Buckminster Fuller´s Visionary Map for the 21st Century

Amherst, MA, April 02, 2009 --(PR.com)-- The visionary futurist and inventor, Buckminster Fuller, designed the Dymaxion World Map to help us recognize that ''we're all astronauts aboard a little spaceship called Earth.'' The map, a 20-sided polyhedron, can be reconfigured into a variety of patterns. Thus it also communicates the point that "there are many ways to see the world." The Buckminster Fuller Institute in Brooklyn, NY collaborated with ODTmaps.com of Amherst, Massachusetts to co-publish the latest printing of Dymaxion maps in an expanded variety of formats. Many of these formats have never been available before now. "ODTmaps is the leading map publishing firm specializing in alternative world maps, and therefore they were a natural for BFI to reach out and partner with on this exciting venture," says Matt Barron, the BFI program director.

There have been two major exhibits of the work of R. Buckminster Fuller in the past year, and a number of smaller ones. The Whitney Museum of American Art, hosted an exhibit entitled Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe. This was the most comprehensive retrospective of Fuller's work and ideas to date. The exhibit was subsequently moved to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in March, 2009, offering newly expanded material to highlight Fuller's Chicago connections. What accounts for the resurgence of interest in this remarkable architect, author, designer, futurist, inventor, and visionary? Fuller's work impacted a variety of fields. He was an early environmental activist, and very aware of the finite resources Earth has to offer. He promoted a principle that he termed "ephemeralization", which means "doing more with less." Fuller's life was devoted to trying to answer the question "Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?" He wrote more than thirty books, coining and popularizing terms such as "Spaceship Earth", and synergetics. He is perhaps best known for his work on the geodesic dome. More information on Fuller is at: http://bfi.org/our_programs/who_is_buckminster_fuller/introduction_to_buckminster_fuller

Fuller´s Raleigh Edition Dymaxion Map was first designed in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Fuller institute (www.BFI.org) has distributed copies of the map for 25 years. However, when their supply of the maps was exhausted the original films could not be found. So BFI contracted with ODTmaps (www.ODTmaps.com) to see if the original map could be recreated. ODTmaps worked for a period of more than six months, eventually finding a solution to recreate Fuller's original image exactly as it was first conceived and produced by its creator. The map has been appreciated by environmentalists, as the colors of the land masses (and the grayscale shading in the oceans) represent mean low annual temperatures, which have clearly changed since Fuller first produced the map in 1954. For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_Map. Order the map in a laminated format or the paper folded version go to
http://odtmaps.com/detail.asp_Q_product_id_E_FUL-DYMAX-22x34 and the poster version is at http://bfi.easystorecreator.com/items/maps/raleigh-edition-dymaxion-map-302-detail.htm

Buckminster Fuller and John Denver were very close friends and the song "What One Man Can Do" on John's 1982 album "Seasons of the Heart" was written for Buckminster's 85th birthday. John dedicated the song to him. In 2008 the Belgian rock band dEUS recorded the song "The Architect", inspired by Fuller's life. This year British singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot plans to release 'The Buckminster Fuller EP', featuring a song of the same name.

For more information contact: The Buckminster Fuller Institute at 718-290-9283
or ODTMaps.com at 1-800-736-1293. Email MBarron@BFI.org, or ODTstore@ODT.org

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