SPACE AGE HOUSE TV

Like a space shuttle, DeVry could tranport “men who want to get somewhere and be somebody” to exciting new worlds. Chemosphere: April 1961 Pop Sci ArchivesĭeVry Advertisement: February 1964 Pop Sci ArchivesĭeVry advertisements have come a long way, although to be honest, we wouldn’t object if they reincorporated space imagery into their campaigns.

We can only wonder if designers Griswold, Heckel and Keiser Associates would be disappointed that today’s children are too preoccupied with video games to tinker with radar and aircraft. The design called for an aircraft work area and shops, television and radar labs, a football stadium with a foldable plastic roof, and an observation tower, among other traditional facilities. It was “Boy-Topia,” an extravagant playground for future generations who would play with radar, solar energy, atomic batteries, and spacecraft engines. “Should a lifeline break, a man might live a minute or two–as helpless as if he were out in space or under water without an oxygen supply.” Space Age “Boy-Topia”: October 1959 Pop Sci ArchivesĮvidently, the future looks a lot like a 1950s suburban utopia, and Space Age architecture, also called “Googie style,” is exemplified in this design commissioned by the Boys’ Club of America. Clearly, working in the metal mill was a dangerous venture. In fact, the argon would be so thick that if a light bulb inside the room were to break, the filament would keep glowing. In the new $3 million “In-Fab” plant, an argon gas atmosphere would protect refractory metals like molybdenum from being damaged by oxygen during the fabrication process. While the suits of these factory workers don’t conform to the populuxe aesthetic so integral to the Space Age, their suits bear a tremendous resemblance to a late 1950s space suit design in fact, we acknowledged their similarity in the article’s title, which proclaimed that workers would wear space suits in a new gas-filled factor (which might as well have been a hostile planet). Space Suits for Factory Workers: May 1959 Pop Sci Archives The trendiness of the aesthetic both stimulated and exploited our enthusiasm for the future, culminating into a quick turnover for consumer products and a greater movement toward materialism.

SPACE AGE HOUSE TV

Comic books, TV programs, and furniture borrowed components from science fiction, while businesses lured customers by incorporating futuristic elements in their buildings. While historians generally date the Space Age back to Sputnik’s launch in 1957, our captivation with space travel began much earlier. In retrospect, those designs look a little gimmicky, but they nonetheless reflect a collective 1950s confidence about America’s dazzling future as a leader in space flight and economic prosperity.

Logos incorporated starbursts and satellite shapes, while parallelograms, wings, and free-form boomerangs became the motel sign shapes du jour. Upswept roofs and parabolas cropped up on buildings. Manufacturers built vehicles with ornamental tailfins. During the 1950s, architecture, cars, and gadget design took on a curiously spaceflight-inspired aesthetic.

Space age house