Synergetics by Buckminster Fuller, preface by Arthur Loeb.

The appearance of this sizable book is symptomatic of a considerable revival of interest in geometrics, a science of configurations. Configurations observed in the sky constitute the laboratory of our oldest science, astronomy.  Patterns and regularities were discerned, and speculations regarding the influence of  of celestial configurations on terrestrial existence gave rise to scientific as well as mystical systems of natural philosophy.  The dividing line between these two is at times surprisingly diffuse, and varies throughout history.

Platonic and Archimedean solids and such plane figures as the pentagram were powerful tools of applied magic.  The age of reason banished such configurations to the realm of  superstition: their power was denied. Orthogonality prevailed, being rational and very earthbound.  Interest in geometrics declined. Buckminster Fuller’s search for a natural and truly rational coordinate system eventually led to the tensegrity concept and the construction of geodesic domes. Polyhedra and pentagrams, being proven useful after all, have been rescued from the limbo of superstition.