Now Playing Tracks

oldhollywood: 1930s imagining of 1980s New York in the sci-fi musical Just Imagine (1930, dir. David Butler) (via) Designed by art director Stephen Goosson, the city set was an elaborate miniature model that covered a ground area of 75 x 225 feet and whose tallest tower measured 40 feet. Just Imagine’s New York was primarily inspired by architect Harvey Corbett’s prediction that 1970’s New York would resemble a “very modernized Venice” and by the futuristic urban designs presented in Hugh Ferriss’s 1929 book, The Metropolis of Tomorrow. Ferriss’s drawings of the ”business center of the future” (pictures #3-5) provided the most direct inspiration for Goosson’s sets. Broad superhighways establish a geometric ground plan that extends upward through overlapping levels of bridges, streets, and terraced walkways. The grid of streets and bridges is pierced by huge freestanding skyscrapers surrounded by lower setback buildings, a design Ferriss created as an analogy to the natural world of “towering mountain peaks… surrounded by foothills” The opening scenes of the (otherwise mediocre) film, which feature this cityscape, can be seen here.  More on the building of the Just Imagine set. Collection of Hugh Ferriss’s futuristic city sketches here.
Zoom
oldhollywood: 1930s imagining of 1980s New York in the sci-fi musical Just Imagine (1930, dir. David Butler) (via) Designed by art director Stephen Goosson, the city set was an elaborate miniature model that covered a ground area of 75 x 225 feet and whose tallest tower measured 40 feet. Just Imagine’s New York was primarily inspired by architect Harvey Corbett’s prediction that 1970’s New York would resemble a “very modernized Venice” and by the futuristic urban designs presented in Hugh Ferriss’s 1929 book, The Metropolis of Tomorrow. Ferriss’s drawings of the ”business center of the future” (pictures #3-5) provided the most direct inspiration for Goosson’s sets. Broad superhighways establish a geometric ground plan that extends upward through overlapping levels of bridges, streets, and terraced walkways. The grid of streets and bridges is pierced by huge freestanding skyscrapers surrounded by lower setback buildings, a design Ferriss created as an analogy to the natural world of “towering mountain peaks… surrounded by foothills” The opening scenes of the (otherwise mediocre) film, which feature this cityscape, can be seen here.  More on the building of the Just Imagine set. Collection of Hugh Ferriss’s futuristic city sketches here.
Zoom
oldhollywood: 1930s imagining of 1980s New York in the sci-fi musical Just Imagine (1930, dir. David Butler) (via) Designed by art director Stephen Goosson, the city set was an elaborate miniature model that covered a ground area of 75 x 225 feet and whose tallest tower measured 40 feet. Just Imagine’s New York was primarily inspired by architect Harvey Corbett’s prediction that 1970’s New York would resemble a “very modernized Venice” and by the futuristic urban designs presented in Hugh Ferriss’s 1929 book, The Metropolis of Tomorrow. Ferriss’s drawings of the ”business center of the future” (pictures #3-5) provided the most direct inspiration for Goosson’s sets. Broad superhighways establish a geometric ground plan that extends upward through overlapping levels of bridges, streets, and terraced walkways. The grid of streets and bridges is pierced by huge freestanding skyscrapers surrounded by lower setback buildings, a design Ferriss created as an analogy to the natural world of “towering mountain peaks… surrounded by foothills” The opening scenes of the (otherwise mediocre) film, which feature this cityscape, can be seen here.  More on the building of the Just Imagine set. Collection of Hugh Ferriss’s futuristic city sketches here.
Zoom
oldhollywood: 1930s imagining of 1980s New York in the sci-fi musical Just Imagine (1930, dir. David Butler) (via) Designed by art director Stephen Goosson, the city set was an elaborate miniature model that covered a ground area of 75 x 225 feet and whose tallest tower measured 40 feet. Just Imagine’s New York was primarily inspired by architect Harvey Corbett’s prediction that 1970’s New York would resemble a “very modernized Venice” and by the futuristic urban designs presented in Hugh Ferriss’s 1929 book, The Metropolis of Tomorrow. Ferriss’s drawings of the ”business center of the future” (pictures #3-5) provided the most direct inspiration for Goosson’s sets. Broad superhighways establish a geometric ground plan that extends upward through overlapping levels of bridges, streets, and terraced walkways. The grid of streets and bridges is pierced by huge freestanding skyscrapers surrounded by lower setback buildings, a design Ferriss created as an analogy to the natural world of “towering mountain peaks… surrounded by foothills” The opening scenes of the (otherwise mediocre) film, which feature this cityscape, can be seen here.  More on the building of the Just Imagine set. Collection of Hugh Ferriss’s futuristic city sketches here.
Zoom
oldhollywood: 1930s imagining of 1980s New York in the sci-fi musical Just Imagine (1930, dir. David Butler) (via) Designed by art director Stephen Goosson, the city set was an elaborate miniature model that covered a ground area of 75 x 225 feet and whose tallest tower measured 40 feet. Just Imagine’s New York was primarily inspired by architect Harvey Corbett’s prediction that 1970’s New York would resemble a “very modernized Venice” and by the futuristic urban designs presented in Hugh Ferriss’s 1929 book, The Metropolis of Tomorrow. Ferriss’s drawings of the ”business center of the future” (pictures #3-5) provided the most direct inspiration for Goosson’s sets. Broad superhighways establish a geometric ground plan that extends upward through overlapping levels of bridges, streets, and terraced walkways. The grid of streets and bridges is pierced by huge freestanding skyscrapers surrounded by lower setback buildings, a design Ferriss created as an analogy to the natural world of “towering mountain peaks… surrounded by foothills” The opening scenes of the (otherwise mediocre) film, which feature this cityscape, can be seen here.  More on the building of the Just Imagine set. Collection of Hugh Ferriss’s futuristic city sketches here.
Zoom

oldhollywood:

1930s imagining of 1980s New York in the sci-fi musical Just Imagine (1930, dir. David Butler) (via)

Designed by art director Stephen Goosson, the city set was an elaborate miniature model that covered a ground area of 75 x 225 feet and whose tallest tower measured 40 feet.

Just Imagine’s New York was primarily inspired by architect Harvey Corbett’s prediction that 1970’s New York would resemble a “very modernized Venice” and by the futuristic urban designs presented in Hugh Ferriss’s 1929 book, The Metropolis of Tomorrow.

Ferriss’s drawings of the ”business center of the future” (pictures #3-5) provided the most direct inspiration for Goosson’s sets. Broad superhighways establish a geometric ground plan that extends upward through overlapping levels of bridges, streets, and terraced walkways. The grid of streets and bridges is pierced by huge freestanding skyscrapers surrounded by lower setback buildings, a design Ferriss created as an analogy to the natural world of “towering mountain peaks… surrounded by foothills”

The opening scenes of the (otherwise mediocre) film, which feature this cityscape, can be seen here. 

More on the building of the Just Imagine set. Collection of Hugh Ferriss’s futuristic city sketches here.

5,031 notes

via Old Hollywood
  1. fatherizzyisms reblogged this from bashi-bazouk
  2. bashi-bazouk reblogged this from fragile-eggshell-mind and added:
    Man, I hope the people involved in this didn’t live to see the festering wound it actually was.
  3. fragile-eggshell-mind reblogged this from scrapzion
  4. scrapzion reblogged this from fishstickmonkey
  5. fishstickmonkey reblogged this from miss-magdalena
  6. miss-magdalena reblogged this from olgaross
  7. olgaross reblogged this from decoarchitecture
  8. jurassic-playground reblogged this from oldhollywood
  9. alicecomebacktome reblogged this from oldhollywood
  10. ann-heisey reblogged this from oldhollywood
  11. thecrowsnest1 reblogged this from oldhollywood
  12. borninatent reblogged this from oldhollywood and added:
    I love dated visions of the future and seeing how they compare to the reality.
  13. arrozcarlo reblogged this from oldhollywood
  14. zenfox reblogged this from oldhollywood
  15. thefilmguywholikespie reblogged this from oldhollywood
  16. the-battle-continues reblogged this from the-battle-continues
  17. mariahshanea reblogged this from oldhollywood
  18. gigglez007 reblogged this from oldhollywood
  19. ambee23 reblogged this from oldhollywood
  20. missvondunajev reblogged this from oldhollywood
  21. cubanguccipac reblogged this from oldhollywood
  22. sexualwookie reblogged this from oldhollywood
  23. swagmintrefs reblogged this from p-curly
  24. bermudatheman reblogged this from iamjacks-smirkingrevenge
  25. iamjacks-smirkingrevenge reblogged this from paperschemes
To Tumblr, Love Pixel Union