Space Age Design: Icons of the Space Age Design Movement

by Peter Martin

256 pages, Hardcover

Published April 15, 2025

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Mansour S منصور السدحان · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book takes you into a brief journey looking at the Space Age design movement’s heyday from the mid 50s to mid 80s. It breaks the movement’s lifespan into four periods: 57-62/61-68/68-72/73-86. Ending with the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986. The spacing between each period corresponds to events relating to space exploration events. Of course the book is about design and mainly focusing on furniture but it also explores it with the backdrop being the space age attitude of such a times that influenced the art. It looks into designs reflecting the optimistic attitude of an era that looks forward to a utopian age of innovation and space colonization. Thus, the text for each chapter enlightens the reader with the space related events of that period as well as what’s happening in the design world.
Totally loved this book. Lots of amazing large photos of furniture and a little bit of space stuff. Those chairs are just eye candy!

Some thoughts and notes:

- For some reason I love 70s art and interiors even though I wasn’t alive in the 70s!

- There is a photo of the Lancia Stratos Zero, Bertone’s masterpiece and the car from the future that never was, and one of my favorite car designs of all time.

- Glad that there is a chair showcased here by the brilliant (and egoistic!) underrated artist: Luigi Colani.

- The simple design concept behind some of these chairs is fascinating! Like how a ribbon or cropped egg or sphere can be made into a chair, brilliant!

- there is an artist who’s not a designer of furniture by trade (he’s an illustrator) but have dabbled in such venues and was brilliant and produced some breathtaking works. The artist is the legendary Roger Dean. Just image search “roger dean furniture “ and see for yourself!

- the Dune Sofa system…ARE YOU SERIOUS! I WANT ONE!

- In my “google image search” wonderings, I came across Verner Panton years ago many times, especially his Visiona 2. So I recognized his work here but didn’t know him by his name. Visiona 2 is a 60s-70s psychedelic acid trip! Totally wonderful!

- The original 1969 B&B Italia Serie Up is stunning! It comes vacuumed in a pizza box, and once you open it and take it out, it expands into a fully fledged chair. It’s like something from Back to The Future!

…those people of that time would probably think I’m in 2026 typing this from my vacation condo in eastern martian colony no:12…


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[Lotus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very flashy and well-constructed, but personally I found it really lacking in substance. Lots of white space on the pages (such as half pages often entirely blank) as well as entire pages taken up by a something such as a single chair. I was really disappointed. While there were some beautiful images, it was nowhere near as many as I had expected for such a large book.