This house of the future was illustrated by Fred McNabb and comes from the amazing site, Plan59. It features personal helicopters, giant-sized fruit, glass walls, dust-free floors, ultrasonic laundry and, of course, picturephone.
See also:
Personal Helicopter (1943)
Commuter Helicopter (1947)
The Future of Glass (1958)
Closer Than We Think! Robot Housemaid (1959)
1999 A.D. (1967)
Frigidaire Kitchen of the Future (1957)
Monsanto House of the Future Brochure (1961)
Monsanto House of the Future (1957-1967)
Monsanto House of the Future (1957)
Call a Serviceman (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
The Electronic Brain Made Beef Stew (1959)
Something must be wrong with its radar eye! (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
But do they have lint free bellybuttons? I think not, sir.
ReplyDeleteWait'll mom turns around and sees daughter sitting half-naked on the kitchen counter...
ReplyDeleteThe guy on the phone will certainly get an eyeful if she moves that dress...
ReplyDeleteJust what is giant about that fruit? And what's so futuristic about electric heat?
What's with futurism and giant fruit and veg in general? Other than a reduced surface area-to-volume ratio for things you peel, there's no gain and there's usually a loss of taste and/or texture. I'd rather have a couple small apples that some grapefruit-sized honker you can't even sink your teeth into because it's so big.
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ReplyDeleteWhat always gets me is the ubiquitous personal helicopter. The average American can't be trusted to drive (let alone keep up with preventive maintenance on) a car, let alone a machine as complicated to operate and maintain has a helicopter.
ReplyDeleteAt least this illustration got one thing right: the annoying channel/network graphics that stay on the screen while the show is on.
Spoilsport alert: if you look closely the girl is wearing tan capris.
But, is anybody else creeped out by no-pants bathrobe grandpa hanging out with the kids?
Hah, the trivial minded see trivial things.
ReplyDeleteNot only am I old enough to have been there, I worked there!
After dropping out of college, I spent the months from May to August 1964 at the World's Fair running a motorized rickshaw to transport very wealthy people (it cost $15/hour-that's 1964 dollars when a gallon of gas was about 25 cents) around the fair. It was a very good paying job, $8/hour.
Oh, and when I had evenings off I worked as a folksinger in several coffee houses in Greenwich Village. With the Fair in progress, we made very good money from the tourists. Of course, we made it by passing a basket around the audience after each set.
All in all, it made for a very lucrative and fun year. Of course, not a penny was saved living a double life.
I hope you all see the clip and try to understand what a time it was. JFK had been killed less than a year before. And, the Fair, among other things, helped to heal some of the pain.
The war in Viet Nam was a minor story on the back pages of the New York Times.
Rick York - from the paleopast to the paleofuture
I am loving the ultra-sonic laundry. This site is officially one of my faves. I just linked to your 'Magic Highway U.S.A.' post from while back in one of my new posts.
ReplyDeleteRick: Can we assume you were talking about the next post, "A Ballad from the Fair (1964)"?
ReplyDeleteWow, maybe not the house of the future but boy did they understand web design. Looks like a sweet homepage!
ReplyDeleteWe are getting closer to that!
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the new Robot that Honda just launched?
Take a look: http://homohominilupus.wordpress.com/2008/02/11/bienvenidos-al-siglo-xxi/
Would you look at that! The TV channels go all the way up to 33! Crazy! What could you possibly watch on 33 channels?
ReplyDeleteTalking about the House of the future, there were some cartoons directed by Tex Avery with the names:
ReplyDeleteThe house of the future
The car of the future
The TV of the future
The farm of the future
They show how all those things will be in some decades in a funny way. You can see them in you tube