The greats

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe – The same man who wrote the famous play ‘Faust’ was also an amazing polymath. Goethe wrote ‘The Metamorphosis of plants’ and also devised his own theory of colour amongst many other works. He was importantly the inspiration behind the Bio-Dynamic agriculture movement which came more than 120 years later. Goethe also played a part in the philosophical battle against Kant about the methodology science should follow; the reductionist, rationalist approach or the holistic & integrated pathway. Kant won out but later in his 800 page ‘Critique of pure reason’ came round to the phenomenological approach that Goethe argued for. Goethe’s perspective is slowly coming back as the failure of compartmentalised thinking becomes more evident. Even our governments have operated this way and what an abject waste of human potential that is.

R Buckminster Fuller – After Da Vinci, ‘Bucky’ would probably be the most prolific inventor and thinker that ever lived. One of the first to propagate a ’systemic worldview’ Bucky became one of the very early environmental “Actionists” (as different from Activist; “Actionists” set about solving problems by not just protesting!) Typical with these types they were years ahead of their time and it is only long after that Bucky’s ideas are starting to be taken up. The most visual of Bucky’s inventions is the Geodesic Dome. His seminal book ‘Critical Path’ written in the last years of his life, is an inspirational read from an original and disciplined thinker. One of my favorite inventions is the Dymaxion car he built in 1933 click here to find out much more about Bucky.
“Buckminster Fuller was one of our world’s first futurists and global thinkers. His 1927 decision to work always and only for all humanity led him to address the largest global problems of poverty, disease and homelessness. He realised early on that by examining global problems in the context of the whole system—the whole planet—he would have the best chance of identifying large-scale trends that would allow him to anticipate the critical needs of humanity.” (From the Buckminster Fuller Institute website.)

Jane Jacobs – Jane Jacobs blew the cobwebs out of most minds with respect to the design and function of cities and the concept of urban renewal. An inspiration to many planners and social commentators, her most famous book, The Death & Life of Great American Cities exposed the misled agendas of the likes of Robert Moses, New York City’s notorious town planner who favoured planning for cars over people.  Her real heroism was carved in history when she went head to head with Moses who was planning a highway through her beloved Greenwich Village, by successfully rallying the community to oppose the project. Her later books, The Economy of Cities, The Nature of Economies, and Dark Age Ahead are all testaments to her understanding of human activity as integrally linked to nature and ecology, and thus the design of cities.  She was also particularly influential in the field of applied criminology and was the founding mother of what was to become the concept of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. One of her most quoted phrases in planning and criminological fields is “eyes on the street” explaining that dense, diverse and semi-chaotic neighbourhoods are the safest, most social and most productive, when compared to the lifeless sprawl of car-centric suburbia.

Weston A Price – A dentist that was curious about why some people had good teeth and increasingly more people visiting his clinic had bad teeth. He travelled the world in the early 1900’s visiting groups of people who still had traditional diets to try and understand what made good health. Weston A Price’s work lives on with the work of Sally Fallon & Mary Enig and the foundation in his name.