The 1939 New York World’s Fair was all about the future. Therefore, its design had to reflect a whole new style, a style that permeated its buildings, its exhibits, even its souvenirs. The 1939 World’s Fair was supposed to look toward the future—“the World of Tomorrow”—and the Art Deco style provided the perfect solution. It was to be a testament to the future—a celebration of Art Deco and the age of industrial design.

In addition to the new consumer products, the 1939 New York World’s Fair was noted for its distinctive visual appearance in both the architectural style of many of the pavilions and the look and typography of promotional materials.

The Fair’s designers were looking to the future—“The World of Tomorrow”—created as a display of Modernism and the streamlined motif by the leading industrial designers of the day, Norman Bel Geddes, Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, and Walter Dorwin Teague. The persuaded the American corporations exhibiting at the Fair that the simplified beauty of Art Deco could seel their products. Designers, throughout the fair, used the Art Deco style to engage visitors with advanced and modern technology that was still familiar enough to bring back into their homes.

The designers used the Fair to promote the clean lines and pure forms demonstrated in commercial products, such as automobiles, toothbrushes, and airplanes. They all leaned heavily towards socialism. Bel Geddes even boasted that he would design “social structure” in objects of daily use. These men believed in clean, rational design for all of society. The designers also established a relatively low maximum line of height for the buildings, save for structures like the Trylon and the Soviet pavilion, in order to allow visitors to view the fair’s architecture against the backdrop of "Manhattan's spires."

Trylon and Perisphere
The Trylon and Perisphere, the only structures in the fair permitted to be painted pure white, served as the official symbols and stood massive at the fair’s center. They reflected the emphasis on purity practiced by industrial designers of the day.

Fair planners wanted to create structures that would rival the Eiffel Tower, built for the Universal Exposition of 1889. After considering many different designs, they selected the Trylon and Perisphere for their strikingly unusual yet simple shapes, which embodied the future facing atmosphere of the fair.

It took 2,000 cubic yards of concrete and reinforced steel, more than 7,000 individual pieces, to create them. Their combined weight came to approximately 10,000 tons. The Perisphere stood 18 stories tall with a circumference of 628 feet and the Trylon reached 610 feet high. In order to test the durability of the design, architects Wallace K. Harrison and Jacques-André Fouilhoux subjected the models to 70-mile an hour winds in a test tunnel.

The original plans for the Perisphere called for it to be covered in a smooth and seamless layer of concrete. However, due to the high cost of that material, the designers chose gypsum instead. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts to smooth it out, the gypsum created an uneven texture and had visible seams. Also, surrounding fountains damaged the fragile coating and their arches of water had to be lowered.

The striking design of Trylon and Perisphere made them easily recognizable and popular icons of the fair. Their image was licensed for use on an estimated 25,000 products. In 1939, licensing such as this was a relatively new concept, but it still it earned the fair $1 million in the first season alone.

The Perisphere housed the Fair’s “Democracity” exhibit, designed by Henry Dreyfuss, which depicted a utopian “city of the future.” Visitors viewed the diorama from above while riding a moving sidewalk.

Paul Manship designed the Times & Fates of Man sundial and Moods of Time pool
Sculpture. Manship, best known for his gilded Prometheus sculpture at the Rockefeller Center rink, designed the Fair's 80-foot-tall sundial, surrounded by Manship's classically inspired statues depicting the times of day.

The Aviation Building was meant to give visitors a realistic picture of a busy airport and explored the themes of travel, defense, and private recreation. The building was designed by William Lescaze and J. Gordon Carr and featured nearly-life-size commercial planes suspended from the ceiling.

Corporate Pavilions
The Fair was both a celebration of the "World of Tomorrow" and a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration on Wall Street. More than 150 exhibition pavilions covered over 1,200 acres, which were divided into seven "zones"—Government, Community Interests, Food, Communication and Business, Production and Distribution, Transportation, and Amusement—delineated by fountains, pools, and sculptures. The architecture of these pavilions, erected as temporary structures meant to achieve "unity without uniformity," demonstrated the American Streamlined aesthetic and the influence of International Style.

Through their fair pavilions, American companies demonstrated to audiences their products and ideas for the future. Many of these hallmarks of innovation remained highly-influenced by Art Deco.

Perhaps one of the more distinct Art Deco-inspired works at the fair was the Heinz Dome. The dome’s exterior featured a tomato-red frieze by Domenico Mortellito of the agricultural scenes in both the eastern and western hemispheres. Inside the pavilion, a display of Heinz condiment innovations stood next to a 65-foot sculpture by Raymond Barger. A blue and green terracotta tiled column stood behind figures representing the countries from which Heinz imported ingredients for its famous 57 varieties. It supported the “Goddess of Perfection” and her symbolic orb of light, viewed from below through a mirage of colors. While Art Deco heavily influenced the core of this fountain, it also embraced modernism as well as consumerism, and it seemingly landed like a splash of ketchup on the pavilion’s floor.

Walter Dorwin Teague and R. J. Harper designed the Dupont Pavilion. Industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague was a member of the Board of Design and played a prominent role in designing many of its exhibits including those for E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Company, Ford Motor Company, Eastman Kodak, and the National Cash Register. For DuPont's "Wonder World of Chemistry," Teague's design included a spectacular 105-foot, test tube-shaped tower, which was meant to simulate bubbling chemicals when lit at night. Among DuPont's many innovative displays, arguably the most important was the debut of nylon. Knitting machines at the Fair produced nylon pantyhose with which female models played tug-of-war to demonstrate the fiber's strength.

The most popular exhibit at the Fair was undoubtedly the Futurama presentation at the General Motors Pavilion. Designed by industrial arts wiz Norman Bel Geddes, it featured a massive, 36,000 square-foot scale model of America in 1960, complete with futuristic homes, urban complexes, bridges, dams, surrounding landscape, and, most important, an advanced highway system which permitted speeds of 100 miles per hour.

Corning Glass Works, The Owens-Illinois Glass Company, The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, and Owens Corning Fiberglass all shared the Glass Tower, designed by Empire State Building architects Shreve, Lamb & Harmon. Constructed almost entirely of glass blocks, plate glass, and structural glass, its gleaming, 107-foot tower was illuminated from within and set off by blue plate glass fins and a metal spiral outlined in neon tubing.

Architects Skidmore & Owings and John Moss designed the Westinghouse Pavilion. The horseshoe-shaped Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing pavilion featured an imposing 120-foot "Tower of Light" containing a waterfall, flanked on either side by huge glass-enclosed structures—the Hall of Electrical Power and the Hall of Electrical Living. Part of the pavilion's draw was a talking robot named Elektro, and a time capsule scheduled for opening in 6939.

Walter Dorwin Teague and G. F. Harrell designed the U.S. Steel Pavilion, a blue stainless steel hemisphere turned inside out. The framing trusses were on the outside, outlined by glowing blue lights at night. Inside the two-story pavilion, murals, animated dioramas, and demonstrations showcased the history and process of steel making.

The noted architectural firm of Voorhees, Walker, Smith and Foley designed the copper-paneled General Electric Pavilion. A huge stainless steel lightning bolt distinguished the pavilion, which contained a 10-million-volt artificial lightning display, a complete television studio, a model electric appliance store; and an x-ray exhibit where visitors could view mummy skeletons.

Streamlined Art Deco catapulted the Fair’s visitors into a future world that was far beyond their wildest imaginations. Much of that world exists today, along with the timelessness of Art Deco design.