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McGee loves the German Audiorama speakers. With outer space at the forefront of the cultural and scientific imagination, spheres were a major design motif. Technology and advances in science were part of this. These German-designed speakers resemble a lunar or planetary shape, but they are also examples of Space Age technological innovation. I’ve had people comment that if Apple decided to design a trendy record player, they would be hard pressed to come up with a better looking design, and this Philips was introduced in 1968–52 years ago!” This 1968 Philips record player, McGee says, “exemplifies and sums up the Pop Futurism of the period so well. Everything was stamped with the moment, and it was all about forward motion.” While a good bit of that, McGee surmises, was to do with consumerist drive, there was also a drive for innovation and a real orientation toward the future, evidenced by the period’s many prescient designs. You couldn’t go to school wearing the same clothes you did the last year. Having grown up in the era, McGee recalls “a tremendous rapidity of change. It’s like in ‘The Jetsons’ where you could push a button and your dinner’s ready.” Constant Innovation Rather than having two parallel slots for your toast, “It’s one elongated design, and it’s a push button rather than a lever so that you don’t have to exert that extra effort to push down a lever. In the popular imagination of the time, McGee, who grew up in this era, notes that you couldn’t talk about the era without mentioning “The Jetsons.” You can see its stamp on items like this streamlined Sunbeam toaster. Sunbeam Thinline Touch and Toast Toaster exemplifies a “Jetsonian” imagination. The design clearly resonated with the imagination of the period where “we expected lunar colonies within our lifetimes,” McGee recalls. “It’s an antique in the film among these collections from imagined cultures from other planets,” McGee notes. The chair is sculptural and exemplifies the trend away from wood to synthetic material such as plastic. Speaking of scifi props, the President Lounge Chair figured in Captain Kirk’s apartment in an original Star Trek film. President Lounge Chair has a sculptural, futuristic vibe so much so that it makes an appearance in Star Trek. Jacobsen’s cutlery caught the eye of the prop team for the 1968 scifi film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and astronauts in the film use the futuristic flatware. Scifi DesignĪt the same time in Copenhagen, Arne Jacobsen was comprehensively designing the SAS Hotel, from the Swan and Egg Chairs to the cutlery. Arne Jacobsen’s cutlery looked so “strange and futuristic” that it was used in the 1968 futuristic scifi film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The chair still shows up in B-list science fiction films,” McGee notes.
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“Saarinen would have made it entirely of fiberglass if he could have at the time.
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Saarinen’s Tulip chair, he notes, was designed in 1957–right at the beginning of the Space Age–and is made predominately of fiberglass. The telltale signs include a shift away from wood to materials such as plastic and chrome. “While classic Mid Century Modern design continues to look contemporary, Space Age design continues to look futuristic,” McGee explains. While this is part of the Mid Century Modern era, McGee notes that this is later in the period. McGee defines the Space Age era as beginning in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik and ending in 1972 with the end of the Apollo missions. Now he’s a collector, dealer, and his collections have formed exhibitions. This all had an influence on design, and Martin McGee has been working to unearth what the era still has to offer. Space Age design tells the story of an era characterized by a drive to innovate, to (quite literally) shoot for the stars, when the lines between science and science fiction began to blur. The Corona Chair’s elliptical back is reminiscent of the astronomical Corona, and the chair’s chrome base places it within the Space Age’s aesthetic shift away from wood.