Earth Versus The Flying Saucer House!
By: Mike Marino
The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, is a repository of industrial age history that includes everything from giant steam belching locomotives to the car that Kennedy was assassinated in from the grassy knoll, or from the book depository building, feel free to choose the conspiracy that best appeals to you. I grew up near the museum and as a wide eyed wild child went there often to marvel at the mechanical gizmos and gadgets but nothing prepared me for what can best be described as a Roswell like encounter of the third kind with, of all things, a house.
Perched on a central strut resembling a B-movie Saturday night drivein sci-fi flying saucer flick called the Day The Earth Stood Still, stood Buckminster Fuller's delighfully weird Dymaxion House, or Dymaxion Dwelling Machine as he called it, commands a central spot to strut it's stuff. As you approach it, with alien caution, you notice it comes complete with a black and white cardboard cutout nuclear family from the Fifties standing outside like something out of "Pleasantville".
The Dymaxion on display was acquired by the museum in 1991 and restoration went full tilt boogie until it was completed and ready for landing before an unsuspecting public in 2001 when restoration was fully completed. When you enter the space aged domed cylindrical "ship" you would half expect Captain Kirk himself to beam you aboard. The home was envisioned to be a series of factory built and ready kit homes that could be assembled on site and more importantly inline with the Fuller Philosophy to use resources, well, more resourcefully. Batteries not included!
The first crack at this revolutionary design that was born in mind of Fuller occurred during WWII when contemporary units were constructed in Mother Russia to house th bolshevik masses en masse. It was an adrogenous pre-fab collective based on hammer and sickle agri-architecture utilizing the tooling and products available at the time for the production of these sheet metal grain silo housing. These red star housing units were scrapped eventually by the gremlins in the Kremlin and the housing revolution was squashed, Soviet style as the housing authorities just said "nyet" to the whole thing..
It was this experiment that Fuller noticed what he called "the dome effect" that induced a vertical heat driven vortex that draws the cooler air downward into the unit from the dome if vented correctly. Fuller now turned his attention to capitalism as he tried to capitalize on the process and mass produce them for what he felt was a hungry public craving for simplistic housing. The daring new design crossed the Fuller finishline and the rounded house concept was to be raised in place on a single strut made of stainless steel to support in space like a hovering spacecraft.
The roof, floor and ceiling were made from sheet metal aluminum and was designed to be erected on the homeowners property in a space age version of a ceremonial Amish barn raising. One of the greener fineries of the design was to reduce water usage through a grey water system and included other innovations such as a packaging commode, efficient and improved laundry equipment and a personal cleanser called a "fogger" that would clean the body with a fine mist of water dispersed by compressed air so you could bathe with the equivalent of one cup of water.It also included an internal rain gutter system that would direct Mother Natures watering bounty into an indoor cistern. In true Fuller fashion the home also included a passive air conditioning and heating system based on the dome effect.
The Dymaxion House never attained the economic windfall accorded to such items as popular as Cabbage Patch Dolls and Hula-hoops, in fact only two were ever built but neither were lived in based on Fullers original blueprints. William Graham purchased the prototype in 1948 after the project was tossed onto the scrap pile of invention. He then modified one of them as an addition to his existing house to fit his needs and according to his own vision. The family lived in this personal dwelling machine for close to thirty years well into the 70's and to his nieghbors in that era of polyester, it must have resembled a giant galactic disco ball over the suburban dance floor.
You can go inside the house at the Henry Ford Museum and the first thing you notice is that it is 90-degreeless which adds a sense of space to the sparceness. It's outfitted with period furniture from the late 40's and early 50's and the bedrooms alone remind you of neon Fifties motel kitsch cool. The kitchen is exceptionally compact with no wasted space and the bathrooms are a marvel of utility as privvy pods of privacy. In the pop culture world of all things Fuller, the Dymaxion House is right up there with the Rubiks Cube and the Frisbee. To find out more information on the Dymaxion House Display visit the Henry Ford Museum website at http://www.hfmgv.org
Mike Marino is a pop culture dumpster diving freelance writer and author of the book, "The Roadhead Chronicles" that journeys through the pop culture landscape of the Fabulous Fifties and the Far-Out Sixties.
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