The Man Who Designed the Future cover art

The Man Who Designed the Future

Norman Bel Geddes and the Invention of Twentieth-Century America

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Man Who Designed the Future

By: B. Alexandra Szerlip
Narrated by: B. Alexandra Szerlip
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $22.99

Buy Now for $22.99

About this listen

Before there was Steve Jobs, there was Norman Bel Geddes. A ninth-grade dropout who found himself at the center of the worlds of industry, advertising, theater, and even gaming, Bel Geddes designed everything from the first all-weather stadium to Manhattan's most exclusive nightclub to Futurama, the prescient 1939 exhibit that envisioned how America would look in the not-too-distant 1960s.

In The Man Who Designed the Future, B. A. Szerlip reveals precisely how central Bel Geddes was to the history of American innovation. He presided over a moment in which theater became immersive, function merged with form, and people became consumers. A polymath with humble Midwestern origins, Bel Geddes was a visionary whose career would launch him into social circles with the Algonquin roundtable members, stars of stage and screen, and titans of industry.

Light on its feet but absolutely authoritative, this first major biography of Norman Bel Geddes is a must for anyone who wants to know how America came to look the way it did.

©2017 B. Alexandra Szerlip (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
20th Century Americas Art & Literature Artists, Architects & Photographers Engineering Modern Professionals & Academics Science & Technology Social Sciences United States Technology Theatre
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.