The Dymaxion Chronofile is
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) 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 t ...
's attempt to document his life as completely as possible. He created a very large
scrapbook
Scrapbook may refer to:
* Scrapbooking, the process of making a scrapbook
Software
* Scrapbook, an early (1970s) information storage and retrieval system developed at the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom
* Scrapbook (Mac OS), ...
in which he documented his life from 1917 to 1983. Fuller describes his Chronofile as "
ontributionto the scientific documentation of the emergent realization of the era of accelerating-acceleration of progressive ephemeralization".
Makeup
The scrapbook contains copies of all correspondence, bills, notes, sketches, and clippings from newspapers. In 1960, the documents were presented by Fuller to Southern Illinois University's Morris Library where it was housed in their rare book archives. In 1999, the documents were moved to Stanford University. They are currently archived at Stanford University and are occasionally exhibited. Southern Illinois University still archive a collection of Fuller's 3D physical models. They were last displayed in the Hall of Presidents in 2023.
The total collection is estimated to be 270 feet (80 m) worth of paper. This is said to be the most documented human life in history.
Fuller's Chronofile contains over 140,000 pieces of paper, as well as 64,000 feet of film, 1,500 hours of audio tape, and 300 hours of video recordings. The Chronofile is cross-referenced alphabetically using 13,500 5x8 inch index cards. Photos from Fuller's childhood from age four were added retrospectively.
Usage
At a low point in his life at age 32, when considering suicide, Fuller reviewed his Chronofile to that date and concluded that he had been most effective when his efforts were on the behalf of others and resolved to focus his future work toward "all humanity".
Fuller's Dymaxion Chronofile inspired
William McDonough
William Andrews McDonough (born February 20, 1951) is an American architect and academic. McDonough is the founding principal of William McDonough + Partners and was the dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia''.'' He w ...
to participate in his own "Living Archive".
See also
*
Dymaxion car
The Dymaxion car was designed by American inventor Buckminster Fuller during the Great Depression and featured prominently at Chicago's 1933/1934 World's Fair. Fuller built three experimental prototypes with naval architect Starling Burgess ...
*
Dymaxion house
The Dymaxion house was developed by inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller to address several perceived shortcomings with existing homebuilding techniques. Fuller designed several versions of the house at different times—all of them fa ...
*
Dymaxion map
*
Lifelog
A lifelog is a personal record of one's daily life in a varying amount of detail, for a variety of purposes. The record contains a comprehensive dataset of a human's activities. The data could be used to increase knowledge about how people liv ...
*
MyLifeBits
MyLifeBits was a life-logging experiment begun in 2001. It is a Microsoft Research project inspired by Vannevar Bush's hypothetical Memex computer system. The project includes full-text search, text and audio annotations, and hyperlinks. The "expe ...
*
Robert Shields (diarist)
References
External links
Stanford University Library - R. Buckminster Fuller Archive
{{Buckminster Fuller
Books by Buckminster Fuller
Diaries