To know what the future will be like you just have to look at what big and small technology companies present at world fairs such as CES (Consumer Electronics Show), MWC (Mobile World Congress) or Web Summit, among others. But a few decades ago, to amaze locals and strangers about the news that we would see in the coming years there were world fairs. One of them, the New York World's Fair in 1939, was a before and after thanks to one of its star exhibitions, with the suggestive name of Futurama . Exactly, like that great animated series you're probably thinking of.
Precisely, the Futurama series by Matt Groening received its name thanks to the Futurama exhibition of the same name. Designed by Norman Bel Geddes , Futurama was the star exhibition of the 1939 New York World's Fair. Its purpose was to show its visitors what the future of 1959/1960 was going to be like.
To what extent was your predictions correct ? What were your mistakes? To what extent did it influence our way of seeing the world and how did it inspire the designers and architects who would come throughout the 20th century ? Welcome to Futurama, “The world of tomorrow.”
Traveling to the future without leaving your city
Do you remember when was the last World Expo? And when will the next one be? You most likely don't know. It's not your fault. What today is known as “Expo” to dry, or “World Expo” has lost the importance it had at the time. The great technology fairs are today the main window of the future and world exhibitions have had to reinvent themselves. One only has to compare the commotion caused in 1992 by the Seville Expo and how the 2008 Zaragoza Expo went practically unnoticed. In visitors, almost 42 million compared to 5.6 million.
World exhibitions emerge in the middle of the 19th century with industrialization. The English engineers surprised the whole world with their great machines that were going to revolutionize the way of creating things. From the first World Expo of 1851 in London, world exhibitions served to showcase inventions, devices and technologies that we could only dream of. We are talking about a time when the news took days or weeks to arrive . And not everywhere. But your invention being at a World Expo meant reaching the whole world and finding investors. Come on, exactly what happens today with small startups that want to make themselves known at technology fairs in search of public and money .
And the World Exposition in New York was one of those that has most penetrated popular culture along with others such as the International Exposition of 1881. At the Expo of 1881 there was talk for the first time about taming electricity . And at the 1939 Expo, a future was glimpsed in which technology was going to make things easier for us.
The future that came with Futurama
On April 30, 1939, the New York World's Fair was inaugurated. A hot Sunday. On its first day, some 206,000 visitors attended. When the Exhibition closed its doors on October 27, 1940, it had received a total of 44 million visits . His motto was intended, “The World of Tomorrow”, The World of Tomorrow. And among the facilities in the more than 33 participating countries, one of those that attracted the most attention was Futurama.
Futurama had everything to succeed. Its sponsor was General Motors Corporation , one of the emblems of the United States at that time and the second largest automobile manufacturer. Second only to Ford Motors. A great sponsor and a person in charge of height, the industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes . A visionary who “built” a city in 1960 and, looking at the 1939 photographs, practically nailed it.
Much of the Futurama installation could be seen comfortably seated. Source: General Motors Big skyscrapers, endless highways, bulk cars … All in a big way. And, curiously, that idea of unstoppable and vertiginous growth foreseen in 1939 was fulfilled if we see images of what the great American cities of today and of that distant 1960 were and are like. He even got the design right of buildings and other constructions, with the omnipresence of glass in large windows and of chrome and other metals in vehicles, buildings and infrastructures.
The Futurama facility occupied some 3,251 square meters and was considered one of the largest models built to date. To get an idea of its size, it consisted of more than 500,000 buildings , a million trees and 50,000 moving vehicles. And to enjoy Futurama, visitors didn't need to move. You just had to sit in a comfortable seat that moved slowly so that you could see all the dioramas that made up Futurama. And to enjoy the models on a different scale , the installation played with windows of different graduations.
Photograph of Perisphere full of visitors. Author, Leo Husick. On the right, cover of the official guide of the Fair with Perisphere and Trylon. Source: The Henry Ford If Futurama was spectacular on the inside, it was also spectacular on the outside. The pavilion that housed it was a gigantic white balloon . It was entered by stairs and exited by a ramp. The name of this curious building with a diameter of 55 meters was Perisphere and it had been designed by the architects Wallace Harrison and J. Andre Fouilhoux . They had also designed Trylon, a spire-shaped structure that doubled as a ladder. Unfortunately, nowadays you cannot visit these structures because their materials were used to create weapons for the Second World War. Hence, there are only black and white photographs or illustrations of the time.
A future, in a big way, and automated
Spectacular on the outside and spectacular on the inside. But, to what extent were Futurama and the New York World's Fair in portraying the future 1960 or our present present? Beyond the large avenues full of cars and the impressive skyscrapers even by today's standards, in Futurama very interesting proposals are made to deal with such gigantic structures .
To begin with, Norman Bel Geddes introduces something that is very normal for us: motorways. In 1939 the cities were still connected by common roads. The introduction of highways or highways would change in coming years how cities have been expanding and how they have been connected to each other creating networks across the map, reducing the distances thanks to the speeds that could be reached on these new roads, safer and wider than conventional roads.
The future that could be seen in Futurama was full of good intentions. Semi-automatic vehicles controlled remotely, electrical installations to supply the needs of the moment, automated farms , flying vehicles for private use … A whole amalgam of wishes that had to be made reality in 1960 and that, in part, today we see as something normal. And other news that have not reached our days as it should. And it is that in the city of Futurama, people could circulate freely through the streets and over the bridges that crossed the lanes without being interrupted or threatened by the omnipresence of automobiles.
The Legacy of Futurama
As we have seen, much of the New York World's Fair and Futurama remains in the world we live in. Of course, without the innocence, good intentions and optimism that reigned in that distant 1939. Today, cities continue to grow but face the vindication of space by the ordinary citizen in front of a car that has been downtown for too long.
After the closing of the Fair in 1940, practically all the facilities were dismantled due to the war needs to come. In memory, photographs of the time collected in several books. Some of them difficult to find, except in some libraries, such as the official guide, “Official Guide Book 1939 New York Worlds Fair”.
Another example of Futurama's impact on society at the time was the Disneyland Tomorrowland attraction. Inaugurated in the summer of 1955, it had the support and participation of companies such as Monsanto or American Motors . Interestingly, this attraction predicted a future set in 1986.
Over the years, this attraction has been updated. The same happened with Futurama, which was remembered at the New York World's Fair in 1964 . The General Motors pavilion included an attraction called Futurama or The New Futurama. But, of course, it was not as relevant as its 1939 equivalent.
