0 Dymaxion to Energetic Structures
1In 1936, with the last of the three Dymaxion cars completed, Fuller was out of funds. He went to work for the Phelps-Dodge Corporation to assist in setting up a department of research and product development. His first significant operation there was to design a new type of non-ferrous, metal-to-metal brake drum. Made of solid bronze, and fitted with hard rubber inserts, this drum and shoe conducted away the heat generated in braking at a rate impossible in steel components. It thus eliminated brake ‘‘grab’’ and ‘‘fade,’’ and halved the necessary deceleration time of existing brake assemblies. The Fuller bronze brake established the metallurgical principle of the disk brakes now used on the wheels of heavy bombers. Another invention of this period was Fuller’s successful oxy-acetylene, melted-tin-ore centrifuge. This was used to process ‘‘hard head,’’ a form of tin ore that would not yield to other economical methods of refining.
THE DIE-STAMPED BATHROOM
2The most dramatic development, how-over, was the Dymaxion bathroom, complete with all fixtures and facilities, designed for mass production by die-stamping. Like most of Fuller’s inventions, it was designed for the first Dymaxion 4D house of 1927. In 1930 he had produced its first full-scale prototype for the American Radiator Company’s Pierce Foundation. However, the prototype was never shown to the public because, in Fuller’s words, ‘‘The manufacturer was convinced that the plumbers’ union would refuse to install the bathrooms.’’
3 But in 1936, Fuller’s designs now realized by Phelps-Dodge made is possible to manufacture entire bathrooms at little more than the cost of an automobile sedan body. Like refrigerators or washing machines, these bathrooms could be installed in any house in the space of minutes. Once the prefabricated manifold of intake, vent and waste pipes and the electric harness terminals were connected, the bathrooms were ready for operation. It should be emphasized that these were not marginal sanitary utilities, but luxury bathrooms, equipped with all usual facilities and some new ones, such as air-conditioning. A dozen prototypes were produced and successfully installed and, at this writing, more than half of them are still in use—as sound as on the day they left the Phelps-Dodge laboratory.
4 The Dymaxion bathroom consisted of a tub-shower compartment and a lavatory-toilet compartment. The complete unit was composed of four basic pieces, each of which was formed by sheet material by stamping and was light enough to be easily lifted and carried by two men. To assemble the bathroom the four basic pieces were simply connected by bolting. The whole interior appeared to be one homogeneous surface in which all of the sharp angles and corners usually found in a room were supplanted by smooth curvatures. Either of the compartments could be installed as an independent unit; when the lavatory-toilet compartment was used in this way a shower could be included, with curtains isolating the shower space from the other fixtures. The complete bathroom, including plumbing and air-conditioning, occupied a floor space five by five feet and weighed 420 pounds, approximately the same as the weight of an average cast iron porcelain finished tub.
5 The Dymaxion bathroom was designed by Fuller for ultimate production in plastics, when plastics had been developed to an adequate point (a state he believes has now been achieved). In the prototype bathroom shown on these pages, the bottom half of each compartment was fabricated of copper sheet arid coated on the interior surface with a non-corrosive alloy of silver, tin, and antimony. The upper half of both compartments was made of aluminum sheet and was coated on the interior surface with a colored synthetic resin used in finishing automobiles. All exterior surfaces were sprayed with a mastic and asbestos material to eliminate the tinny sound that would otherwise occur when an interior surface was struck. When joined, the two compartments formed a six-inch partition which concealed the plumbing assembly and heating equipment. A U-shaped doorway in this partition provided access to and served as a seat for the tub-shower compartment. To permit easier cleaning, the floor of the tub-shower compartment was raised nine inches; an integrally formed cork-covered step led to this compartment.
6 Plumbing connections were standardized and could be factory fitted or assembled on the job to conform to variations in local building code requirements or labor policies. Ventilation was provided by a small fan located under the lavatory; air was drawn from the nearest room and exhausted through ductwork to the outside. Heat was provided by electric resistance strip heaters applied to the hidden surface of each compartment; it was conducted to all parts of the bathroom and radiated to the occupant by the metal enclosure. Indirect lighting was provided for both compartments by a fixture built on the head of the doorway between them. Other local lighting included a standard medicine cabinet fixture and a special built-in indirect light in the bottom of the tub-shower compartment, which illuminated the water and the floor.
7 The first bathroom was constructed in the laboratory of the William B. Stout Engineering Corporation in Detroit. Later, an improved model was installed in the research laboratory of the Nichols Copper Company, a subsidiary of the Phelps-Dodge Corporation, for use by the research workers. A year later it was removed to Christopher Morley’s Long Island house. Twelve other models were made in 1937 and 1938, and eleven of these were eventually installed in private houses where several are still in satisfactory use. One bathroom was installed in the hydraulic testing section of the Bureau of Standards laboratory, in Washington, and was found to comply with all requirements of the various U. S. building codes.
8 Nevertheless the Dymaxion bathroom never saw general use. Although Fuller maintains that ‘‘it is only the general inertia of the building world’’ which kept it out of production, a contribution to this inertia may have been the fact that one of Phelps-Dodge’s largest customers, the Standard Sanitary Company, apparently still apprehensive of the plumbers’ union, warned Phelps-Dodge that the Standard Sanitary-American Radiator business might suffer if they went ahead with the development of the bathroom.
9 ‘‘The reaction was unfortunate,’’ Fuller said, ‘‘because the Plumbers Union, in 1936, stated officially in the union’s journal, The Ladle, that the plumbers of the country were in enthusiastic support of the bathroom because it could be purchased on the same basis as a refrigerator to be moved with the household furniture, whereas the public which rents its living quarters never owns its bathroom fixtures. The Dymaxion bathroom would provide the nation’s plumbers with some of the chattel mortgage market which is now enjoyed by the electricians.’’
THE DYMAXION DEPLOYMENT UNIT
10Industry, as Fuller has anticipated in his ‘‘trial balance’’ inventory, had shown no special enthusiasm for either the Dymaxion car or the Dymaxion bathroom. The Dymaxion house was hibernating in his mind, awaiting the technological breakthrough which, according to Fuller’s original reckoning, was due sometime in the 1950’s, assuming an approximate 25-year lag between the inception of the basic idea and the conditions for its acceptance. Meanwhile, he occupied himself with other activities and projects. From 1938 to 1940 he was a technical consultant on the staff of Fortune. During the war years he was in Washington, first as Director of the Mechanical Engineering Section, Board of Economic Warfare; later as Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the Foreign Economic Administration.
11 An interim development in this period was Fuller’s Dymaxion Deployment Unit, a special type of emergency shelter. One day in the summer of 1940, he was driving through Missouri with his friend, the novelist. Christopher Morley. As they approached Hannibal, where Mark Twain once had his home, Fuller pointed to a row of glistening, galvanized and corrugated steel grain bins. ‘‘You see those little steel cylinders out in the wheat fields,’’ Fuller said, pointing. ‘‘There is the most efficient engineering unit for a small prefabricated house now on inventory in the mass production phase of industry. Moreover, the grain bin provides enough room to house a small family, all at a cost of less than $1 per square foot of floor space of fireproof construction.’’ This figure was 80% under construction costs in the competitive market of that time.
12 He explained that a cylinder encloses more space than a cube of the same wall area; with proper materials the walls are rigid, requiring no internal supports or bracing; the cylinder produces the most efficient distribution of internal heat; and its inherent streamlining cuts external heat losses to a minimum. This was Fuller’s idea, but he was too short of money to do anything about it.
13 ‘‘I’ll tell you what I’d like to do,’’ said Morley. ‘‘I’ve just written a novel called Kitty Foyle. [Mor39] If ‘Kitty’ is a success, I’d like to let her help you produce cylindrical steel houses.’’
14Kitty Foyle was an astounding success. And she was true to Morley’s word. Bucky developed the basic plans for his ‘‘Dymaxion Development Unit,’’ took them on a flyer to the Butler Manufacturing Company, producers of the steel grain bins which dotted the Kansas fields.
15 As a result the United States Army Signal Corps and Air Corps were able to have the first radar operating huts light enough to be flown and simple enough to be speedily assembled, in the most remote places. In New York, the Museum of Modern Art set up one unit as a special exhibit in its garden. Hundreds saw service in the Pacific Island and in the Persian Gulf area during the war. Hundreds, pirated from Fuller’s designs, were in use in Saudi Arabia.
16 When the U. S. Government restricted the use of steel, officials in charge of supply came to the conclusion that the Dymaxion Deployment Unit—used only as a dwelling—was not of high priority.
17 Seventeen years later (1957), a curious incident occurred. Fuller was driving with Mrs. Fuller along the same road he had traveled with Morley. As they approached Hannibal, Fuller looked again at the same grain bins which had inspired the project. ‘‘How typical that was of Christopher,’’ he said, ‘‘how warm, and how generous!’’ A moment later he turned on the car radio and heard the solemn voice of a news announcer say, ‘‘The novelist Christopher Morley died today.’’
18 In retrospect, it seems clear that the actual financial ‘‘help’’ Morley and ‘‘Kitty Foyle’’ gave was not of Fort Knox significance. It amounted to little more than the costs of air travel and hotel lodging during Fuller’s initial week of talk with the Butler people. Yet to Fuller, Morley’s gesture was as important and pivotal as it was generous: ‘‘He put up for me something no money can buy: a backing of creative enthusiasm, a confidence and joy in individual initiative, amusement over the paradoxes of adversity, and complete submission to the administration of what Christopher spoke of at Don Marquis’ funeral as ‘the Holiest Ghost we shall ever know: creative imagination.’ ’’
THE WICHITA HOUSE
19In 1944, a serious labor shortage developed in the aircraft field, the war effort’s top priority industry. In Wichita, Kansas, for example, where the previous year the population had jumped from 100,000 to 200,000 because of aircraft production needs, and people were sleeping three alternate shifts to a bed, workers suddenly began quitting their jobs for work in other industries in other cities. A point was reached where the net falloff averaged 200 per day per factory. Union heads believed that the labor turnabout was caused by the fact that people felt the aircraft industry had no dependable postwar future.
20 Somebody in Washington remembered that Fuller had been talking about the possibility of a post-war conversion of the aircraft industry’ to housing.
21 Labor officials, including Walter Reuther, of the U.A.W., and Harvey Brown, president of the International Association of Machinists, interviewed Fuller. ‘‘What can your house contribute to the labor situation?’’ they asked.
22 ‘‘It might provide two things,’’ Fuller answered. ‘‘It might provide an immediate solution to the looming postwar housing shortage. And it might provide permanent employment in the aircraft field because there is no basic difference between the fabricating of aluminum parts for the Dymaxion house and for the fuselages of B29S.’’
23 ‘‘If and when adequate time, money, resources, and know-how have been invested in the Dymaxion houses,’’ Fuller continued, ‘‘they will be installable anywhere around the world with the same speed with which telephones can be installed. And with such economy of use of resources as to open up their universal availability’ to world’s peoples.’’ However, Fuller pointed out that the original estimate of a quarter of a century gestation period for this new industry, which began in 1927, indicated a ‘‘birthday’’ of 1952. ‘‘Ergo, whatever might be done in 1944 could be accredited only to the gestative functions. The time is premature for a consideration of this new industry as a commercially-exploitable undertaking.’’
24 He showed the labor men plans and figures indicating that a house weighing 6,000 pounds could be mass-produced for the cost of the comparable weight of a top-price automobile, at that time, $1 a pound. ‘‘All the component parts,’’ he added, ‘‘could be packed in 300 cubic feet, although they will enclose 12,000 cubic feet when assembled. The house could be rented to the consumer for a basic installation fee plus a monthly charge.’’
25 Eric Peterson and Elmer Walker, vice presidents of the International Association of Machinists, both were convinced that this would interest Jack Gaty, of Beech Aircraft. ‘‘Beech,’’ they said, ‘‘has the best labor relations in the aircraft industry’. We will arrange a meeting for you at Beech Aircraft, if you will go to Wichita.’’
26 Fuller flew to Kansas.
27 ‘‘I’ll make a deal with you,’’ Gaty said. ‘‘I will let you have space in the Beech Aircraft plants, give you access to tools, use of the Beech Aircraft purchasing department, all on a nominal space rental basis. I will loan you top-ability engineers and mechanics on a per diem basis. That is, you will be able to inaugurate activity in a going aircraft plant saving any capital investment. You will pay for your own materials, telephones, and so on.’’
28 In the face of the high priority rating of the aircraft industry, this was a fabulous offer.
29 Fuller resigned his government post, moved to Wichita, developed drawings and specifications for the new Dymaxion house. Meanwhile, he was invited, on many occasions, to speak to the various aircraft labor union locals of the Wichita region. The results were immediately visible in the employment picture. The weekly net gains in employment abruptly replaced the net losses in all the aircraft plants of the region. (It was the consensus of the War Production Board, War Manpower Commission, the Air Force, and the aircraft labor unions, that this reversal of the labor situation in Wichita was directly attributable to the introduction of Fuller’s house project to the aircraft industry.) To guarantee the continuance of this employment trend, the Air Force issued an order for two houses for immediate use in the Pacific campaign. The War Production Board and War Manpower Commission moved the project into the highest weapons priority category for materials and men. What the project could use in either materials or men was negligible in view of the fundamental gains.
30 (Time seemed to justify this decision. The employment gains in the aircraft industry in the Wichita region continued up to the surrender of Japan.)
31 When the first Wichita house finally was opened to the public, many were struck by its spaciousness and air of luxury. The domed ceiling rose to a 16-foot center. A Plexiglass window flowed around the full 108-foot circumference of the structure. Accordion doors provided necessary privacy. Here were breathing room, sweeping lines, extended horizons. Beechcraft’s estimate of the mass production cost of the structural, mechanical components of the house was approximately $1,800. This seemed to indicate that, after additions for freight, seller’s profit, and installation costs, the house might be made available to the consumer at around $6,500—about the price of a Cadillac.
32 Those who visited the house in Wichita seemed to have been swept up in an epidemic of enthusiasm. An editor of Fortune reported, ‘‘Paradoxically, it is because he didn’t fool around with compromises that Fuller’s house has such an impact on whoever sees it. Because it is so completely radical there is no basis for comparison with the traditional dwelling. …In the living room one sees considerable exposed aluminum; the thin cables supporting the floor pass in front of the Plexiglass windows, which are riveted together. In Fuller’s house this all seems so appropriate that it rarely causes comment. The circular form, which arouses such doubts as first, looks quite unremarkable from inside and rather unpleasant. Most unexpected of all, perhaps, is the general impression of luxury.’’
33 It was also reported that reactions were so generally favorable that the Beechcraft labor locals conducted a survey to ferret out objections. When the wives of 28 Wichita workmen were queried, their reactions were: (1) ‘‘It’s beautiful!’’ (2) ‘‘I could clean it in half an hour.’’ (3) ‘‘I want to buy it.’’ (Twenty-six out of 28 gave this response.)
34 Suddenly the war ended. The labor shortage was no longer acute. The housing shortage became divorced from the labor problem. And ten million dollars for mass production tool-up was still to be raised if the Dymaxion house was to be put on the assembly line.
35 The Beechcraft people, who had never volunteered to underwrite the production of the Dymaxion house, returned their attention to the private aircraft production which they pioneered. The conflicting plans of post-war factions among backers of the house led to a stalemate, and all development plans were dropped. Fuller was left with the memories of his efforts and his enthusiasm. He was also left with a determination never again to put his projects in the lap of a promotion whose life or death was determined by the speculative instincts of others.
