in design, but also

603-503: A partial solution to the depletion of non-renewable resources. A team including Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao was commissioned by United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to design the Triton City, a floating city intended to provide housing near Tokyo or Baltimore . The proposal called for tetrahedron –shaped modules supporting large housing blocks of 5,000 inhabitants each, and which would be anchored to

670-442: A transportation fuel by people commuting to work represents a huge net loss compared to their actual earnings. An encapsulation quotation of his views might best be summed up as: "There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance." Though Fuller was concerned about sustainability and human survival under the existing socioeconomic system, he remained optimistic about humanity's future. Defining wealth in terms of knowledge as

737-489: A vehicle at our disposal, [Fuller] felt that human travel, like that of birds, would no longer be confined to airports, roads, and other bureaucratic boundaries, and that autonomous free-thinking human beings could live and prosper wherever they chose. — Lloyd S. Sieden, Bucky Fuller's Universe , 2000 To his young daughter Allegra: Fuller described the Dymaxion as a " zoom-mobile , explaining that it could hop off

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804-488: A white sphere of light. A voice spoke directly to Fuller, and declared: From now on you need never await temporal attestation to your thought. You think the truth. You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong to you. You belong to the Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to

871-417: Is a group of floating islands. In Jules Verne‘s Propeller Island , the characters are on an artificial floating island that is actually a huge ship. In Yann Martel‘s novel Life of Pi , there is a floating island. In the treatise De Grandine et Tonitruis ("On Hail and Thunder", 815), Carolingian bishop Agobard of Lyon describes Magonia , a cloud realm populated by felonious aerial sailors. In

938-693: The American Humanist Association named him the 1969 Humanist of the Year. In 1976, Fuller was a key participant at UN Habitat I , the first UN forum on human settlements. Fuller's last filmed interview took place on June 21, 1983, in which he spoke at Norman Foster 's Royal Gold Medal for architecture ceremony. His speech can be watched in the archives of the AA School of Architecture, in which he spoke after Sir Robert Sainsbury 's introductory speech and Foster's keynote address. In

1005-455: The Dymaxion car project. International recognition began with the success of huge geodesic domes during the 1950s. Fuller lectured at North Carolina State University in Raleigh in 1949, where he met James Fitzgibbon, who would become a close friend and colleague. Fitzgibbon was director of Geodesics, Inc. and Synergetics, Inc. the first licensees to design geodesic domes. Thomas C. Howard

1072-884: The Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects the same year. Also in 1970, Fuller received the title of Master Architect from Alpha Rho Chi (APX), the national fraternity for architecture and the allied arts. In 1976, he received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. In 1977, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement . He also received numerous other awards, including

1139-520: The Presidential Medal of Freedom , presented to him on February 23, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan . Fuller was born on July 12, 1895, in Milton, Massachusetts , the son of Richard Buckminster Fuller, a prosperous leather and tea merchant, and Caroline Wolcott Andrews. He was a grand-nephew of Margaret Fuller , an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with

1206-577: The U.S. Navy in World War I , as a shipboard radio operator, as an editor of a publication, and as commander of the crash rescue boat USS Inca . After discharge, he worked again in the meat-packing industry, acquiring management experience. In 1917, he married Anne Hewlett. During the early 1920s, he and his father-in-law developed the Stockade Building System for producing lightweight, weatherproof, and fireproof housing—although

1273-878: The University of Pennsylvania , Bryn Mawr College , Haverford College , Swarthmore College , and the University City Science Center ; as a result of this affiliation, the University of Pennsylvania appointed him university professor emeritus in 1975. Fuller believed human societies would soon rely mainly on renewable sources of energy , such as solar- and wind-derived electricity. He hoped for an age of "omni-successful education and sustenance of all humanity." Fuller referred to himself as "the property of universe" and during one radio interview he gave later in life, declared himself and his work "the property of all humanity." For his lifetime of work,

1340-407: The novel Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift , the island city of Laputa was revealed to be floating in the sky. Laputa purportedly levitated through use of artificial magnetism . It was primarily a fictional device that was intended to satirize far-fetched pseudo-scientific proposals: During the 1920s, science fiction author Hugo Gernsback speculated about floating cities of

1407-606: The "surface" gravity of Saturn (that is, at the visible cloud layer, where the atmospheric pressure is about the same as Earth's) is very close to that of Earth, and in his novel The Clouds of Saturn , he envisioned cities floating in the Saturnian atmosphere, where the buoyancy is provided by envelopes of hydrogen heated by fusion reactors . Uranus and Neptune also have upper atmosphere gravities comparable to Earth's, and even lower escape velocities than Saturn. Cecelia Holland populated Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus with mutant humans,

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1474-418: The "technological ability to protect, nurture, support, and accommodate all growth needs of life", his analysis of the condition of "Spaceship Earth" caused him to conclude that at a certain time during the 1970s, humanity had attained an unprecedented state. He was convinced that the accumulation of relevant knowledge, combined with the quantities of major recyclable resources that had already been extracted from

1541-553: The American transcendentalism movement. The unusual middle name, Buckminster, was an ancestral family name. As a child, Richard Buckminster Fuller tried numerous variations of his name. He used to sign his name differently each year in the guest register of his family summer vacation home at Bear Island, Maine. He finally settled on R. Buckminster Fuller. Fuller spent much of his youth on Bear Island , in Penobscot Bay off

1608-647: The Dark Clouds Cloud City, a dream location in an episode of the animated miniseries Over the Garden Wall The Cloud City Miners' Union, the group which initiated the Leadville Miners' strike in the 1890s Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Cloud City . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

1675-618: The Styth, in floating cities in her only SF novel, Floating Worlds (1975). Donald Moffitt 's novel Jovian (2003) features floating cities forever floating in the Jovian atmosphere, a worthwhile enterprise due to their ability to extract useful gases. The book concentrates on the cultural differences (and political tensions) developing between "Jovian" humans and Earthbound ones. Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller ( / ˈ f ʊ l ər / ; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983)

1742-592: The architectural firm Fuller & Sadao Inc., whose first project was to design the large geodesic dome for the U.S. Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal. This building is now the " Montreal Biosphère ". In 1962, the artist and searcher John McHale wrote the first monograph on Fuller, published by George Braziller in New York. After employing several Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU) graduate students to rebuild his models following an apartment fire in

1809-472: The coast of Maine. He attended Froebelian Kindergarten He was dissatisfied with the way geometry was taught in school, disagreeing with the notions that a chalk dot on the blackboard represented an "empty" mathematical point , or that a line could stretch off to infinity . To him these were illogical, and led to his work on synergetics . He often made items from materials he found in the woods, and sometimes made his own tools. He experimented with designing

1876-446: The company would ultimately fail in 1927. Fuller recalled 1927 as a pivotal year of his life. His daughter Alexandra had died in 1922 of complications from polio and spinal meningitis just before her fourth birthday. Barry Katz, a Stanford University scholar who wrote about Fuller, found signs that around this time in his life Fuller had developed depression and anxiety . Fuller dwelled on his daughter's death, suspecting that it

1943-455: The construction of a 1-mile-diameter (1.6 km) thermal airship , which they called Cloud Nine . This megastructure would be a geodesic sphere that, once it was sufficiently heated by sunlight, would become airborne. Fuller and Sadao envisioned that Cloud Nine would float freely in the Earth's atmosphere, giving residents and passengers a migratory lifestyle. They believed that it might be

2010-559: The dense Venerean atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth. At an altitude of 50 km above the Venerean surface, the environment is the "most Earthlike in the solar system", according to Landis, with a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures ranging between 0–50 °C (32–122 °F). In addition to Venus, floating cities have been proposed in science fiction on several other planets. For example, floating cities might also permit settlement of

2077-438: The earth, had attained a critical level, such that competition for necessities had become unnecessary. Cooperation had become the optimum survival strategy. He declared: "selfishness is unnecessary and hence-forth unrationalizable ... War is obsolete." He criticized previous utopian schemes as too exclusive and thought this was a major source of their failure. To work, he felt that a utopia needed to include everyone. Fuller

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2144-429: The efficiency of the entire process. Fuller also coined the word synergetics , a catch-all term used broadly for communicating experiences using geometric concepts, and more specifically, the empirical study of systems in transformation; his focus was on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components. Fuller was a pioneer in thinking globally and explored energy and material efficiency in

2211-570: The end of the 8th century BCE, described the island of Aeolia . They reappear in Pliny the Elder 's Natural History of the 1st century CE. Richard Head ‘s 1673 novel The Floating Island describes a fictional island named Scotia Moria. In The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle , the characters sail to a floating island, which later becomes fixed in place. In the DC comics story of Wonder Woman , Themyscira

2278-412: The fields of architecture, engineering, and design. In his book Critical Path (1981) he cited the opinion of François de Chadenèdes (1920–1999) that petroleum, from the standpoint of its replacement cost in our current energy "budget" (essentially, the net incoming solar flux ), had cost nature "over a million dollars" per U.S. gallon ($ 300,000 per litre) to produce. From this point of view, its use as

2345-443: The future, suggesting that 10,000 years hence "the city the size of New York will float several miles above the surface of the earth, where the air is cleaner and purer and free from disease carrying bacteria." To stay in the air, "four gigantic generators will shoot earthward electric rays which by reaction with the earth produce the force to keep the city aloft." In 1960, the architects Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao proposed

2412-523: The geodesic design by Walther Bauersfeld for the Zeiss-Planetarium , built some 28 years prior to Fuller's work, reveals that Fuller's Geodesic Dome patent (U.S. 2,682,235; awarded in 1954) is the same design as Bauersfeld's. Their construction is based on extending some basic principles to build simple " tensegrity " structures (tetrahedron, octahedron , and the closest packing of spheres), making them lightweight and stable. The geodesic dome

2479-690: The ground. A large model of the habitat is on display in the lobby of the Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas . In Isaac Asimov 's story " Shah Guido G. ", the hereditary Secretary-General of the United Nations ("Sekjen") is a tyrant who rules the Earth from a flying island called Atlantis . A design similar to Fuller's Cloud Nine might permit habitation in the upper atmosphere of Venus , where at ground level

2546-491: The highest advantage of others. Fuller stated that this experience led to a profound re-examination of his life. He ultimately chose to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual could contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity." Speaking to audiences later in life, Fuller would frequently recount the story of his Lake Michigan experience, and its transformative impact on his life. In 1927, Fuller resolved to think independently which included

2613-660: The importance of this work, and employed his firm Geodesics, Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina to make small domes for the Marines . Within a few years, there were thousands of such domes around the world. Fuller's first "continuous tension – discontinuous compression" geodesic dome (full sphere in this case) was constructed at the University of Oregon Architecture School in 1959 with the help of students. These continuous tension – discontinuous compression structures featured single force compression members (no flexure or bending moments) that did not touch each other and were 'suspended' by

2680-495: The landing and taxiing qualities, and noted severe limitations in its handling. The team made improvements and refinements to the platform, and Fuller noted the Dymaxion "was an invention that could not be made available to the general public without considerable improvements". The bodywork was aerodynamically designed for increased fuel efficiency and its platform featured a lightweight cromoly-steel hinged chassis, rear-mounted V8 engine, front-drive, and three-wheels. The vehicle

2747-483: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cloud_City&oldid=1160461785 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Floating city (science fiction) Seaborne floating islands have been found in literature since Homer 's Odyssey , written near

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2814-547: The other car hit the Dymaxion only after it had begun to roll over. Despite courting the interest of important figures from the auto industry, Fuller used his family inheritance to finish the second and third prototypes — eventually selling all three, dissolving Dymaxion Corporation and maintaining the Dymaxion was never intended as a commercial venture. One of the three original prototypes survives. Fuller's energy-efficient and inexpensive Dymaxion house garnered much interest, but only two prototypes were ever produced. Here

2881-639: The outer three gas giants , as the gas giants lack solid surfaces. Jupiter is not promising for habitation due to its high gravity , escape velocity and radiation , but the Solar System 's other gas giants ( Saturn , Uranus , and Neptune ) may be more practical. In 1978, the British Interplanetary Society 's Project Daedalus envisioned floating factories in the atmospheres of Jupiter refining helium-3 to produce fuel for an interstellar probe . Michael McCollum notes that

2948-549: The period leading up to his death, his wife had been lying comatose in a Los Angeles hospital, dying of cancer. It was while visiting her there that he exclaimed, at a certain point: "She is squeezing my hand!" He then stood up, had a heart attack, and died an hour later, at age 87. His wife of 66 years died 36 hours later. They are buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Buckminster Fuller

3015-400: The principles of science to solving the problems of humanity." From 1972 until retiring as university professor emeritus in 1975, Fuller held a joint appointment at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville , where he had designed the dome for the campus Religious Center in 1971. During this period, he also held a joint fellowship at a consortium of Philadelphia -area institutions, including

3082-570: The road at will, fly about, then, as deftly as a bird, settle back into a place in traffic". The Dymaxion car was a vehicle designed by Fuller, featured prominently at Chicago's 1933-1934 Century of Progress World's Fair. During the Great Depression , Fuller formed the Dymaxion Corporation and built three prototypes with noted naval architect Starling Burgess and a team of 27 workmen — using donated money as well as

3149-472: The solution to his family's struggles on long walks around Chicago. During the autumn of 1927, Fuller contemplated suicide by drowning in Lake Michigan, so that his family could benefit from a life insurance payment. Fuller said that he had experienced a profound incident which would provide direction and purpose for his life. He felt as though he was suspended several feet above the ground enclosed in

3216-537: The summer of 1959, Fuller was recruited by longtime friend Harold Cohen to serve as a research professor of "design science exploration" at the institution's School of Art and Design. According to SIU architecture professor Jon Davey, the position was "unlike most faculty appointments ... more a celebrity role than a teaching job" in which Fuller offered few courses and was only stipulated to spend two months per year on campus. Nevertheless, his time in Carbondale

3283-412: The temperature is too high and the atmospheric pressure too great. As scientifically and fictionally described by Geoffrey A. Landis , the easiest planet (other than Earth) to place floating cities at this point would appear to be Venus . Because the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere is 50% denser than Earth's atmosphere , breathable air with a composition similar to the latter is a lifting gas in

3350-538: The tensional members. For half of a century, Fuller developed many ideas, designs, and inventions, particularly regarding practical, inexpensive shelter and transportation. He documented his life, philosophy, and ideas scrupulously by a daily diary (later called the Dymaxion Chronofile ), and by twenty-eight publications. Fuller financed some of his experiments with inherited funds, sometimes augmented by funds invested by his collaborators, one example being

3417-581: The term "Dymaxion" is used in effect to signify a "radically strong and light tensegrity structure". One of Fuller's Dymaxion Houses is on display as a permanent exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan . Designed and developed during the mid-1940s, this prototype is a round structure (not a dome), shaped something like the flattened "bell" of certain jellyfish. It has several innovative features, including revolving dresser drawers, and

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3484-440: The tutelage of Arthur Penn , then a student at Black Mountain, Fuller broke through his inhibitions to become confident as a performer and speaker. At Black Mountain, 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, built and awarded a German patent on June 19, 1925, by Dr. Walther Bauersfeld , Fuller

3551-535: The widely known geodesic dome ; carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their structural and mathematical resemblance to geodesic spheres. He also served as the second World President of Mensa International from 1974 to 1983. Fuller was awarded 28 United States patents and many honorary doctorates. In 1960, he was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal from The Franklin Institute . He

3618-673: The year of his death, Fuller described himself as follows: Guinea Pig B: I am now close to 88 and I am confident that the only thing important about me is that I am an average healthy human. I am also a living case history of a thoroughly documented, half-century, search-and-research project designed to discover what, if anything, an unknown, moneyless individual, with a dependent wife and newborn child, might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity that could not be accomplished by great nations, great religions or private enterprise, no matter how rich or powerfully armed. Fuller died on July 1, 1983, 11 days before his 88th birthday. During

3685-744: Was "extremely productive", and Fuller was promoted to university professor in 1968 and distinguished university professor in 1972. Working as a designer, scientist, developer, and writer, he continued to lecture for many years around the world. He collaborated at SIU with John McHale . In 1965, they inaugurated the World Design Science Decade (1965 to 1975) at the meeting of the International Union of Architects in Paris, which was, in Fuller's own words, devoted to "applying

3752-501: Was a Unitarian , and, like his grandfather Arthur Buckminster Fuller (brother of Margaret Fuller ), a Unitarian minister. Fuller was also an early environmental activist , aware of Earth's finite resources, and promoted a principle he termed " ephemeralization ", which, according to futurist and Fuller disciple Stewart Brand , was defined as "doing more with less". Resources and waste from crude, inefficient products could be recycled into making more valuable products, thus increasing

3819-531: Was a result of Fuller's exploration of nature's constructing principles to find design solutions. The Fuller Dome is referenced in the Hugo Award -winning novel Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner , in which a geodesic dome is said to cover the entire island of Manhattan , and it floats on air due to the hot-air balloon effect of the large air-mass under the dome (and perhaps its construction of lightweight materials). The Omni-Media-Transport: With such

3886-475: Was an American architect, systems theorist , writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist . He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more than 30 books and coining or popularizing such terms as " Spaceship Earth ", " Dymaxion " (e.g., Dymaxion house , Dymaxion car , Dymaxion map ), " ephemeralization ", " synergetics ", and " tensegrity ". Fuller developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized

3953-464: Was awarded United States patents. Fuller's patent application made no mention of Bauersfeld's self-supporting dome built some 26 years prior. Although Fuller undoubtedly popularized this type of structure he is mistakenly given credit for its design. One of his early models was first constructed in 1945 at Bennington College in Vermont, where he lectured often. Although Bauersfeld's dome could support

4020-573: Was connected with the Fullers' damp and drafty living conditions. This provided motivation for Fuller's involvement in Stockade Building Systems , a business which aimed to provide affordable, efficient housing. In 1927, at age 32, Fuller lost his job as president of Stockade. The Fuller family had no savings, and the birth of their daughter Allegra in 1927 added to the financial challenges. Fuller drank heavily and reflected upon

4087-475: Was elected an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1967, on the occasion of the 50-year reunion of his Harvard class of 1917 (from which he had been expelled in his first year). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968. The same year, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member. He became a full Academician in 1970, and he received

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4154-497: Was expelled from Harvard twice: first for spending all his money partying with a vaudeville troupe, and then, after having been readmitted, for his "irresponsibility and lack of interest." By his own appraisal, he was a non-conforming misfit in the fraternity environment. Between his sessions at Harvard, Fuller worked in Canada as a mechanic in a textile mill , and later as a laborer in the meat-packing industry . He also served in

4221-560: Was influenced by Alfred Korzybski 's idea of general semantics . In the 1950s, Fuller attended seminars and workshops organized by the Institute of General Semantics , and he delivered the annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in 1955. Korzybski is mentioned in the Introduction of his book Synergetics . The two shared a remarkable amount of similarity in their general semantics formulations. In his 1970 book, I Seem To Be

4288-400: Was lead designer, architect, and engineer for both companies. Richard Lewontin , a new faculty member in population genetics at North Carolina State University, provided Fuller with computer calculations for the lengths of the domes' edges. Fuller began working with architect Shoji Sadao in 1954, together designing a hypothetical Dome over Manhattan in 1960, and in 1964 they co-founded

4355-432: Was steered via the third wheel at the rear, capable of 90° steering lock . Able to steer in a tight circle, the Dymaxion often caused a sensation, bringing nearby traffic to a halt. Shortly after launch, a prototype rolled over and crashed, killing the Dymaxion's driver and seriously injuring its passengers. Fuller blamed the accident on a second car that collided with the Dymaxion. Eyewitnesses reported, however, that

4422-549: Was that the strongest possible homogeneous truss is cyclically tetrahedral. He had become a guru of the design, architecture, and "alternative" communities, such as Drop City , the community of experimental artists to whom he awarded the 1966 "Dymaxion Award" for "poetically economic" domed living structures. Fuller was most famous for his lattice shell structures – geodesic domes , which have been used as parts of military radar stations, civic buildings, environmental protest camps, and exhibition attractions. An examination of

4489-548: Was the beginning of their lifelong friendship. Fuller taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina during the summers of 1948 and 1949, serving as its Summer Institute director in 1949. Fuller had been shy and withdrawn, but he was persuaded to participate in a theatrical performance of Erik Satie's Le piège de Méduse produced by John Cage , who was also teaching at Black Mountain. During rehearsals, under

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