Raymond Loewy


Jonathan

Recommended Posts


Today Google is celebrating designer Raymond Loewy's career.



Gag.



I think his work is the ugliest crap ever produced by major companies. If there were ever an anti-Howard Roark in approach to aesthetics, I think that Loewy was it. It's as if instead of reflecting on what an individual product was, and designing it according to its identity, he tried to make all products look futuristic by giving them the features that aircraft and rockets had at the time. And he did so as awkwardly as possible due to his having no taste or sense of proportion.



Does anyone disagree? Is there anyone here who thinks that Loewy's designs are beautiful?



J


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gee, I Iiked that 1950s futuristic stuff, especially the cars, tailfins and all. I liked his Coke machine design. Didn't he design the Studebaker Avanti?

--Brant

I don't have the nerve to say more (there's also the problem of my general Lowery ignorance)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gee, I Iiked that 1950s futuristic stuff, especially the cars, tailfins and all.


To me, it's like Grandpa Limited Imagination thought he was being really clever in predicting the future by just taking the most advanced stuff of his day and repeating it where it made no sense. His stuff looks like old designs with superficial modern bits randomly tacked on, even though they have nothing to do with the product in question, which just makes them look old and comical.

Didn't he design the Studebaker Avanti?


Yes. That's my point! It's horrendously awkward. It's the automotive equivalent of an ill-fitting, plaid, lime green, short sleeve, polyester leisure suit worn with mutton chop sideburns.

J

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's as if instead of reflecting on what an individual product was, and designing it according to its identity, he tried to make all products look futuristic by giving them the features that aircraft and rockets had at the time. And he did so as awkwardly as possible due to his having no taste or sense of proportion.

Does anyone disagree? Is there anyone here who thinks that Loewy's designs are beautiful?

J

I disagree and I touted Loewy on my blog. He explicitly did NOT encumber his products with useless features, but designed clean, elegant spaces, planes, and lines.

14.jpg

Spend some time on the website: http://www.raymondloewy.com/

"I waited for the S-1 to pass through at full speed. I stood on the platform and saw it coming from the distance at 120 miles per hour. It flashed by me like a steel thunderbolt, the ground shaking under me, in a blast of air that almost sucked me into its whirlwind. Approximately a million pounds of locomotive were crashing through near me. I felt shaken and overwhelmed by an unforgettable feeling of power, by a sense of pride at what I had helped to create. I had, after all, contributed something to a great nation that had taken me in and that I loved so deeply. And I had come a long, happy way myself from my start in fashion advertising. I had found my way of life."

Here:http://www.raymondloewy.com/about.html#6

11.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Michael,

What aesthetic effect do you get out of Loewy's work? What does it make you feel?

Obviously I don't like his work, and I view it very negatively, but I'd be interested in how you see it differently, if you'd care to elaborate further.

J

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jonathan, can you explain what you mean by "aesthetic effect?"

I know very little about art, its history, or the appreciation of it beyond that I know what I like to look at and what I don't like to look at. I didn't know who Raymond Loewy was before the Google doodle. What I feel when I see his work is the same thing I feel when I watch old episodes of Star Trek. I think how people in the past thought the future would look is quaint. It all seems very old-fashioned to me. Then I wonder what people in 2050 will think about designs and movie sets being produced today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Every artifact speaks to us, reflects us. Loewy delivered the 20th century. He was not alone but his sense of vision brought form to thousands of common items. And they inspired a century of material progress that nurtured and rewarded the common (and largely unstated) belief that we can and will make a wonderful future." -- http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2013/11/raymond-loewy.html

When I look at something that Loewy designed, I get a feeling of reassurance, that I can rely on the competence - not just his (we never think of the designer) but of the product's: this thing will work very well.

DLD: You mean the Original Series of Star Trek (ST:OS) from 1966-69, or does that apply to Next Generation (ST:NG) from the 80s and so on? When we were kids, we used to make fun of the cheesy effects in the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials with Buster Crabbe from the 1930s.

In the 1980s, the cyberpunk fans called that "The Gernsback Continuum" from a story by that name by William Gibson (Wikipedia here). The movie Things to Come (1936) embodied that also.

shape-small.jpg

Oswald Cabal views a flat screen display in the future of 1936.

Cyberpunk led to spin-offs including Steam Punk and Electric Punk in which fans dress and play roles from these alternate pasts and past futures.

But I don't see that in Star Trek and certainly not the current ones, except for the overwhelming presence of humanoids, a limitation on acting in make-up. Star Trek: the Animated Series got around that.

DL: Let me suggest that if you watch remakes of Pride and Prejudice, you will see that the perception of the Regency Period was different in the 40s 80s and 90s. Historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, whatever, all we know is the present. It takes a great story-teller to capture and transmit the senses and sensibilities of other times and places. We tried to watch a TV Series called "Merlin" (I think) and shut it off when Merlin sent young Arthur out to bring him a sandwich. I couldn't stop laughing: "Arthur won't come back for 1200 years!"

But, when I tried to show Laurel old ST:OSes, she just shook her head, "So, the future is analog?"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MEM, I was referring to ST:OS, but now that you've brought it up, I could say the same about ST:NG. (Those are the only ST series I have experience with other than the "rebooted" movie series of late which is another conversation entirely.) The difference being that I was introduced to ST:OS after it had already become old-fashioned, but I was introduced to ST:NG when it was still new. For that reason, ST:NG somehow still feels relevant to me, while ST:OS does not. Granted, I haven't watched either in ages, so a new viewing may be in order to reassess.

Thanks for the Gibson reference. I don't know that story and will look it up. Also, I love steam punk!

To get back on topic, when considering Loewy's work, I'd have to say it's irrelevant - in the sense that it has no obvious connection to modernity. Keeping in mind, of course, my earlier disclaimer. :wink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quite by coincidence I just heard a Jack Benny episode from 1947. He visits a plastic surgeon, and one of the alternatives the doctor offers is "I could put glass in the back of your head and make you look like a Studebaker."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Today Google is celebrating designer Raymond Loewy's career.

Gag.

I think his work is the ugliest crap ever produced by major companies. If there were ever an anti-Howard Roark in approach to aesthetics, I think that Loewy was it. It's as if instead of reflecting on what an individual product was, and designing it according to its identity, he tried to make all products look futuristic by giving them the features that aircraft and rockets had at the time. And he did so as awkwardly as possible due to his having no taste or sense of proportion.

Does anyone disagree? Is there anyone here who thinks that Loewy's designs are beautiful?

J

Is art decco art drecko?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While not as bad as architecture, many common items have useless treatments to dress them up and make them look fancy, i.e., elegant, and therefore expensive. It was true then and remains so now. Raymond Loewy was not alone: industrial tools and scientific instruments are more utilitarian. But Loewy's designs were as far from mere use as Frank Lloyd Wright's work was from Bauhaus.

(I am having a hard time placing images. But look at the Mount Wilson, Hubble, and Mount Palomar telescopes, or Yerkes as built and today.)

One time, my brother and I stood in Central Park and took in the skyline. We could name the decade for every skyscraper, regardless of whether they had Renaissance or Gothic or whatever. By 1970, the Pan Am Building looked dated. So, yes, "modern" becomes old fashioned in its own way -- as it should.

It is a famous - well not too famous - aspect of American culture that we never build for the future for Capital-P Posterity because we expect something newer and better to come along. We are so accustomed to popular styles such as clothing fashions and musical tends coming and then going that we accept it as normal. And it should be. The future should constantly unfold as we make it. Loewy was not alone, but he lead and epitomized the modernist movement that broke cleanly from Victorian, William Morris, and Arts and Crafts. (And yes, Arts and Crafts homes are, well, homey... as opposed to living in a spaceship, say...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now