SD2080 tutorial III 23.09.05 ‘The designers go to the fair 2: Norman Bel Geddes, the General Motors “Futurama,”

Roland Marchand. ‘The designers go to the fair 2: Norman Bel Geddes, the General Motors “Futurama,” and the visit to the factory transformed,’ pp 103-121 in Design History: An Anthology, Dennis P. Doordan, editor. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1995.

Corporate showmanship (105) in 1930s US (depression)

Ford- Walter Dorwin Teague	GM- Norman Bel Geddes- Futurama
- put factory on display (tour of the factory) 105 - educational 103 - self-contained, realistic, practical-minded businessman (unimaginative and derivative)103	- pure entertainment (enliven story of production, comedy)105 - share our world (envisional) 105 - impractical visionary 103/ stage designer 106

(Geddes’s story of success…108-109)

Horizons (1932)

- elements of theater: crowd psychology, social ideology - industrializing the theater (break from proscenium stage > sense of unity, intimacy audience-participation) 106 - urban planning: rational – streamline (speed & efficiency) – skyscraper & low houses – “no artificial horizons would limit the vision and work of the industrial desinger” 106 - future through research (population, auto Regis, )107 - scale modeling 107 - sidewalk separation of traffic and pedestrian 107

GM- Norman Bel Geddes- Futurama

- modernity, benevolence, forward looking 110 - ind designer takes over the job of architect: (forms follow function) exterior and interior dramatized 111 - the model: (110): biggest…total environment, light, serpentine ride…..

- in focus and sequential , structured control, panorama (control of sight) 113 - model so real: participation- full size model - theater without curtains113 ~ I’ve seen the future

- private firms build the future (new political rheteric)115 - justify the needs of industrial economics, destroy of barriers, building of highways 115 - streamlined future 116- naturalism rejected > illusion of increase the speed> aesthetics116 - give pleasure: emotional response to product 117 - contrast & thrilled entertainment in restful comfort 116 - sound: individual soft but authoritative 118 - space: easy chair – correct sequence, synchronization, attentive with restful comfort 118 - amusement part fr factory to future 119

Critique:120 - PR show not with message but free show of entertainment - Evasion: no slum, old wine in new pot - Audience become product on assembly-line