We are pleased to announce the launch of the much-anticipated Buckminster Fuller Challenge Idea Index, an interactive, searchable database of entries to the 2008 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.

Left to right: Joseph Clinton, BFI Board Member; Dr. John Todd; Neal Katz, BFI Board President; Allegra Fuller Snyder, BFI Board Chair; Elizabeth Thompson, BFI Executive Director. (Photo by Martin Seck)

The first annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge prize was conferred to Dr. John Todd at a packed-to-capacity ceremony at the Center for Architecture in New York City on Monday, June 23rd, 2008. Dr. Todd was presented a check in the amount of $100,000 for his winning project Comprehensive Design for a Carbon Neutral World: The Challenge of Appalachia. Dr. Todd was also presented the OmniOculi, a limited edition sculpture by artist Tom Shannon, commissioned for the Challenge.

Dr. John Todd was awarded the first annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge prize at a conferring ceremony at the Center for Architecture in New York City on Monday, June 23rd.

Democracy Now!, a fantastic New York-based independent radio/TV news broadcast, caught up with Dr. Todd, Challenge juror Hunter Lovins, and Jaime Snyder to talk about Fuller's legacy, Dr. Todd's visionary work in Appalachia, and the foolish plans for a nuclear power revival in the United States.

Watch the interview

Bucky had it right. “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

That’s why we’re awarding a $100,000 prize each year for comprehensive solutions that radically advance human well-being and ecosystem health.

The 2009 Challenge begins this fall. Stay tuned...

If you would like to receive email updates about the 2009 Challenge, please send a request to challenge (at) bfi (dot) org with the word “subscribe” in the subject line.

Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe
on view June 26, 2008-September 21, 2008

R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was one of the great American visionaries of the 20th century. Best-known as the inventor of the geodesic dome, Fuller devoted much of his life to resolving the gap between the sciences and the humanities, which he believed was preventing society from taking a comprehensive view of the world. His theories and innovations traversed the worlds of architecture, visual art, literature, mathematics, molecular biology, and environmental science and have had a deep impact on all of those fields.

In addition to the Whitney Museum show, there will be a number of exciting events throughout June in New York City. We will announce the details as they become available.

For more information about the Whitney show, please visit: http://www.whitney.org/www/exhibition/upcoming.jsp

To download the Whitney Museum's press release about the show, click here [pdf]