Ransom Center Magazine

industrial design

High Museum of Art’s “Dream Cars” exhibition features drawings, designs from Norman Bel Geddes collection

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“We dream of cars that will float or fly, or run on energy from a laser beam, or travel close to the ground without wheels. Such research may border on the fantastic, but so did the idea of a carriage going about the country without a horse.” –The Ford Book of Styling, 1963

 

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta is currently hosting the exhibition Dream Cars through September 7, which includes items from the Ransom Center’s Norman Bel Geddes collection. The exhibition showcases the innovative and artistic design of rare vehicles from the early 1930s to 2010 and encompasses the evolution of the automobile from a horseless carriage to a sleek, highly functional speed machine. Dream Cars highlights designs and models from across Europe and the United States, including a blueprint, a photograph, and three drawings of Bel Geddes’s 1932 design, Motorcar No. 9.

 

The exhibition brings together 17 concept cars, including designs from Ferrari, Bugatti, General Motors, and Porsche. These vehicles are paired with conceptual drawings, patents, and scale models to demonstrate how imaginative designs and innovation changed the automobile from a basic, functional object to a symbol of limitless possibilities.

 

None of the vehicles and designs on display in this exhibition were ever intended for production. Rather, they represent the “dream” of future possibilities and highlight the talent and imagination of industrial designers.

 

Bel Geddes was an American theatrical and industrial designer who gained fame in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s. The Motorcar No. 9 model demonstrates his expertise in aerodynamics and streamlining as a means to modernism. The Ransom Center’s extensive Norman Bel Geddes archive includes a model of Motorcar No. 9 among other papers, designs, and artifacts that span 50 years.

 

Related content:

Video: Curator of Norman Bel Geddes exhibition discusses influence of the industrial designer

 

Please click on the thumbnails below to view larger images.

 

Now open at the Wolfsonian: “I Have Seen The Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America”

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The exhibition I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America is now open at the Wolfsonian at Florida International University in Miami Beach, Florida.  Pulled mostly from the Ransom Center’s Bel Geddes archive, the exhibition originated in fall 2012 at the Ransom Center and was on view earlier this year at the Museum of the City of New York. Bringing together some 200 unique drawings, models, photographs, and films, this exhibition highlights Bel Geddes’s creativity and desire to transform American society through design.

 

Norman Bel Geddes (1893–1958) was an industrial and theatrical designer who gained fame in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s for his streamlined and futuristic innovations. His designs played a significant role in shaping America’s image as an innovative powerhouse and global leader into the future. One of his most famous undertakings was the unforgettable Futurama exhibition at the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair.

 

I Have Seen the Future is on view at the Wolfsonian until September 28.

 

Image: Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933.

 

Related content:

View the Norman Bel Geddes Designs America book

Curator of Norman Bel Geddes exhibition discusses influence of the industrial designer

Read an inside look at Bel Geddes’s design, Motorcar Number 9

Curator of Norman Bel Geddes exhibition discusses influence of the industrial designer

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Donald Albrecht, exhibition organizer and curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York, discusses industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes’s influence on the American landscape. Albrecht—editor of Norman Bel Geddes Designs America (Abrams)—emphasizes the breadth of the Bel Geddes collection at the Ransom Center, which includes Bel Geddes’s plans and sketches of his futurist visions.

The exhibition Norman Bel Geddes Designs America, which was on view at the Ransom Center in fall 2012, opens at the Museum of the City of New York today. To celebrate this traveling exhibition, the Ransom Center is giving away a free “I Have Seen the Future” totebag to all Ransom Center visitors, while supplies last. The galleries are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.

Three degrees of separation: Industrial designers find inspiration with Norman Bel Geddes

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Employees from Dell visit the exhibition "I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America." Photo by Pete Smith.
A group of Dell employees visit the exhibition “I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America.” Photo by Pete Smith.

Scott Lauffer, an Industrial Design Director at Dell’s Enterprise Product Group, recently visited the exhibition I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America with a group of colleagues, primarily industrial designers and engineers. The group takes occasional offsite visits to find inspiration. This is the third visit the group made to the Ransom Center over the past few years. Lauffer shares his observations from the visit.

As designers I think we all drew inspiration from the versatility that Norman Bel Geddes displayed not only in the types of work that he consulted on, but the salesmanship he exhibited to convince many of his clients to invest in creating better human experiences in a time before it was expected and demanded by consumers. His background in theater probably served him well in being a better storyteller for his vision. His approach for researching and understanding human behavior along with model building and storytelling are all techniques that we draw on heavily as designers today.

It was interesting to see how Bel Geddes not only influenced our group’s profession of industrial design, but also our industry, albeit indirectly. Elliot Noyes, who founded the Industrial Design program for IBM and pioneered the corporate design discipline in 1956, was previously employed by Bel Geddes. We later discovered there were only three degrees of separation for some of us: Bel Geddes to Elliot Noyes to Tom Hardy, with whom some of us previously worked in his capacity as design director at IBM.

The exhibition was crafted to educate a wide audience through thoughtfully selected examples that represent the breadth of Bel Geddes’s work, without overwhelming. The courage Bel Geddes showed in proposing the visionary and using this to stretch the imagination of his clients is inspirational.

Curator discusses Norman Bel Geddes’s influence in video

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Donald Albrecht, exhibition organizer and curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York, discusses industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes’s influence on the American landscape. Albrecht—editor of Norman Bel Geddes Designs America (Abrams)—emphasizes the breadth of the Bel Geddes collection at the Ransom Center, which includes Bel Geddes’s plans and sketches of his futurist visions.