Observations

This week I met with the architect Norman Foster to talk through his exhibition “Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture” currently on at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. This is a lively show narrated in seven chapters linking automobile design to art and sculpture, architecture and urban planning, critical thinking and intellectual discourse of the time. And in doing so, it sets out to unfold how we can use lessons from the past to navigate the post-combustion future.

The most significant car in the exhibition to Foster is the Dymaxion, the visionary prototype designed by the architect and theorist Buckminster Fuller together with yacht designer Starling Burgess in 1933-34.

Says Foster: “The Dymaxion compared interestingly with the Ford sedan of the period. Bucky (Fuller) was a very close friend of Henry Ford and could get any part at a discount. So, the two share the same transmission and engine but, because of its extraordinary, streamlined shape, the Dymaxion would go faster on less fuel and would carry more people. It’s an exercise in doing more with less.”

Warming to the theme he continues, “Perhaps that is the big message today: we have to do more with less, we have to have more mobility, less risk, consume less energy and it has to be more fun. And as you move through these galleries and see the different colours and shapes historically, you realize there is an incredible richness and variety. This is a very interesting lesson for the future.”

Read the full interview here