Exploring modern design and a technological future, the 1930s World Fair’s held in Chicago, San Diego, Cleveland, Dallas, and New York featured architects and industrial designers such as Raymond Loewy, Norman Bel Geddes, Henry Dreyfuss, and Walter Dorwin Teague. A modern, technological tomorrow unlike anything seen before, the World Fair’s presented visions of the future including designs for the cities and houses of tomorrow with a lifestyle of modern furnishings which were viewed by tens of million of visitors.
Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s exhibition is currently on display at the National Building Museum in Washington DC thru July 10, 2011. Building models, architectural remnants, drawings, paintings, prints, furniture, along with period film footage are all included within the exhibit.
In the midst of the Great Depression, tens of millions of visitors flocked to world’s fairs where architects and industrial designers collaborated with businesses like General Motors and Westinghouse to present a golden future complete with highways, televisions, all-electric kitchens, and even robots.
