Donald "Don" Richter

Donald Louis “Don” Richter attended Black Mountain College in the summer of 1949, as one of Buckminster Fuller’s “Twelve Disciples”, a group of students who had studied with Fuller the previous year at the Institute of Design in Chicago.

At Black Mountain the students re-erected a dome designed and constructed the previous year and created a plastic cover for the dome. Richter returned with Fuller to Chicago at the end of the summer session. He received B.A. from the Institute of Design in Chicago, focusing on manufacturing design and structural engineering.

He designed the Kaiser Aluminum Geodesic Dome, the first of which as erected in Hawaii. He was co-founded Temcor, which designed, manufactured and erect thousands of geodesic domes and related space structures internationally.

He published papers and articles, and has obtained numerous United States and International patents.

Biography written by Mary Emma Harris for the Black Mountain College Project.

Black Mountain College Project

Mary Emma Harris interviewed Donald in 2002 and the transcript is available from Appalachian State University under The Mary Emma Harris and Black Mountain College Project, Inc. Oral History collection.

Topics: Study at Institute of Design with Buckminster Fuller – ID geodesic dome – dome tests and demonstrations at BMC – discussion of various dome experiments at ID – World War II service – comparison of BMC andID – Buckminster Fuller’s use of discontinuous compression – Fuller as teacher – Emerson Woelffer – John and Jano Walley – post BMC professional work – Lindsay brothers