| Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University

Rebecca Dalvesco

Independent Scholarat Independent Scholar
United States
Focus area: Urban Planning, Built Environment

One of the leading semioticians in North America, Rebecca Dalvesco combines the concepts of the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce with psychoanalytic and cultural theories to analyze modern and contemporary design.  She has also written on film, art, and outer space.  She is a specialist on the designer-philosopher Richard Buckminster Fuller.  Her book Fuller Speak analyzes Fuller’s Dymaxion vehicles—prototyped during the 1930s—as readable texts comprised of signs.  She has lectured at global venues on design, architecture, semiotics, anthropology, and the humanities.  An artist, herself, she has designed fashions for her own performance art as well as sets for dance, opera, and theater.  In the past she has acted as design consultant for architectural works.  Dalvesco earned a doctorate in architectural history, theory and criticism at Arizona State University, as well as a M.S. in industrial design theory, criticism and methodology; and a B.F.A. in drawing. Dalvesco worked at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in the arena of art, design, and interior architecture history.  Later she joined the School of the Art Institute of Chicago serving as assistant professor of design, architecture, and art history.  At the Institute of Chicago she helped develop the curriculum for the fledgling Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects Master’s Programs. 

Journal Articles:
Historical Perspectives

R. Buckminster Fuller, the Expo ‘67 Pavilion and the Atoms for Peace Program

October 2017
Artists' Articles

Ur-writings: A Geophonographic Fiction

February 2018