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From the Oregonian (local newspaper), Portland section.  Don't 
have the exact date handy (1987 or so, given it says I'm 29).  
Came with a picture of me holding one of those Fuller 
Projection postcards up next to my head.

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Young Portlander entertains dream of lighting up world

By Peter Carlin
Correspondent, The Oregonian

Kirby Urner has a plan.

It involves geodesic domes, a new world map, an international 
power grid, world peace and the teachings of R. Buckminster 
Fuller.

And Portland might play a big part in all this, Urner contends.

One of Fuller's most distinct images is his Dymaxion Projection 
map, a super-accurate projection of the earth's land masses and 
oceans that the Medal of Freedom winner copyrighted in order to 
guarantee that it would never show national boundaries.

While living in Jersey City, N.J. during the early 1980s, Urner 
attempted to interest some corporate donors in constructing a 
huge, wall-sized projection of the Dymaxion map out of millions 
of tiny light bulbs, much like the scoreboard screens at 
football stadiums.

Urner said the map project met with some interest, but he found 
investors unwilling to gamble their funds on the future of a 
ravaged urban center such as Jersey City.

"Portland, on the other hand, has a much brighter future," 
Urner said. "If OMSI goes ahead with their plans to develop a 
new site on the Willamette, I expect many Fuller-related 
artifacts to become part of that project." He noted that there 
were Fuller displays at the Louvre in Paris, at Disney's Epcot 
center in Florida, and at Expo in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The map, Urner said, "would be a great way to educate people 
about the Earth, as well as providing businesses with a unique 
method of advertisement. Companies could get access to the map 
on a time-share basis to show off their assets. ...I suspect 
airlines would love to use it to show their routes around the 
globe."

Urner said corporations he had approached with the sponsorship 
plan generally were receptive, but nothing concrete had been 
arranged for display of the map.

Meanwhile, Urner, a 29-year-old computer consultant with the 
Center for Urban Education, is laying some of the groundwork 
for acceptance of Fuller's ideas.  He teaches computer skills 
to the underprivileged and is making plans to expand the 
center's educational influence through the use of video 
technology.

"I don't expect people to buy into all this immediately," Urner 
admitted. "But, as Buckminster Fuller showed, we have access to 
all the tools we need to transform the world into a more 
prosperous, peaceful place.  We just need to pick them up."

Urner spent some of his childhood years in Portland, before his 
father's career as an urban planner carried his family to a 
series of far-flung places around the world.

Back in the United States, Urner studied at Princeton 
University and then spent some time teaching high school in New 
Jersey before moving back to Portland in 1983.  He has been 
working with computers at the center since 1984.

Fuller, who died in 1982, was a modern philosopher, 
mathematician, architect, theorist and writer who could count 
President Reagan, Henry Ford II, former CIA chief Stansfield 
Turner and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev among his more 
influential admirers.

Fuller's revolutionary mathematics, explained in his books, 
"Synergetics Vols I and II," are the basis for his concepts of 
design and education.  Products of these theories include 
architectural designs such as geodesic domes and Fuller's 
international energy grid, a proposal that would link the power 
supplies of nations around the globe.

Urner said he hoped that Fuller's approach to science and math 
would open up peoples' perceptions of the world's future.

"Frustration with science and math is the main roadblock 
between the world today and the world we want to live in," 
Urner maintains.

"True awareness of the globe and the solutions to problems like 
hunger and war -- which Fuller says are under our noses -- 
will present themselves much more clearly if we acquaint 
ourselves more with the basic principles of math and science.

"Media extravaganzas like scoreboard-sized maps and video 
programs are important, because they are dramatic methods of 
education, and education is the key to the future."


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Kirby Urner  "ALL realities are 'virtual'" -- KU
Email: pdx4d@teleport.com
Web:   http://www.teleport.com/~pdx4d/