The Harry Ransom Center presents The tenth biennial Flair Symposium NOVEMBER 1 3, 2012
We are pleased to welcome you to the Ransom Center s tenth biennial Fleur Cowles Flair Symposium. The Flair Symposium, which is generously supported by an endowment established by Fleur Cowles, honors the innovative approach to contemporary topics set forth by Cowles in her celebrated Flair magazine. Since its inauguration in 1994, the symposium has addressed a variety of subjects of cultural concern, from archives and publishing to photography and the British theater. Inspired by the Center s current exhibition on the visionary designer, futurist, and urban planner Norman Bel Geddes (1893 1958), this year s symposium will explore our ever-evolving concept of the future. Over the next few days, historians, architects, industrial designers, and visionaries in the fields of science fiction, film, theater, and future studies will come together to discuss how the future has been imagined across their respective disciplines. The resulting discussions will, we hope, deepen our understanding of how visions of the future have evolved across generations and how they continue to be shaped today. I look forward to these discussions and thank all of our participants for joining us here at the Ransom Center. Sincerely, Thomas F. Staley Director
VISIONS OF THE FUTURE November 1 3, 2012 Harry Ransom Center The University of Texas at Austin Inspired by the exhibition I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America September 11, 2012 January 6, 2013 The Flair Symposium, held biennially at the Ransom Center, honors the ideals set forth by Fleur Cowles and her landmark Flair magazine. Cover: General Motors, Futurama Spectators, ca. 1939. General Motors LLC. Used with permission, GM Media Archives.
Schedule of Events All events will take place at the Ransom Center unless otherwise noted. Thursday, November 1 5:30 p.m. Registration and opening reception 7 p.m. Doors open for Keynote Address Jessen Auditorium, Homer Rainey Hall Seats will be reserved for symposium registrants; unclaimed seats will be released to the general public at 7:25 p.m. 7:30 p.m. Introduction Thomas F. Staley, Director, Harry Ransom Center Keynote Address Bruce Sterling, Author, Futurist, and Design Visionary Friday, November 2 9 a.m. Registration with coffee and light breakfast 10 a.m. Welcome Danielle Brune Sigler, Assistant Director and Curator for Academic Programs, Harry Ransom Center 10:15 a.m. Imagining the Future Moderator: Glenn Adamson, Head of Research, Victoria and Albert Museum Peter C. Bishop, Associate Professor of Strategic Foresight and Director of the graduate program in Future Studies, University of Houston John Crowley, Novelist and Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, Yale University Jen Gunnels, Drama Critic/ Editorial Staff, New York Review of Science Fiction Noon Break 2 p.m. Designing the Future Moderator: Wendy Kaplan, Department Head and Curator, Decorative Arts and Design, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Alan Hess, Architect and Architecture Critic, San Jose Mercury News Adnan Morshed, Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Planning, The Catholic University of America Kristina Wilson, Associate Professor of Art History, Clark University
3:45 p.m. Break with coffee and snack 4 p.m. Marketing the Future Moderator: Donald Albrecht, Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of the City of New York, and Curator of I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Historian, College of Engineering, University of Delaware and Journal of Design History Alexandra Lange, Architecture and Design Critic Thomas Mellins, Author and Curator Saturday, NOVEMBER 3 9 a.m. Coffee and light breakfast 10 a.m. Motorways in the Twentieth Century and Today Moderator: Phil Patton, Author and Curator Dan Marriott, Historic and Scenic Road Preservation Planner, Paul Daniel Marriott + Associates Tom Vanderbilt, Writer Noon Break 2 p.m. Today s Visions for Tomorrow Moderator: Lloyd Walker, President, Precurve, LLC and Adjunct Faculty Member with The Art Center College of Design s Graduate Industrial Design Program and NewNorth Center for Design in Business Craig Hodgetts, Architect, Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture Greg Lynn, Architect, Greg Lynn FORM Allan W. Shearer, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin Bruce Sterling, Author, Futurist, and Design Visionary 4 p.m. Closing reception
SPEAKERS Glenn Adamson is head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and tutor at the Royal College of Art. Adamson is co-editor of the triannual Journal of Modern Craft, and author of Thinking Through Craft (Berg Publishers/V&A Publications, 2007), The Craft Reader (Berg, 2010), and The Invention of Craft (Berg, forthcoming). His other publications include the co-edited Global Design History (Routledge, 2011) and Surface Tensions (Manchester University Press, forthcoming). He was, with Jane Pavitt, co-curator for the exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970 1990, which was on view at the V&A from September 2011 to January 2012. Donald Albrecht has curated exhibitions ranging from overviews of cultural trends including World War II and the American Dream and Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture and Design (National Building Museum) and Paris/NewYork: Design Fashion Culture, 1925 1940 (Museum of the City of New York) to profiles of individual design firms and artists including The Work of Charles and Ray Eames (Library of Congress and Vitra Design Museum) and Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future (Finnish Cultural Institute, the Museum of Finnish Architecture, and the National Building Museum). For most exhibitions, he also develops and edits the catalogs, which have garnered numerous awards including the Society of Architectural Historians Best Exhibition Catalogue. He has contributed essays to a number of books including The Glass House: Pairings, California Design: The Legacy of West Coast Craft and Style, and monographs on Andree Putman, Michael Gabellini, and 1100 Architect and has written extensively about the relationship between architecture and film, starting with his seminal book, Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture in the Movies. He teaches in the Masters Program in the Decorative Arts at the Cooper-Hewitt and is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Peter C. Bishop is an Associate Professor of Strategic Foresight and Director of the graduate program in Future Studies at the University of Houston. Bishop specializes in techniques for long-term forecasting and planning. He has published a book on the subject, Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight, with co-editor Andy Hines, and he delivers keynote addresses and conducts seminars on the future for business, government, and not-for-profit organizations. He also facilitates groups in developing scenarios, visions, and strategic plans for the future. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Michigan State University in 1974, and his B.A. in Philosophy from St. Louis University, where he also studied mathematics and physics. Regina Lee Blaszczyk is a historian in the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware and an associate editor at the Journal of Design History. Her scholarship
focuses on the history of design and innovation for the consumer culture. She is the author or editor of seven books, including Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning; Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers; American Consumer Society, 1865 2005: From Hearth to HDTV; and The Color Revolution. John Crowley is the author of 11 novels, including Little, Big and the Aegypt Cycle, as well as volumes of short fiction and criticism. A recipient of the Award for Literature of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a three-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, Crowley has also written a series of awardwinning documentaries, including one about the 1939 World s Fair, The World of Tomorrow. He teaches creative writing at Yale University. His archive resides at the Ransom Center. Jen Gunnels earned her Ph.D. in Theatre History and Criticism at The University of Texas at Austin and currently serves as drama critic and editorial staff member for the Hugo-nominated New York Review of Science Fiction. Her reviews can also be found in Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction and Science Fiction Studies. She has contributed essays to Practicing Science Fiction (2010) and the forthcoming Popular Entertainment in Theatre, Film & Television (Cognella). Gunnels will also guest-edit an upcoming special performance issue of the Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts as well as a special fandom and performance issue of the online journal Transformative Works and Cultures. Alan Hess is an architect, historian, and architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News. He has published 18 books focusing on the architecture and planning of twentieth-century suburban metropolises. They include The Architecture of John Lautner, Googie: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture, Oscar Niemeyer Houses, The Ranch House, Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses, Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture, and Julius Shulman: Palm Springs. He is currently researching Irvine, California, the largest master-planned community of the 1960s. Craig Hodgetts, Founding Principal and Creative Director of Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture, is known for employing an imaginative weave of high technology and storytelling to invigorate his designs, producing an architecture that embraces contemporary ideology, information culture, and evolving lifestyles. With a broad-ranging background in automotive design, theater, and architecture, Hodgetts brings dramatic concepts to life by means of an uncompromising application of construction methodology. Hodgetts leads the design of each of the firm s projects. Hodgetts is presently a Professor at the University of California, Los
SPEAKERS continued Angeles Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design, and previously was a Founding Dean of the School of Design at the California Institute of the Arts. With his partner Hsinming Fung, he has twice held the Eero Saarinen Professorship at Yale University, and served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Rice University, and the University of Arizona. Known for his enthusiasm for interdisciplinary studies, he has also been active in curriculum development at the Art Center College of Design, where he created a prototype classroom for advanced studies in the Environmental Design Department. Wendy Kaplan has been Department Head and Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art since 2001. Previously, she held curatorial positions at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University in Miami, Glasgow Museums in Scotland, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Specializing in late nineteenth- to mid twentieth-century design, she has organized major exhibitions and authored, co-authored, or edited many books on the subject, such as The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America: Design for the Modern World (2004), Leading The Simple Life : The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, 1880 1910 (1999), Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1996), Designing Modernity: The Arts of Reform and Persuasion, 1885 1945 (1995), The Arts and Crafts Movement (1991; French edition 1999), and The Art that is Life : The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, 1875 1920 (1987; reprint 1998). Most recently, she co-organized the exhibition California Design, 1930 1965: Living in a Modern Way and edited and contributed to the exhibition catalog. Alexandra Lange is a critic, journalist, and architectural historian based in Brooklyn, and her work has appeared in The Architect s Newspaper, Icon, Metropolis, New York Magazine, and The New York Times. Her book, Writing about Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in March 2012. She is co-author, with Jane Thompson, of Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes (Chronicle Books, 2010). She teaches in the Design Criticism program at the School of Visual Arts and the Urban Design and Architecture Studies program at New York University. Her dissertation, There s No Place Like Work, analyzed the design, architecture, and leadership of four American corporations in the 1950s and 1960s: CBS, Connecticut General, Deere & Co., and IBM. Greg Lynn was born in 1964. His office Greg Lynn FORM designs at a range of scales including buildings, furniture, objects, and recently transportation. He is an Ordentlicher University Professor of Architecture and currently holds Professorships at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the University of California, Los Angeles,
and Yale University. He graduated from Miami University of Ohio with Bachelor of Environmental Design and Bachelor of Philosophy degrees and from Princeton University with a Master of Architecture degree. He won a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, and was awarded a fellowship from United States Artists. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most innovative people in the world for the twenty-first century and Forbes magazine named him one of the ten most influential living architects. He is the author of seven books. Dan Marriott is Principal and founder of Paul Daniel Marriott + Associates, a historic and scenic road preservation planning office in Washington, D.C. Prior to establishing the firm, he was the Director of the Rural Heritage/Historic Roads Program at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He has worked on numerous historic and scenic road projects throughout the United States and abroad, including his current work on the Arroyo Seco Parkway corridor in California and the Hawaii Department of Transportation s sustainable landscape master plan. Marriott s publications include Saving Historic Roads: Design and Policy Guidelines (John Wiley, 1998), From Milestones to Mile-Markers: Understanding Historic Roads (National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2004), and articles in Landscape Architecture Magazine, Journal for America s Byways, and American Road. He has been quoted in The New York Times and has served as a commentator on programs for National Public Radio and Australia s Radio National. He holds a B.S. in Landscape Architecture from Pennsylvania State University, an M.R.P. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University, and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh where he is researching the origins of pleasure driving. Thomas Mellins is an exhibition curator and author. He curated House & Home, a long-term exhibition for the National Building Museum, Celebrating 100 Years for The New York Public Library (NYPL), and an exhibition on the history of the Lincoln Center for the NYPL s Library for the Performing Arts. Additionally, Mellins has curated exhibitions at the Yale School of Architecture, the Art Museum of the Americas, and the South Street Seaport Museum. Among the numerous exhibitions he has organized for the Museum of the City of New York are New York s Moynihan, Campaigning for President: New York and the American Election, and The American Style: Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis. Mellins is co-author, with Robert A.M. Stern and others, of three volumes in a book series on the architecture and urbanism of New York City: New York 1880, New York 1930, and New York 1960. In 1999 Mellins was designated a Centennial Historian of New York City by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
SPEAKERS continued Adnan Morshed received his Ph.D. from MIT s History, Theory, and Criticism section of Architecture. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and has served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Architectural Historians (2006 2009) and on the jury of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowship. He has received fellowships and grants from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Wolfsonian- Florida International University, the Graham Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and MIT. He has lectured widely and published on the theory and history of modern architecture and urbanism in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Journal of Architectural Education, Thresholds, Center (National Gallery of Art), Constructs (Yale School of Architecture), and Architectural Design. Morshed s book, The Architecture of Ascension: Airplanes, Skyscrapers, and the American Imagination of the Master Planner, 1919 1939, is forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press. A practicing architect, he has designed buildings in the United States, Canada, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. Phil Patton is an author and curator. His books include Open Road: A Celebration of the American Highway, Autodesign International, and Made in USA: The Secret Histories of the Things that Made America. He has worked on several exhibitions, serving as curatorial consultant for Different Roads: Automobiles for the Next Century (The Museum of Modern Art, 1999) and co-curator for Cars, Culture, and the City (Museum of the City of New York, 2010). He writes for The New York Times and teaches in the Design Criticism program at the School of Visual Arts. Allan W. Shearer, M.L.A., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. His research centers on how people envision the future. The work spans from conceptual and methodological concerns about how scenarios are crafted to operational practices through which these approaches about the future are made meaningful. His articles have appeared in Futures, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, and Landscape and Urban Planning. His co-authored books include Land Use Scenarios: Environmental Consequences of Development, Gaia s Revenge: Climate Change and Humanity s Loss, and Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes: The San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora. Danielle Brune Sigler is Assistant Director and Curator for Academic Programs at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. She curated the exhibition Banned, Burned, Seized, and Censored, and was co-curator of The King James Bible: Its History and Influence. She co-edited The New Black Gods (2009)
and contributed the essay Norman Bel Geddes and a Spiritual Philosophy of Art to Norman Bel Geddes Designs America (Abrams, 2012). Thomas F. Staley is Director of the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is also Professor of English and holds The Harry Huntt Ransom Chair in Liberal Arts. Staley has written or edited 15 books on James Joyce and modern literature. He is the founding editor of the James Joyce Quarterly and Joyce Studies Annual. He has written and spoken widely in the United States and Europe on literary subjects, libraries, the state of the humanities in contemporary culture, and the building of modern library collections. Bruce Sterling, author, journalist, editor, and critic, was born in 1954. Best known for his ten science fiction novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews, design criticism, opinion columns, and introductions for books by authors ranging from Ernst Jünger to Jules Verne. His archive resides at the Ransom Center. Tom Vanderbilt is a Brooklyn, New York-based writer whose work has appeared in Wired, The New York Times Magazine, the Wilson Quarterly, Smithsonian, the Financial Times, and many other publications. He is author of The New York Times bestselling book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published in more than a dozen languages worldwide. He is currently a visiting scholar at New York University s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management. He writes the Transport column for Slate and is contributing editor to Outside magazine, Print magazine, and Artforum. LLOYD WALKER is the President of Precurve, LLC, an innovation management firm for organizations seeking to define, develop, and execute new initiatives. Walker is an entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in early-stage technology startups and 25 years of experience in strategic planning and product development. He has been awarded six patents and dozens of design awards. Throughout his career, he has provided creative foresight, innovation management, and business leadership for emerging markets and technologies. He serves as an executive advisor and investor for businesses in Texas and California. As President of Human Code, an interactive developer sold to Sapient, he grew the firm into a leading national developer of electronic games, e-learning, and online solutions. His portfolio of current and past clients include NASA, Honda, Disney, The Lance Armstrong Foundation, Demand Media, and many other Fortune 500 companies. Walker is an adjunct faculty member with both The Art Center College of Design s Graduate Industrial Design program and the NewNorth Center for Design in Business in Holland, Michigan. He has an M.S. in Studies of the Future from the University of Houston and a B.S. in Industrial Design from The Art Center College of Design.
SPEAKERS continued KRISTINA WILSON is an Associate Professor of Art History at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from Yale University in 2001. Her scholarly research has focused on painting, photography, and design in the United States during the interwar years, and on the history and criticism of museums. She is the author of The Modern Eye: Stieglitz, MoMA, and the Art of the Exhibition, 1925 1934 (Yale University Press, 2009), which received the 2011 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in American Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is also the author of Livable Modernism: Interior Decorating and Design During the Great Depression (Yale, 2004), which won the Charles F. Montgomery Book Award from the Decorative Arts Society and was accompanied by an exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery in 2004 2005. She has contributed articles and reviews to a wide variety of publications, including The Art Bulletin, Winterthur Portfolio, and Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, as well as to exhibition catalogs of the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum of Art), National Building Museum, and the Milwaukee Art Museum.
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Previous Flair Symposia 1994 The State and Fate of Publishing 1996 Shouting in the Evening: British Theater, 1956 1996 1998 Writing the Lives of Women 2000 The Infinite Library 2002 Writers Rights 2004 The State and Fate of Modernism 2006 The Sense of Our Time: Norman Mailer and America in Conflict 2008 Creating a Usable Past: Writers, Archives, & Institutions 2010 Shaping the History of Photography
I Have Seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America September 11, 2012 January 6, 2013 Norman Bel Geddes (1893 1958) was a designer, futurist, and urban planner who sought to transform modern American society through design and his dynamic vision of the future. Many products and practices now taken for granted can be traced directly back to Geddes. When you drive on an interstate highway, attend a multimedia Broadway show, dine in a sky-high revolving restaurant, or watch a football game in an all-weather stadium, you owe a debt of gratitude to Geddes. Geddes focused on theater design early in his career and then became an innovative leader in industrial design, popularizing the concept of streamlining. He produced streamlined designs for products and ideas as diverse as home appliances, flying cars, and floating airports. Futurama, Geddes s best-known design for the 1939 1940 New York World s Fair, was a giant model of a city in 1960. Visitors to the popular installation donned buttons boldly proclaiming, I Have Seen the Future. The exhibition showcases Geddes s working process for both unrealized projects and completed designs using photographs and models drawn almost entirely from his extensive archive housed at the Ransom Center. The exhibition s companion publication, Norman Bel Geddes Designs America (Abrams), will be available for purchase in the Ransom Center lobby throughout the symposium. Opposite: Richard Garrison, Bel Geddes with Futurama Diorama, ca. 1939. Image courtesy of the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Foundation.
g N HARRY RANSOM CENTER Entrance JESSEN AUDITORIUM 21ST ST GUADALUPE ST 20TH ST WHITIS AVE UNIVERSITY AVE AT&T CONFERENCE CENTER MLK JR BLVD Harry Ransom Center 21st and Guadalupe Streets The University of Texas at Austin 512-471-8944 www.hrc.utexas.edu