From a new New York Times article about smart cities comes this recollection about Buckminster Fuller, that dreamer, who somehow thought it would be good idea to build a geodesic dome over a large swath of Manhattan:

“At a time before urban planning was formally taught in universities, Mr. Fuller — a Harvard dropout turned inventor, engineer, architect and philosopher — directed his attention to cities.

He perfected and popularized the geodesic dome, and after building several smaller ones in the 1950s, he teamed up with the architect Shoji Sadao in 1960 to propose a dome with a width of two miles, or 3.2 kilometers, above Midtown Manhattan. The dome would have covered the island from the East River to the Hudson River, with one axis running along 42nd Street. It would have reached from 21st Street to 64th Street, covering the southern lip of Central Park.

During a time when air-conditioning was coming to many U.S. homes and businesses, Mr. Fuller said the giant dome would greatly reduce cooling costs in summer and heating costs in winter by reducing the ratio of surface to volume. Instead of each building’s having to be heated or cooled separately, the entire dome would be kept at a ‘very moderate temperature level’ throughout the year.

The glass would be threaded by a heating wire — much like the rear window of many cars — so that snow and ice accumulation would not become a problem. Melted snow and rain would be collected in catch basins and used for things like irrigation and cleaning.

The scalable dome, according to Mr. Fuller, became stronger and sturdier as it was built larger.”

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Six minutes of non-stop, unabashed Bucky Fuller: