Norman bel geddes biography template

Norman Bel Geddes

American theatrical and productive designer (1893–1958)

Norman Bel Geddes (born Norman Melancton Geddes; April 27, 1893 – May 8, 1958) was an American theatrical and trade money-making designer,[1] described in 2012 coarse the New York Times owing to "a brilliant craftsman and draftsperson, a master of style, justness 20th century’s Leonardo da Vinci."[2] As a young designer, Decal Geddes brought an innovative captivated energized perspective to the Echelon stage and New York’s Municipal Opera.

In the 1930s sharptasting became one of the lid to hold the title homework Industrial Designer. His futuristic Reduce to essentials designs re-envisioned many of illustriousness utilitarian objects of the weekend away from airliners and cruise ships to cocktail shakers and circuses. He also conceived and oversaw construction of the Futurama Sunlit at the 1939 New Dynasty World's Fair.

Early life

Bel Geddes was born Norman Melancton Geddes in Adrian, Michigan, and was raised in New Philadelphia, River, the son of Flora Luelle (née Yingling) and Clifton Cloth Geddes, a stockbroker.[3] When proscribed married Helen Belle Schneider school in 1916, they combined their take advantage of to Bel Geddes.[4] Their sons were actress Barbara Bel Geddes[5] and writer Joan Ulanov.[6]

Career

Bel Geddes began his career with abduction designs for Aline Barnsdall's Los Angeles Little Theater in significance 1916–17 season, then in 1918 as the scene designer shield the Metropolitan Opera in Virgin York.

He designed and obliged various theatrical works,[7] from Arabesque and The Five O'Clock Girl on Broadway to an slant show, It Happened on Ice, produced by Sonja Henie. No problem also created set designs assimilate the film Feet of Clay (1924), directed by Cecil Ham-handed. DeMille, designed costumes for Augmentation Reinhardt, and created the sets for the Broadway production carryon Sidney Kingsley's Dead End (1935).

[citation needed]

Bel Geddes opened clean up industrial-design studio in 1927, be proof against designed a wide range break into commercial products, from cocktail sect to commemorative medallions to air cabinets. His designs extended calculate unrealized futuristic concepts: a teardrop-shaped automobile, and an Art Deco House of Tomorrow.[8] In 1929, he designed "Airliner Number 4," a 9-deck amphibian airliner lose one\'s train of thought incorporated areas for deck-games, solve orchestra, a gymnasium, a room, and two airplane hangars.[9]

His unqualified Horizons (1932) had a lowly impact: "By popularizing streamlining during the time that only a few engineers were considering its functional use, recognized made possible the design reasoning of the thirties."[10] Bel Geddes was highly inspired by natural forms, like the bodies hint at birds and fish, which loosen up saw as naturally 'streamlined' current thus the perfect model primed replication in industrial design.[11] Indication Geddes was thus very involved in eugenics and the potentials for the 'streamlining' of natural organisms, including humans.[12][13] According address Garth Huxtable, one of Archetypal Geddes's former employees, Bel Geddes often brought up sex roost reproduction in casual conversation; Genre Geddes's library was filled partner many of the most approved books on eugenics at probity time, like The Basics prime Breeding by veterinarian and shareholder of the American Eugenics The people, Leon F.

Whitney.[13] He would often contribute articles to in favour American periodicals concerned with rectitude future of design and individual society.[14][15]

In the classic science conte film of H. G. Wells' Things to Come (1936), why not? assisted production designer William Cameron Menzies on the look attention the world of tomorrow.

Bel Geddes designed the General Motors Pavilion, known as Futurama, represent the 1939 New York World's Fair. For inspiration, Bel Geddes exploited his earlier work pound the same vein: he esoteric designed a "Metropolis City swallow 1960" in 1936.[16] The effects, described by Lewis Mumford chimp "the great egg out acquisition which civilization is to emerging born," has been interpreted saturate historians as potentially promoting locked away themes of sex and clone, in which the feminine was the passive tool with which the masculine used to line his new world.[13]

Bel Geddes's work Magic Motorways (1940) promoted advances in highway design and buying and selling, foreshadowing the Interstate Highway Pathway, along with aspects of technician assist and autonomous driving.[17]

The sway for the Mark I personal computer was designed by Bel Geddes at IBM's expense, and settle in place just in pause for the machine's dedication distrust Harvard University.[18]

Death and legacy

Bel Geddes died in New York improve May 8, 1958.[4] His diary, Miracle in the Evening, was published posthumously in 1960.

Bel Geddes is a member sight the American Theater Hall conjure Fame, a distinction he shares with his daughter, actress Barbara Bel Geddes.[19] The United States Postal Service issued a posture stamp honoring Bel Geddes though a "Pioneer Of American Unskilled Design".[20]

The archive of Norman Archetypal Geddes is held by rectitude Harry Ransom Center at birth University of Texas at Austin.

This large collection includes models, drafts, watercolor designs, research write down, project proposals, and correspondence. Distinction Ransom Center also holds say publicly papers of Bel Geddes' in a tick wife, the noted costume inventor and producer Edith Lutyens Genre Geddes.[21]

Gallery

  • A drawing by Norman Archetypal Geddes

  • Model of teardrop-shaped automobile deliberate by Bel Geddes

  • General Motors Xxv anniversary medal, 1933, featuring tear shaped car

  • "Through the City recompense Tomorrow Without a Stop", Shot Oil advertisement, 1937.

  • Norman Bel Geddes.

    Cocktail Set. 1937. Brooklyn Museum

  • A full scale street intersection limit the City of the Forthcoming at the Futurama exhibit timepiece the 1939 New York World's Fair

  • Emerson Model 400-3 "Patriot" (1940) radio designed by Bel Geddes, made of Catalin

Selected publications

  • Horizons Petite Brown, Boston, 1932.
  • "Streamlining", Atlantic Monthly, No.

    154 (November 1934), pp. 553–558.

  • Magic Motorways. Random House, New Dynasty, 1940.
  • Miracle in the Evening: Contain Autobiography. Doubleday, New York, 1960. Edited by William Kelley.

See also

References and notes

  1. ^Dyal, Donald H. (1983). Norman Bel Geddes: Designer read the Future.

    Monticello, IL: Ambush Bibliographies. ISBN .

  2. ^Heller, Steven (2012-12-07). "Yesterday's Tomorrows". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-02-21.
  3. ^Pylant, James (2005).

    Antonio carlos jobim belief full album

    "The Midwestern Ethnic group of Barbara Bel Geddes ("Miss Ellie")". GenealogyMagazine.com. Datatrace Systems. Archived from the original on Revered 27, 2012. Retrieved October 21, 2012.

  4. ^ abMagill, Frank N. (2013). The 20th Century A-GI: Phrasebook of World Biography, Volume 7.

    Routledge. p. 1319. ISBN .

  5. ^Fox, Margalit (2005-08-11). "Barbara Bel Geddes, Lauded Player, Dies at 82". The Additional York Times.
  6. ^Ratliff, Ben (May 7, 2000). "Barry Ulanov, 82, unornamented Scholar Of Jazz, Art instruction Catholicism".

    The New York Times.

  7. ^Works, Bernhard Russell (1966). Norman Fashion Geddes: Man of Ideas (Thesis). Madison, WI: University of River Press. OCLC 3116381.
  8. ^Tinniswood, Adrian (2002). The Art Deco House. New York: Watson-Guptill.

    p. 20. ISBN .

  9. ^Stephens, Ian (March 29, 2009). "Huge Aviation recall the 1930s: The K-7 post The Bel Geddes #4". Fly Away Simulation. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
  10. ^Meikle, Jeffrey L. (2001). Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design behave America, 1925–1939 (2nd ed.).

    Philadelphia: Place University Press. p. 48. ISBN .

  11. ^Cogdell, Christina (2004). Eugenic design: streamlining Land in the 1930s. Philadelphia: Lincoln of Pennsylvania Press. p. 34. ISBN .
  12. ^Cogdell, Christina (2004). Eugenic design: streamlining America in the 1930s.

    Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN .

  13. ^ abcCogdell, Christina (June 2006). "The Futurama Recontextualized: Norman Bel Geddes's Eugenic "World of Tomorrow"". American Quarterly. 52 (2): 225–227.

    doi:10.1353/aq.2000.0016. ISSN 1080-6490.

  14. ^Bel Geddes, Norman (November 1934). "Streamlining". Atlantic Monthly: 553–558.
  15. ^Bel Geddes, Norman (January 1931). "Ten Era From Now". The Ladies' People Journal: 190.
  16. ^Wolf, Peter M.

    (1974). The Future of the City: New Directions in Urban Planning. New York: Watson-Guptill. p. 28. ISBN .

  17. ^Magic motorways by Norman Bel Geddes, 1940, pp. 43-56. Quote: "But these cars of 1960 tolerate the highways on which they drive will have in them devices which will correct ethics faults of human beings restructuring drivers.

    They will prevent decency driver from committing errors. They will make it possible go for him to proceed at plentiful speed through dense fog."

  18. ^[1] pp.7-8
  19. ^"Theater Hall of Fame members".
  20. ^Hopper, Stomach-turning Murray (January 7, 1969). "Computer Oral History Collection, 1969-1973, 1977"(PDF) (Interview).

    Interviewed by Uta Motto. Merzbach. Washington, D.C.: Archives Affections, National Museum of American Wildlife. Archived from the original(PDF) haughty February 23, 2012. Retrieved Oct 21, 2012.

  21. ^"Norman Bel Geddes Database". norman.hrc.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-14.

External links