Ransom Center Magazine

Museum of the City of New York

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.

Final days to see "I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America"

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Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Image courtesy of the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation. Photo by Pete Smith.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Image courtesy of the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation. Photo by Pete Smith.

The exhibition I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America runs through January 6, 2013, and explores the life and career of American stage and industrial designer, futurist, and urban planner Norman Bel Geddes (1893–1958).

The Ransom Center Galleries are closed Mondays and on Christmas Eve Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended Thursday hours until 7 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays the galleries are open from noon to 5 p.m.

Docent-led gallery tours are also available.

More than 300 items in the exhibition reflect the broad range of Bel Geddes’s interests and work and demonstrate how he shaped and continues to influence American culture and lifestyle. A polymath who had little academic or professional training in the areas he mastered, Bel Geddes had the ability to look at trends and the contemporary environment and envision how they could affect and alter the future.

“When you drive on an interstate highway, attend a multimedia Broadway show, dine in a sky-high revolving restaurant or watch a football game in an all-weather stadium, you owe a debt of gratitude to Norman Bel Geddes,” said exhibition organizer Donald Albrecht, an independent curator and curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York.

All but two loaned items in the exhibition come from the Norman Bel Geddes archive at the Ransom Center.

Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Image courtesy of the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation. Photo by Pete Smith.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Image courtesy of the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation. Photo by Pete Smith.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Image courtesy of the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation. Photo by Pete Smith.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation. Photo by Pete Smith.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Image courtesy of the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation.
Norman Bel Geddes, Motor Car No. 9 (without tail fin), ca. 1933. Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation. Photo by Pete Smith.

"Norman Bel Geddes Designs America" receives media attention

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Norman Bel Geddes Designs America (Abrams) is the first book to explore the entire scope of American designer, urban planner, and futurist Norman Bel Geddes’s life, career, and projects.

Media outlets, including the New York Times Book Review, Fortune, the Telegraph, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Austin Chronicle, Wallpaper, and the New York Post, have made note of this publication.

Edited by Donald Albrecht, an independent curator and curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York, Norman Bel Geddes Designs America reveals the astonishing breadth of Bel Geddes’s work.

Complementing the book is the Ransom Center’s exhibition I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America, which runs through January 6, 2013.

Enjoy a preview of Norman Bel Geddes Designs America through Albrecht’s introduction to the volume, which includes images of Bel Geddes’s varied work, from construction of the stage set for The Eternal Road to his design for an all-weather, all-purpose, never-built stadium for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Essays by more than 15 leading scholars explore Bel Geddes’s work in theater, housing, graphic design, and work place design, as well as his famous Futurama installation and his working process. More than 400 illustrations from the Bel Geddes archive at the Ransom Center reveal and showcase Bel Geddes’s extensive interests and talents. Essay contributors include Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Christina Cogdell, Christin Essin, Christopher Innes, Sandy Isenstadt, Christopher Long, Jeffrey L. Meikle, Lawrence Speck, and others.

Norman Bel Geddes Designs America is available for purchase at the Ransom Center’s visitor desk during gallery hours and online. Members receive a discount.

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