UNIVERSAL ARCHITECTURE 561 Universal Architecture MICHAEL SU Princeton University Fig. 1 – Cover to R. Buckminster Fuller’s first literary venture: 4D., 1928 (Later renamed 4D Time Lock.) NO TIME SHOULD BE LOST BEFORE READING IT NO TIME MAY BE LOST IN READING IT NO TIME SHALL BE LOST WHEN ALL HAVE READ IT COMPLETE “TIME OUT” MUST BE TAKEN TO READ IT.1 —R. B. Fuller, Introduction to 4D 562 THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE/THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE Fuller employed strong language for his T-Square tion, promoted developmental processes like the debut. In particular, his first article on “Universal “selective awareness of universal progressions,” Architecture” accused”“‘shelter minded’ verbal and musical articulation, and “fueling” or promoters,””i.e. – developers and architects, of “sleeping.” Effectively, this first constituent of “Uni- meeting “[B]ehind closed doors in all parts of the versal Architecture” bespoke both the instrumen- world” with “capitalists, industrial leaders, and tech- tality of space and the spatiality of instrumentation. nologists” in “would-be-usurpation” of industrial Indeed, the double meaning of “compassed space” methods and machineries.2 To counter this self- evoked the former’s sheltering spatial “encompass- interested, profit-motivated perpetuation of labor ment” and the latter’s “compassing” spatial aware- exploitation and industry manipulation, Fuller pro- ness. Despite this”scientific mediation of human posed assembling “universally minded, pioneering agency, the activation of Architecture as a funda- designers” to pursue viable alternatives. For his mentally prosthetic construct warranted a further, part, he claimed to have mustered 50 like-minded but adverse, artistic refinement. persons for a “volunteer designing association” called Structural Study Associates, or the SSA.3 The second component of “Universal Architecture” Disavowing both singular designs and archaic con- comprised the singular medium in which human struction methods, SSA members nominally aspired sensibilities,”e.g. – the–“visual, oral, textural, towards not only the “final structure, to be repro- olfactural[sic],” were superposed in combinatory duced in quantity, but also with the complete rami- indefinitude to generate what Fuller called “an in- fications of the industry, from elemental source to finity of mutable, selective, sense-limited, harmonic 7 the site.” As such, the resultant “searching consid- progressions.” That is, in like manner to produc- eration of contiguous sociologic development and ing (seemingly) endless music from harmonic reso- its potentials for further growth, through design” nances, Art fashioned perception into the “abstract comprised a valid, if comprehensive, recourse infinity” of human experience. In turn, this experi- which Fuller called “life-enshrining UNIVERSAL ence was manifested as localized, transitory phe- ARCHITECTURE.” Or, as he rendered, characteris- nomena. Contrasted to the reductive impetus of tically, in equation form: “Science + Art + Indus- Science, Art breached the “direct personality limit” try = Universal Architecture.”4 Significantly, these of traditions, conventions, and physical strictures”– constituent variables were specified to exacting even if its medium and expression were intrinsi- tolerances. cally ephemeral. For Fuller, in fact, every human achievement constituted little more an emersion The first component of Fuller’s trivium was “the of humanity’s underlying’“abstract infinity.” If Sci- resultant of intellectual activity which is essen- ence effected both the spatiality and instrumen- tially:“––‘Selection’.”5 That is, by discerning the tality of “compassed space,” therefore, its union probable from the improbable, scientific investi- with Art translated the infinite into the definite, gation identified myriad, infinite “special sub- but dynamic. Significantly, this transformation con- systems” the collection and organization of which ferred telepathic spatial control, or what he desig- resolved human experience into comprehensive – nated as the “progressive material and comprehensible – categories.6 As such, its unselfconsciousness of control.”8 Fuller’s earlier mode of selection comprised an internalization of manuscript on “Lightful Houses” even suggested:” external, but still “natural,” selection. Its incorpo- “There will come a time when in our individualistic ration into “Universal Architecture” thus harmonious state all work will consist of thinking corporealized a generic selection, or filtration, pro- and crystallizing[sic] thought into sound or cess. For instance, Fuller’s “Checklist of Universal directionable[sic] spheres….”9 Thus, where scien- Requirements” stipulated the concretization of tific selection gave form to shelters and fittings, “spacial[sic] control” as buffer zones, artistic abstraction actually enabled their inhabi- or”“compassed spaces,” which protected against tation and utilization – and thereby activated the such diverse external dangers as architectural potential of “Universal Architecture.” “pestilence,””“marauders,” or “selfishness (Politics, However, issues concerning commensurability and, Business, Materialism),” and such varied internal by extension, sustainability of otherwise mutually hazards as nervous shock, physical fatigue, or fear. exclusive Science and Art remained. As well, “mechanical provision,” or instrumenta- UNIVERSAL ARCHITECTURE 563 Appropriately, then, the final component of “Uni- prised the broadest potential and, hence, highest versal Architecture” preserved both selection and achievement of individual human creativity.16 In abstraction from temporal and spatial devolution. effect, then, “Universal Architecture” resolved the That is, it assumed the double role of arbiter and fundamental incommensurability between dynamic promoter for what Fuller designated as “ideal” and life and static, even possessive, Architecture.17 “standard.” Where the former derived from indi- Fuller even saw fit to assign it the tremendous role vidualized, artistic conceptualization, or what Fuller of “humanity’s supreme survival gesture.” However, described as the “latest sensation of refinement this lofty aspiration did not derive solely from the towards perfection along any one time line,”10 sci- “synergy” consequent to superposed Science, Art, entific reduction of the infinitude of human experi- and Industry.18 Rather, it followed from their unex- ence into identifiable and, hence, selectable pected susceptibility to correction, refutation, and “subsystems” constituted the latter. In principle finally, revolution. terms, then, Art distinguished individuals, but Sci- ence comprised humanity’s lowest common de- 2 nominator. As such, Fuller’s conception of Industry Life in Thermal Death as the “scientifically cleansed, de-exploited, de- centralized, minimum-effort, maximum-result, mobilized world-community inter-service”11 explic- My continuing philosophy is predicated, itly authorized its mediation of this opposition. first, on the assumption that in dynamical Specifically, even though Industry coordinated counterbalance of the expanding universe motivations, methods, and materials towards the of entropically increasing random disorder- production of “standards,” this mode of production liness there must be a universal pattern failed to account for the intrinsic volatility of hu- ofomnicontracting, convergent, progressive man perception, abstraction, and desire. However, orderliness and that man is that anti-en- its endowment with Science and Art sufficiently tropic reordering function of universe and, escalated its efficiency (as embodied by scientific secondly, upon the assumption that man selection) and adaptability (as mandated by the is born with an extraordinary inventory of myriad, infinite forms of artistic abstraction) so as faculties within an extraordinary inventory to assure the imminent industrial realization of of universal phenomena.19 “ideal.” Instead of propagating “house designs that are manufactured like-as-peas-in-a-pod,”12 there- fore, “Universal Architecture” signified what Fuller The serious matter of creating an indus- hoped would be a “new, reproducible[sic], design trial house that shall at the same time pos- [which] could in no way be accomplished by quan- sibly compass and affect millions of lives tity reproduction of any one stylistic architectural in what they have to do and what they composition.”13 choose to do, affecting, most important of all, the upbringing of millions of children, Neither repetitious nor serial, Fuller’s trivium es- demands the very broadest thought.20 sentially repudiated’“conventional” Architecture for —R. B. Fuller its demonstrated, and continuing, failure to con- front the mutability of time, place, and function. Albert Einstein’s most celebrated achievement fol- In stark contrast, the “compassed space” of his lowed from his assertion of the foundational im- “Universal Architecture” detected, rendered sen- port of the speed of mass-less, immaterial light. sible, and then distributed the flighty, immaterial, Specifically, by ingeniously positing its constancy, or “weightless” constituents of individual human he discovered that temporal and spatial measure- consciousness to the full expanse of every pos- ments necessarily varied as functions of the rela- sible “aesthetic dimension.”14 For Fuller, in fact, the tionship between observer and observed. On this “ultimate progression in relation to Universal Ar- account, once absolute notions of time and space chitecture” explicitly