Designing Tomorrow: America's World's Fairs of the 1930s

by Robert W. Rydell (Editor), Matthew Bokovoy (Contributor), Robert Bennett (Contributor)

In the midst of the Great Depression, America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s gave hope to millions, sustaining the assembled with visions of future progress. These grand expositions in Chicago, San Diego, Dallas, Cleveland, New York, and San Francisco showcased an optimistic, consumerist future society and symbolized the Modernist message of progress through design. Designing Tomorrow celebrates the influence and impact of these international expositions. Offering an overview of the fairs and detailed discussions of individual works, distinguished authors examine how designers reconciled radical “European” Modern style with American tradition. Works by Edward H. Bennet, Gilbert Rohde, George Keck, Richard Neutra, and others illuminate the ways in which Modernism became an integral component of the vocabulary of American design.  Additional essays highlight the visual power of these expositions, featuring rare artifacts and photographs of objects including models and plans for “the houses and cities of tomorrow,” streamlined trains, modern furnishings, and the first televisions.

Published in association with the National Building Museum

Exhibition National Building Museum (10/02/10 – 07/10/11)

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 19, 2010

About the author

Robert W. Rydell is professor of history at Montana State University-Bozeman. He is the author of six books, including All the World’s a Fair and World of Fairs, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The study of the epic age of American industrial design never gets old for me, and this was a fine examination of how industrial design, American business scrambling to remain relevant, and the US government trying to propagandize that better times were coming, produced the slew of exhibitions that punctuated the 1930s. The great New York and Chicago exhibitions remain cultural touchstones, but I was unaware that there were exhibitions in Cleveland, Texas and California.

Of course, considering that this book was published almost a generation ago, one might say that this work is dated itself. I think that the contributors were a bit too critical about the quality of the "modernism" that these exhibitions showcased, and could better respect that the complex of consumerism, technology, and marketing did solved certain problems; at least for awhile. At least it wasn't galloping fascism, then or now, and there was then a certain effort to get to grips with reality.

It's hard to imagine such a moment happening again in America anytime soon, since there's a large swath of society that wants nothing more than to save a past that's not coming back, which is a denial of reality. It's hard to come up with alternatives until one admits that there is a problem.