This book explores the career of one of the twentieth century's foremost theatrical and industrial designers. This book outlines the career of this complex and influential man through approximately fifty projects, bringing together never before exhibited drawings, models, photographs and films. Norman Bel Geddes was an innovative stage designer, director, producer, architect, industrial designer, futurist and urban planner. His professional credo was to simplify, to unify, to use form to communicate and, at times, shape function and to question the status quo. His research based approach to problem solving followed by his complete re imagining of a design problem, as if starting from scratch, resulted in the creation of a new, ideal product. hroughout his multi faceted career, Bel Geddes was a paradoxical figure made up of equal parts visionary and pragmatist, naturalist and industrialist, democrat and egoist. A number of products and practices now taken for granted can be traced directly back to Bel Geddes. His impact on the American landscape ranges from the U.S. federal highway system to all weather sports stadiums, revolving restaurants, modular domestic appliances and stylish home entertainment systems.

Before there was Steve Jobs, there was Norman Bel Geddes. A ninth-grade dropout who found himself at the center of the worlds of industry, advertising, theater, and even gaming, Bel Geddes designed everything from the first all-weather stadium, to Manhattan's most exclusive nightclub, to Futurama, the prescient 1939 exhibit that envisioned how America would look in the not-too-distant 60s. In The Man Who Designed the Future, B. Alexandra Szerlip reveals precisely how central Bel Geddes was to the history of American innovation. He presided over a moment in which theater became immersive, function merged with form, and people became consumers. A polymath with humble Midwestern origins, Bel Geddes’ visionary career would launch him into social circles with the Algonquin roundtable members, stars of stage and screen, and titans of industry. Light on its feet but absolutely authoritative, this first major biography is a must for anyone who wants to know how America came to look the way it did.

MIRACLE IN THE EVENING is the autobiography of one of the most brilliant stage and industrial designers of our time. Norman Bel Geddes’ story is the drama of a young man who, having worked his way through school, climaxed a brilliant career with ideas that gave birth to some of the most spectacular theatrical productions of the last half century. Through Norman Bel Geddes’ story, as through the theater itself, pass the many colorful personalities of our age, lending brilliance and scope, good humor and compelling human interest. The life story of this ingenuous man is filled with names of the glittering and the great, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Madame Schumann-Heink (his first portrait-sketch was of this famous contralto), Will Rogers, Charlie Chaplin, David Belasco, Horace Liveright, J. Walter Thompson, Walter Chrysler, Harold Ross, and many others—a fascinating story of a man who has more than once created for audiences a MIRACLE IN THE EVENING.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

In 1939, Vogue magazine invited commercial designer Raymond Loewy and eight of his contemporaries—including Walter Dorwin Teague, Egmont Arens, and Henry Dreyfuss—to design a dress for the "Woman of the Future" as part of its special issue promoting the New York World's Fair and its theme, "The World of Tomorrow." While focusing primarily on her clothing and accessories, many commented as well on the future woman's physique, predicting that her body and mind would be perfected through the implementation of eugenics. Industrial designers' fascination with eugenics—especially that of Norman Bel Geddes—began during the previous decade, and its principles permeated their theories of the modern design style known as "streamlining." In Eugenic Design, Christina Cogdell charts new territory in the history of industrial design, popular science, and American culture in the 1930s by uncovering the links between streamline design and eugenics, the pseudoscientific belief that the best human traits could—and should—be cultivated through selective breeding. Streamline designers approached products the same way eugenicists approached bodies. Both considered themselves to be reformers advancing evolutionary progress through increased efficiency, hygiene and the creation of a utopian "ideal type." Cogdell reconsiders the popular streamline style in U.S. industrial design and proposes that in theory, rhetoric, and context the style served as a material embodiment of eugenic ideology. With careful analysis and abundant illustrations, Eugenic Design is an ambitious reinterpretation of one of America's most significant and popular design forms, ultimately grappling with the question of how ideology influences design.

his anthology compiled from volumes 3-10 of Design Issues, includes material from areas seldom discussed in existing surveys and will facilitate the general discourse within the design community on a wide range of conceptual and methodological issues of contemporary design history. Design history has emerged in recent years as a significant field of scholarly research and critical reflection. With their interest in the conceptualization, production, and consumption of objects (large and small, unique or multiple, anonymous or signed) and environments (ephemeral or enduring, public or private), design historians investigate the multiple ways in which intentionally produced objects, environments, and experiences both shape and reflect their historical moments. This anthology compiled from volumes 3-10 of Design Issues, includes material from areas seldom discussed in existing surveys and will facilitate the general discourse within the design community on a wide range of conceptual and methodological issues of contemporary design history. Individual essays investigate various aspects of design in the modern era. They provide fresh insights on familiar figures such as Harley Earl and Norman Bel Geddes and shed new light on neglected aspects of design history such as the history of women in early American graphic design or the history of modern design in China. The essays are grouped in three broad categories: Graphic Design, Design in the American Corporate Milieu, and Design in the Context of National Experiences. Contributors David Brett, Bradford R. Collins, Dennis P. Doordan, David Gartman, Gyorgy Haiman, Larry D. Luchmansingh, Roland Marchand, Enric Satué, Mitchell Schwarzer, Paul Shaw, Svetlana Sylvestrova, Ellen Mazur Thomson, Matthew Turner, John Turpin, Shou Zhi Wang. A Design Issues Reader

"The twentieth century loved machines and the speed they made possible. Speeding cars, trains, and planes promised to conquer space and time; their aerodynamic styling and metal skins embodied a new and modern beauty, one that especially enchanted American designers from the late 1920s through the 1950s. Streamlining became the popular American style for all sorts of objects: from toy scooters to typewriters, from power tools to teakettles." "This book celebrates this beauty as epitomized by the work of Raymond Loewy, Kem Weber, Henry Dreyfuss, Norman Bel Geddes, as well as in works by many lesser-known industrial designers whose products are presented here for the first time. The book also demonstrates the resurgence of interest in streamlining among international vanguard designers from the 1980s to the present." "This volume is illustrated with patent drawings and period photographs showing how these dynamically styled objects were used. The one hundred eighty objects presented here, drawn from the Eric Brill Collection (recently donated to the American Friends of Canada) and supplemented by pieces from the Stewart Collection at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, were photographed for this book. A full bibliography, biographies of the designers, and index complete the study."--BOOK JACKET.

Bel Geddes was a pioneering industrial designer, whose work spanned the fields of architecture, theater, transportation, and more. In this beautiful book, he reflects on his life and career, tracing the evolution of his ideas and the impact of his designs. With stunning photographs and insightful commentary, Horizons is a testament to Geddes's vision and creativity, and a celebration of his enduring legacy. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

How design made America modern: masterpieces of furniture, metalware and plastics from the early 20th century During the 1920s and 1930s, the speed of modern life in the United States, accelerated by advances in transportation, communication, technology and advertising, changed how people lived their lives, and the objects they chose to live with. A new profession emerged to help American manufacturers and consumers navigate the overwhelming transitions of the era. Through the power of design--form, color, ornament and materials--the earliest industrial designers created a modern aesthetic that came to represent American hopes, dreams and fantasies. America Goes Modernexplores these designers' achievements through close examination of selected masterworks. Each of these exceptional objects offers a window into the social, cultural, technological and economic world in which they were made and used. The book features sleek furniture, vibrant ceramics, streamlined metalwares and innovative plastics from the leading designers of the era. Designers include: Norman Bel Geddes, Manning Bowman Company, Jules Buoy, Donald Deskey, Paul Frankl, Earl Harvey, Ianelli Studios, Belle Kogan, William Lescaze, Erik Magnussen, Peter Muller Munk, Gilbert Rhode, RumRill Art Pottery, Victor Schreckengost, Walter Dorwin Teague, The Hall China Company, Harold Van Doren, John Vassos, Kem Weber, Western Coil and Electric Company and Russel Wright. Photographers and painters include: Berenice Abbott, Arthur Dove, Archibald Motley, Alvin Langdon Coburn, M. Murray Lebowitz, Norman Lewis, Max Weber, Margaret Bourke-White, Henry Callahan and Alfred Stieglitz.