Norman Bel Geddes

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(b Adrian, MI, 27 April 1893; d New York, 9 May 1958). American designer and writer. He studied at the Cleveland School of Art, OH, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and by 1914 he had established a reputation as an illustrator, making portraits of operatic luminaries for the New York Times. After producing plays in Los Angeles (1917), he joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1918) and became a leading stage designer; he invented the high wattage spotlight and developed modern theatrical productions that blended the play, its lighting, its performers, and their costumes into a cohesive whole. He gained international attention for his stage set (1921; unexecuted) for Dante's Divine Comedy, which revolutionized theatrical and operatic productions; it was conceived as a single, massive set with lighting coming first from below, signifying Hades, then, as the play progressed, from high above, signifying Paradise. This led Max Reinhardt, the distinguished German producer, to commission him to design the settings for a production of The Miracle in New York (1923), and for this Bel Geddes transformed the entire interior of the Century Theater into the nave of a Gothic cathedral, with pews replacing seats to make the audience part of the cast.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

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(1893-1958)

Bel Geddes was perhaps the most flamboyant publicist for the new profession of industrial design that emerged in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s. His visions of the future were widely publicized in popular magazines, his own book Horizons (1932), and high-profile events such as the 1939 New York World's Fair. Although many of his designs remained as paper visions he played an important role in the germination of American industrial design: Henry Dreyfuss was apprenticed to him in 1923-4, Eero Saarinen worked with him in 1934, and Eliot Noyes was Design Director in his practice in 1946. Geddes was also considered by the American business magazine Fortune in its seminal 1934 article ‘Both Fish and Fowl’ to represent the responsible arm of the industrial design profession.

After studying briefly at the Art Institute in Chicago, Bel Geddes became a practising portrait painter by 1913 before moving into advertising design. By 1918 he had become involved in theatre design, including sets for the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1918) and sets for W. D. Griffiths and Cecil B. De Mille in Hollywood (1925), but entered the burgeoning profession of industrial design in 1927. Amongst the influences on him was Le Corbusier's Towards a New Architecture, which he bought in English translation in 1927. He went on to design in a variety of media and was portrayed in 1934 by Fortune as maintaining a balanced stance in the often vilified new industrial design profession. By this time Bel Geddes's design practice had more than 30 staff involved in various aspects of design, from drafting and modelling through to technical matters, with outside specialists being brought in as necessary. Bel Geddes's commissions included office interiors for the J. Walter Thomson advertising agency (1929), metal bedroom furniture for Simmons (1929), window displays for the Franklin Simon department store in New York (1927-9), Oriole gas stoves for the Standard Gas Equipment Company (1932), and radios for Philco (1931). Bel Geddes did much to promote the idea of streamlining whether in prototype cars for the Graham Paige Company (1928-34), work on the Chrysler Airflow advertising campaign of 1934, dramatic plans for airliners, ocean liners, railway trains, motor coaches, and even architecture, industrial machinery, and domestic appliances. Many of his visions concerning the radical transformation of the everyday environment that the industrial designer could bring about in the later 20th century were contained in his Horizons. This blend of social utopianism, design rationale, and the contemporary fascination for science fiction and technocracy was extensively reviewed in the national press and clearly impacted on contemporary design and engineering thinking. A number of his futuristic designs were realized, at least in miniature form, in what may be regarded as his visionary tour de force, the Futurama for the General Motors Pavilion at the New York World's Fair of 1939. Visited by more than 5 million this was one of the most popular exhibits at NYWF and portrayed a future metropolis of 1960, complete with streamlined transportation systems and segregation of pedestrian and motorized traffic. This vision was also seen and discussed in his book Magic Motorways (1940). In the post-Second World War period Geddes's practice suffered a series of setbacks, including a rift with its leading figures in 1943 and, by the early 1950s, a serious decline in fortunes.

(1893–1958)

American designer, he became identified with the style known as ‘streamlining’, based on aerodynamics. He designed the General Motors Pavilion at the New York World's Fair (1939), and published Magic Motorways (1940). He was responsible for many interiors, designed the Toledo Scale Company Building, Ohio (1929), and produced a scheme of prefabricated housing systems for the Housing Corporation of America (1940).

Bibliography

• N. Geddes (1932, 1940, 1940a)
• W. Kelley (ed.) (1960)
• Welter (2002)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Bel Geddes, Norman (gĕd'ēz), 1893-1958, American designer, b. Adrian, Mich. as Norman Melancton Geddes. He began his career in 1918 as scene designer for the Metropolitan Opera. He became known for imaginative designs both for the New York stage and for numerous industrial products. Geddes also designed several theaters and other buildings in the United States and abroad.

Bibliography

See his posthumous Miracle in the Evening (1960).

His daughter, Barbara Bel Geddes, 1922-2005, b. New York City, an actress, created the role of Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) and the title role in Jean Kerr's Mary, Mary (1961). Her film work included Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950) and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). She also had a leading role in the 1970s and 80s in the television series Dallas.

(gĕd'ēz) , Norman Bel 1893-1958.

American architect and theatrical and industrial designer who popularized the concept of streamlining.

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