Norman Bel Geddes
Norman Bel Geddes (1893–1958) was an American theatrical and industrial designer who promoted streamlined forms and futuristic visions of modern life.
Futurama: A General Motors exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair that imagined a network of highways and a reorganized American landscape. Bel Geddes designed this spectacle, which made his vision of streamlined transportation widely visible.
Streamline Moderne: An architectural and design style of the 1930s marked by horizontal lines, rounded forms, and nautical or aerodynamic details. Bel Geddes helped popularize the streamlined visual language that this style shared.
Theatre design: The design of theatrical scenery, costumes, lighting, and stage environments. Bel Geddes developed his visual vocabulary and spatial imagination in this field.
Futurama (1939 World's Fair exhibit): Norman Bel Geddes's General Motors pavilion attraction at the 1939 New York World's Fair, depicting America in 1960. Millions encountered his optimistic vision of highways and planned landscapes through this exhibit.
Airliner Number 4: A 1929 concept for a large, streamlined passenger airliner designed by Norman Bel Geddes. This speculative aircraft demonstrates his early effort to redesign transportation around aerodynamic forms.
Aerodynamics: The study of how air moves around objects and the forces it exerts on them. Its principles supplied a technical basis for forms that Bel Geddes often used as design imagery.
Max Reinhardt: An Austrian theater director known for lavish productions and inventive staging. Bel Geddes's exposure to Reinhardt's theatrical innovations helped shape his ambitions for stage design.
Horizons (book): Norman Bel Geddes's 1932 book presenting designs and proposals for future transportation, buildings, and daily life. It set out his program for applying design imagination to systems beyond individual products.
General Motors Pavilion: The 1939 New York World's Fair pavilion that housed the Futurama exhibit. Bel Geddes's most prominent public project appeared inside this pavilion.
Industrial design: The professional practice of shaping the appearance, function, and production of manufactured objects. Bel Geddes helped establish this practice as a way to design whole products and systems.