The Aesthetics of Ascension in Norman Bel Geddes's Futurama

2004 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adnan Morshed
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Spatial Dynamics ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Common ◽  
New Vision ◽  
The City

The present article concerns the early-twentieth-century avant-garde's aestheticizing of a new vision occasioned by the advent of human flight. It focuses on the project that best reflects this vision: the Futurama, an exhibit created by the American industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes for the 1939 New York World's Fair. The Futurama's status as the "number one hit show" of the fair derived largely from its theatrical technique of seeing: spectators literally gazed down on an American utopia as if they were aviators in a low-flying airplane. Conceived during the golden age of American aviation, in the 1920s and 1930s, the Futurama exemplified the common utopian belief that the perspective from an airplane would usher in new spatial dynamics that would introduce the city of the future. The enthusiasm for aerial vision evinced a remarkable affiliation between aviation and a modernist logic of looking at the world. The fact that the Futurama spectator's aerial viewing became enmeshed in broader conceptualizations of twentieth-century visuality reveals the crucial presence of what could be called an "aesthetics of ascension" in the avantgarde imagination of the future city.

The Sunshine State Emerges on the World Stage

2019 ◽  
pp. 189-197
Author(s):  
David J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Entire Population ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Tourist Industry ◽  
Tourist Attractions ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
The World ◽  
Park Service

Near the end of the Great Depression, Florida ends the decade with a triumphant tenure at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, dozens of thriving tourist attractions, and a newly built Florida Park Service. By 1940, Florida enjoyed a thriving tourist industry that attracted more than double the entire population of the Sunshine State.

“A Season in Hell”

2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Rees
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Women Travelers ◽  
The City ◽  
Travel Accounts

Australian women travelers in early twentieth-century New York often recoiled from the frenetic pace of the city, which surpassed anything encountered in either Britain or Australia. This article employs their travel accounts to lend support to the growing recognition that modernity took different forms throughout the world and to contribute to the project of mapping those differences. I argue that “hustle” was a defining feature of the New York modern, comparatively little evident in Australia, and I propose that the southern continent had developed a model of modern life that privileged pleasure-seeking above productivity. At a deeper level, this line of thinking suggests that modernization should not be conflated with the relentless acceleration of daily life; it thus complicates the ingrained assumption that speed and modernity go hand-in-hand.

Performing Japan in the ‘World of Tomorrow’

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Peterson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
World War ◽  
Love Affair ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
The World ◽  
Trade Relationship ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Tea Ceremony

As Asia and Europe raced toward another catastrophic world war, the Japanese government engaged Nippon Kōbō, its de-facto state propaganda machine, to reinforce America’s love affair with all things Japanese at the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair. The temple-like national pavilion set amidst an extensive garden celebrated the strong diplomatic and trade relationship between the two countries, while highlighting the ‘softer’ and more feminine side of Japan through displays featuring attractive, kimono-clad women engaged in silk production, ikebana floral arranging, and the ubiquitous ‘tea ceremony.’ The reception given to the genderbending performing arts company, Takarazuka in May, 1939, suggests Americans were unwilling to change their perception of Japan as the land of cherry blossoms and willowy maidens.

For all the world to see: Anesthesia at the 1939 New York World's Fair

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas R. Bacon ◽  
Mark J. Lema ◽  
Clifton K. Yearley
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
The World

Envisioning the Future of Modern Farming

2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-222
Author(s):  
Sarah Rovang
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Electric Utility ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
Farm Work ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
The Future ◽  
Private Power ◽  
American Agriculture ◽  
Modern Farming

At the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the Electric Utility Industry sponsored a one-acre working model called the Electrified Farm. Facing increasing competition from the New Deal’s Rural Electrification Administration, the farm’s corporate sponsors used the exhibit to advocate a new, electrified rural lifestyle enabled by private power and industry. Sarah Rovang demonstrates that the eight buildings of the Electrified Farm, designed by the firm of Harrison & Fouilhoux, evinced a cohesive modern aesthetic that stylistically echoed the modernity of the exhibit’s electrical lighting, appliances, and farm equipment. At the exhibit, electricity rendered farm work and domestic labor more efficient and professional, but it did not fundamentally disrupt entrenched ideals of the family farm. Contextualizing the farm’s architecture within contemporary stylistic and cultural trends, Envisioning the Future of Modern Farming: The Electrified Farm at the 1939 New York World’s Fair reveals the sponsors’ multiple and ultimately incompatible ambitions for the future of American agriculture, highlighting in particular the problematic implications of the Electrified Farm for gender relations and farm labor.

Mirror of Our Culture

1965 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 338-348
Author(s):  
Robert E. Rambusch
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
New Age ◽  
World's Fair ◽  
New York World's Fair ◽  
The World

“We have crossed the threshold of a new age whose implications the fair failed to treat seriously. Perhaps the fair does mirror too well our present culture, but it is not enough to hold up the cracked mirror. A billion-dollar venture has the responsibility to present for our consideration not only the world as it is but the reality of human dignity and potency capable of transforming ourselves and our universe. There remain many uncomfortable realities which the 1964–65 New York World's Fair did not confront or even acknowledge.”

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