Cars: Accelerating the Modern World, V&A, 2019. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Exhibition description and tour by Brendan Cormier, co-curator (along with Lizzie Bisley) of Cars: Accelerating the Modern World at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The exhibition was scheduled to be on view between November 23, 2019-April 19, 2020. [The exhibition and V&A closed on March 18 in response to coronavirus (COVID-19)]
Cars: Accelerating the Modern World brings together a wide-ranging selection of cars that have never been on display in the UK, each telling a specific story about their impact on the world.
The car has transformed how we move, as well as our experience of speed, forever changing our cities, environment and economies. It has revolutionized manufacturing around the world, and introduced radical new ways of styling, making and selling. As we approach another major turning point in automotive design, the exhibition examines how the car in a mere 130 years has shaped the world we know today.
Cars: Accelerating the Modern World, V&A, 2019. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
1 When the @V_and_A closed its doors to the public, the exhibition I worked on, Cars: Accelerating the Modern World, also had to close early. Luckily, before we started WFH, I was able to snap several pics. pic.twitter.com/VxlSvKHLAZ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
2 A twitter thread about an exhibition on cars might not be what you’re looking for at the moment. But if you wanted to see the exhibition and couldn’t, or you want some distraction from other news, here is a VERY long thread. pic.twitter.com/m15SliytGj
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
3 Let’s start with the basics: why did the V&A choose to do a show about cars at all? Well, first because we’ve never done one before. We’ve avoided the subject for our entire 168-year history! Why? pic.twitter.com/MMmygJDJE8
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
4 Because, the car was originally perceived as a piece of technology, not design. What we considered design a century ago was more limited (for instance, it was considered a radical departure when the V&A first collected radios, and that was the 70s). pic.twitter.com/PGvs5Q3Qjf
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
5 So cars went across the street to our neighbours at the Science Museum. They have an incredible collection, and in fact we borrowed one, the Benz Patent Motorwagen 3 for the exhibition. pic.twitter.com/XJ52TO1lHm
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
6 But as definitions of design expand, the lines between what constitutes design and what constitutes technology are increasingly blurred. The phone or computer you are reading this on, are both highly advanced technologies and thoroughly considered designs. pic.twitter.com/VXIhWtaVk9
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
7 So a car is both a piece of design and a piece of technology. Once you accept that, it’s not a huge leap to consider the car as perhaps the most impactful piece of design of the 20th century. A single design that transformed the planet and our lives. pic.twitter.com/teUBNssNya
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
8 Now, a lot about the car is set to change. A switch to electric, more autonomous driving, ridesharing, and an explosion of mobility alternatives have entered the fold. This is good, as our current system is increasingly untenable. pic.twitter.com/80NXnGCzot
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
9 Given these changes, we decided a retrospective was in order, an autopsy on the phenomenon of the car of the past, to see if there were lessons we can draw for the future. Enough preamble though, here is the exhibition. pic.twitter.com/xXWdtT71rz
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
10. We start with a history of the future, a look at how the automobile was used as a way to dream up utopian futures. A common thread emerges, sci-fi imagines mobility to be fast, fluid, and frictionless – the car has secretly always wanted to fly. pic.twitter.com/RjGq2mp0Cw
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
11 Here is our first car. The GM Firebird. It has never been on show in the UK before. It’s the first of four such designs, used in the 1950s to drum up enthusiasm for the cars potential at GMs Motorama shows. (this is where my bad camera pics begin and improper lighting, sorry!) pic.twitter.com/vgyWJG6JDE
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
12 The car takes obvious cues from jet fighter planes used in World War 2. It has a cockpit, a wing-like silhouette, and yes, a jet engine in the back. It was generously borrowed from the GM Heritage Center. pic.twitter.com/Ryqqw0mhEm
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
13 Above is a film made for Firebird II (look closely and you’ll spot our first Firebird in the background). A family frustrated by traffic jams is transported to 1973 to enjoy the ‘Safety Auto Highway’. pic.twitter.com/gSbZMlNVLj
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
14 It’s an early attempt at imagining autonomous driving (with radio technology and control towers). A reminder that a lot of ideas we think as new have been cooking for a while. You can watch the full film here: https://t.co/YYAh0zyM5a
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
15 In the next room we follow the theme of the future. We played with the idea of a typical salon hang, but instead of paintings, we brought together imagery of future cars from across the world, and over the span of a century. pic.twitter.com/C4H6Ts6ksN
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
16 Here’s work from illustrator François Schuiten published in ‘Encyclopédie des Transports Présents et à Venir’ (1988), a bit of a steampunk mashup of old forms meeting new purposes. pic.twitter.com/EQvtMrZaiF
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
17 Here’s a hand-coloured print from 1902 by Albert Robida called ‘La Sortie de l’opéra en l’an 2000’ depicting all sorts of flying vehicles as people leave the opera. Women are seen driving their own vehicles, a promise of new liberties in vehicular-form. pic.twitter.com/65RwXVPAe0
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
18 A movie I had never seen before, Just Imagine (1930), looks at New York City in the 1980s, with bustling flying thoroughfares, and a couple flirting with each other between two vehicles. You can see the clip here: https://t.co/EDs92lRKJT pic.twitter.com/1y4zcqoklJ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
19 And heck, now that you might have some time on your hands, you can watch the whole movie here: https://t.co/ZcUBOBFE8S
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
20 Here’s another rendering of a future New York, artwork by Patrice Garcia for The Fifth Element (1997). The flying cars are still here, but it’s a grittier vision of the future. The updated checker cab is a nice touch. pic.twitter.com/HBPPL8eztf
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
21 These drawings (1924) are by Ferdinand Fissi, John Scott Montagu’s illustrator for The Car Illustrated. Lord Montagu was an early advocate for motorways in Britain, and here they are imagined built into the architecture of the city. pic.twitter.com/1VSGKft1rS
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
22 In 1928, the Russian Constructivist Georgy Krutikov imagined entire floating cities of the future. Here, he designs a streamlined capsule and recliner chair to move around these new urban spaces. (one of the prettiest drawings in the show imho) pic.twitter.com/VF1jPmsF31
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
23 The Delorean may have been a failed commercial venture, but it was given new life as the star of the Back to the Future (1985). The car as a proposal to travel through not just three dimensions, but four. pic.twitter.com/kAfJ8RO6jg
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
24 Magazines also sponsored competitions to imagine new types of mobility. Here is one of my favourites, the ‘World Transportation Invention Competition’ in Shōnen Club (Boys Club) in 1936. The illustration is by Iizuka Reiji. pic.twitter.com/hicptThfmG
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
25 Speaking of competitions, here are submissions to the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild’s national model building competition (1930-68). Many teenagers would submit designs, with winners being offered jobs at General Motors. pic.twitter.com/vZ7pcwOLUS
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
26 One winner was Pete Wozena; after winning in 1939 he got a job at GM working for their Pontiac division. Here is another future car concept that he drew later in his career in 1961. pic.twitter.com/IusDMfHV6c
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
27 The commercial artist Walter Sprink designed this concept car in 1932. He was based in Akron, Ohio, and if the car resembles the silhouette of an airship that’s no coincidence, Akron was home to the Goodyear Zeppelin Company. pic.twitter.com/vnmFlBXVHd
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
28 Norman Bel Geddes also championed the ‘streamlined’ aesthetic to suggest an image of the future. Here are a few of the hundreds of model cars used to populate his Futurama pavilion for GM at the 1939 World Fair. pic.twitter.com/inNwun7sb7
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
29 One of the more surprising finds in our research was this set of postcards from 1914 depicting Moscow in 2259; a confluence of suspended trams, dirigibles, and motorized sleds. pic.twitter.com/1nwSk5VXQc
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
30 Here’s some social distancing avant-la-lettre, Walter Molino’s cover for Domenica del Corriere in 1962. The opposite cover features a scene of a traffic jam and road rage, and this was the provocative solution. pic.twitter.com/VkmF5fcKe5
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
31 And finally, we have this gorgeous drawing from the incomparable science fiction (and very real) designer Syd Mead, ‘Concept Car for Ford Motor Company’ (1959). Mead sadly passed away earlier this year. pic.twitter.com/UJI5JKJkfs
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
32 One thing I’m really happy with is our collaboration with @Masters_Alice to produce immersive film work for the exhibition. So much of the experience of cars is wrapped up in movement and sound, and so we knew film would play an important part. pic.twitter.com/MjZmsbIUOV
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
Here our designers @officemmx created this multi-screen projection space, for Alice to create a montage of the city from the vantage point of the automobile accelerating through the course of a day. pic.twitter.com/w4wt7294v3
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
34 Bonus points if you can identify which film score our sound designers @codatocoda reference in the two-chord motif for this piece. pic.twitter.com/10tFl1LW0H
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 6, 2020
35 In the next section, ‘Going Fast’ we take a closer look at what really drove the initial appeal of the automobile. Far from being a practical tool for getting around, it was the unique thrill of racing which drove early sales. pic.twitter.com/sNYOWfRE1Q
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
36 Here is the Benz Patent Motorwagen 3 (1888). The Motorwagen is widely regarded as the first ever production automobile. It couldn’t go terribly fast though, around 10mph. By comparison, trains of the time could go much faster. pic.twitter.com/kq4uivWQnM
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
37 So what was the appeal? With the automobile, speed was in the hands of the individual driver, and racing became a test of your skills and knowledge. Quite quickly, city-to-city races started to crop up, the first in 1895 from Paris to Bordeaux. https://t.co/8Y4Wfw0aka
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
Alright here’s some insider info, a car that we wanted but couldn’t get in the show. This is the first car to go 100km/h, in 1899 (also electric). It’s called the Jamais Contente (never satisfied) a perfect metaphor for racing. pic.twitter.com/X8CiiW6J7R
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
38 Here’s a photograph by Jacques Henri Lartigue which he snapped as a teenager at the Grand Prix in Dieppe (1913). To capture the fast-moving car, he swivels his camera, creating a remarkable distortion effect, capturing the excitement of such events. pic.twitter.com/2sNypLcUSl
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
39 And here are photographs from the speed trial for the Gordon Bennett Cup on the Isle of Man. Why were they held there? Because, the British, fearing public safety, issued a universal speed limit of 20mph on all roads in 1903. Racing moved elsewhere. pic.twitter.com/woNtrCJmWY
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
40 You can also see film of the trials here (1904). One gets a sense of the absolute precarity and danger of these new-fangled inventions as they manoeuvred
hairpin turns and rough roads. https://t.co/TE0rcCI7xL— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
41 These were as much social affairs as they were trials of skill. Andrew Pitcairn-Knowles focused his lens on the bourgeois society who gathered in Ostend, Belgium, in part to show off their fabulous wheels in 1908. pic.twitter.com/yuJ9doLklW
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
42 Governments were quick to champion homegrown technical achievements. Here’s an Empire Marketing Board poster flaunting various UK-held speed records, including the Golden Arrow’s, set in Daytona in 1929. ‘Britain First Always’ sounds awfully familiar… pic.twitter.com/JDrOeEbBgc
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
43 Henry Segrave drove the Golden Arrow down a strip of Daytona Beach reaching a top speed of 231.45 mph. Part of the spectacle was down to the Golden Arrow’s unusual streamlined shape. You can see it here: https://t.co/Dauiyan7Hx
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
44 Similarly, by the late 1930s the French government was keen to take back titles of the Grand Prix after years of domination by the Germans. They sponsored a race with a million franc prize for anyone who could design a car fast enough. pic.twitter.com/V6pvnYJ0W4
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
45 This was the winner, the Delahaye 145 driven by René Dreyfuss. The trick worked, and not only did Delahaye get the million francs, but the car – driven by Dreyfuss – went on to win the 1938 Pau Grand Prix. pic.twitter.com/znX4BLssX2
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
46 Meanwhile, back in Britain, to get around the 20mph speed limit, the world’s first-ever private motorcar racetrack was invented in 1907, called Brooklands. It became the epicentre for UK race culture for several decades. pic.twitter.com/D1HwKzkyBO
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
47 Brooklands often held regular ‘ladies’ races’. Earlier, men and women would race in the same races. The success of women drivers helped immensely in building an image of empowerment and the notion of the car as a liberating tool. https://t.co/ctXunVocxP
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
48 Here we were able to find driver Jill Scott Thomas’ portrait at the NPG and her bonnet at Brooklands Museum, and reunite them here for this show. (This is a very satisfying feeling – the ASMR of curating) pic.twitter.com/bnJRCvbsgT
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
49 While a lot of the technology improving a car’s performance took place under the hood, streamlining – reducing air resistance through form – proposed a dramatic new look to the car’s outer body. pic.twitter.com/Uyd68Pa82g
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
50 Streamlining in cars was pioneered by Paul Jaray, who in the 1910s worked on streamlining zeppelins. In the 20s, he devoted himself to advocating for streamlined cars, eventually working with Hans Ledwinka on the Tatra 77 (1934). pic.twitter.com/GFyWP0n86x
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
51 Other companies quickly followed, realizing there was a buck to be made on selling this new look/technology. Here’s ‘Streamlines’ (1936) from Chevrolet Motor Company for instance: https://t.co/hnh50OJ8mG
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
52 Meanwhile the notion of increased performance through streamlined shapes also affected clothing. In the 1920s, an increased interest in athletic leisure gave rise to a new body-hugging silhouette, as seen here in a swimsuit, flight suit, and ski outfit of the era. pic.twitter.com/9vuRdiQlA2
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
53 This is one of my favourite images in all of 20th century design history – Raymond Loewy’s Evolution of Design chart. In it, he positions the streamlining aesthetic in Darwinian terms, as a natural progression for all things. pic.twitter.com/fo5C1xBpEb
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
54 So what began as a technology for increasing speed and efficiency, gets picked up by designers and used as an aesthetic that symbolizes progress and the future. Does a meat slicer ever need to go fast? No, but it certainly looks cool. pic.twitter.com/H8oNBDniAJ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
55 But if so far, the enthusiasm for automobiles has been wrapped up in their ability to go ever faster, how did we confront the fact that they were also killing machines? The invention of the car was also the invention of the car crash. pic.twitter.com/XOY95YxWkh
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
56 At first, the reaction was to blame the driver, not the car. Public safety campaigns like these from the UK focused on educating drivers with better driving practices. This has remained a theme in most safety campaigns today. pic.twitter.com/DcP5Td54Ct
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
57 The Australian TAC are infamous for their sensational ads, urging drivers against DUI and not to speed. Here they commissioned Patricia Piccinini to create Graham, a projection of what a human being might look like if they were to evolve to naturally survive car crashes. pic.twitter.com/Z548RKVBmd
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
58 But what about designing safer cars? This is what Ralph Nader (remember him?) pushed for in his landmark exposé ‘Unsafe at Any Speed’ (1965). In it, he points the blame at large car makers for designing cheap flimsy cars the put lives at risk. pic.twitter.com/YeXMsyMNn6
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
59 Part of the problem was the rise in popularity of the muscle car in the mid-60s, putting overpowered engines into lightweight vehicles, which caused a spike in automobile deaths. Here’s a Ford Mustang, which along with the Pontiac GTO, pioneered the new style. pic.twitter.com/DpWtePcjse
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
60 Hollywood matched this trend with a new style of movie, in which a brooding male (anti)-hero kicked up a lot of dust in their muscle car of choice. A case in point, the famous chase scene with Steve McQueen in Bullitt. https://t.co/hdQ8aFjGBJ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
61 In response to Nader’s book, the US government began to legislate for more safety standards in cars. In 1973, they prompted car makers to produce ‘experimental safety vehicles’. Here is GM’s design, with an unusual back seat padded dashboard. pic.twitter.com/h5ozNvE6rE
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
62 Of course, there’s an entire history to be told about the design of safety in cars. We gathered a few of them here. From car horns, headlamps, windshield wipers, seatbelts, collapsible steering wheels to ABS brakes. pic.twitter.com/H7aetanXaZ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
63 Death rates may have gone down, but still 1.25 million road fatalities occur a year. The car is the only piece of design that we accept as a daily necessity despite the number of fatalities it produces. Would you take a plane if a similar death rate existed?
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
64 On a lighter note, there is a whole digital world now where people are getting the thrill of speed without the danger. These videos were produced by users of BeamNG Drive, a simulator which allows people to invent their own stunt and crash scenarios. https://t.co/EZr9uBMZE6
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 7, 2020
65 If speed was the original value proposition of the automobile, the next riddle to unravel was how to take a complex expensive machine and make it cheap and producible for the masses. Welcome to the middle section of our show, ‘Making More’. pic.twitter.com/P8omY1kJJn
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
66 The story of Henry Ford, the Model T, and the moving assembly is well-known, but it deserves to be told again here, because its importance transcends so much more than the world of automobiles. pic.twitter.com/eR0PXMieBL
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
67 For starters, why is there a pig carcass hanging here? Because Ford’s main inspiration for the idea of a moving assembly line came from the slaughterhouses spread across the Midwest. A reminder that innovation is rooted in time and place. pic.twitter.com/GnbrEnePZs
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
68 Ford made this film of a slaughterhouse in Cincinnati to see how animals came in whole, moved through the building, and were ‘disassembled’ into their various parts. Ford simply reversed that process: from disassembly line to assembly line. https://t.co/AJJJXB01W8
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
69 And here’s a film of the moving assembly line, implemented at his Highland Park plant in 1913, it dramatically increased the numbers of cars produced while dropping the prices, enabling the Model T to become the most produced car in the world. https://t.co/U4CRefJ3Zo
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
70 Once you can start producing at higher levels of output, you need a whole new type of factory architecture to produce it. Here is a drawing of Highland Park, designed by Albert Kahn, where the moving assembly line was introduced. pic.twitter.com/N9Hyj3T304
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
71 Based in Detroit, Albert Kahn became the most prolific architect of the 20th century as a he built a specialty in factory architecture. Cheap, efficient, with flexible floorplans, Kahn’s designs were implemented across America and even as far flung as Russia.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
72 With the success of mass-produced automobiles, Detroit became a global symbol of industrial power. This mural entitled ‘Automotive Industry’ (1940) by Marvin Beerbohm reflects that optimistic spirit, commissioned by Roosevelt’s WPA program. pic.twitter.com/LDhUR507y0
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
73 Key to the global impact of Detroit was that Ford was not shy about showing off his innovations. He opened up his factory to the public for tours, so that they too could witness the spectacle of mass production.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
74 Soon, you saw European designers, architects, and entrepreneurs making pilgrimages to Detroit to learn the lessons of mass production and transplant them to European soil.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
75 Fiat took particular interest. The company commissioned Giacomo Mattè-Trucco in 1919 to build a new factory on the edge of Turin: Lingotto. It remains one of the most poetic translations of Fordism into architecture ever built. pic.twitter.com/N5JJgRI7FN
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
76 Parts enter at the ground floor. Gradually the assembly line moves the car up the floors as it becomes fully realised. It emerges whole on the roof where it is taken for a dizzying spin on the rooftop track. Here’s a fun promo film: https://t.co/vc4xPMQ4Ch
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
77 It wasn’t just factories that Ford restructured though, he was also meticulous with his supply chains. To get cheaper rubber, and avoid a monopoly held by the British at the time, in 1926 Ford bought a piece of the Amazon the size of Northern Ireland. pic.twitter.com/naQJu8XHX0
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
78 What did he call it? Fordlandia of course. He set stringent guidelines for his workers. Alcohol, women, tobacco and even football were forbidden. American food served in the canteen. After many worker revolts and difficulties in production, the project was abandoned in 1934. pic.twitter.com/Mw896Pvw4n
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
79 Ford was proud of the complex supply chains the company was able to harness. They celebrate this in their film Ford Symphony in F (1940) You can watch it here, replete with stop-motion figurines. Rihanna eat your heart out. https://t.co/CGDKfEAiAZ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
80 The other big challenge Ford faced was how to manage the huge increase in workers needed. The moving assembly line meant you could hire relatively unskilled workers as tasks were simple. The downside is that work was physically and psychologically draining.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
81 Here’s a letter from the wife of an assembly line worker in 1914 pleading to Ford about how the new system has broken her husband. You can see a scan of it here: https://t.co/JbwWyHk8JB pic.twitter.com/QAnQ6f4MRI
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
82 To incentivize workers, Ford introduce a $5 a day wage (double what other carmakers were paying). But to qualify, his Sociological Department conducted home inspections to ascertain if workers were following the strict morale code they set out. pic.twitter.com/BHwqSG6U6H
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
83 The economic impact of Ford’s assembly is evident, but the cultural impact is all the more surprising. The public fascination with mass coordinated movement and production led to all sorts of eclectic outputs. The Rockettes, for example! https://t.co/xQllGYiryP
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
84 The Swiss modern architect Le Corbusier was an avid driver, and with his Maison Citrohan (1922), he calls for all housing to be designed and built in the same way cars are. Mass-produced and affordable for everyone. pic.twitter.com/k2ppP3CFg7
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
85 Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, cites Ford’s River Rouge plant as one of the most beautiful buildings in America. His school would go on the champion a machine aesthetic and mass-producible designs (which often weren’t very mass-producible). pic.twitter.com/UXIjwaPHde
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
86 Meanwhile, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, working on social housing in Frankfurt, sought to rationalize labour in the household through a more efficient kitchen design. You can see a film of the Frankfurt Kitchen (1926) here: https://t.co/rc2FGBm99r
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
87 Frank and Lilian Gilbreth took efficiency as gospel (perhaps in part because they had 12 kids). Their Time and Motion Studies were a systematic way of analysing any task and trying to make it more efficient. https://t.co/b3T83R9MWL pic.twitter.com/aDBSQrDrll
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
88 Norma and Normman (1943) were examples of the obsession with standards that came out of factory life. They are representative estimations of average American man and women taken from two large data sets. pic.twitter.com/eqoRcpSvbZ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
89 They were shown in museums in New York and Cleveland, where the public were fascinated by their beauty. An Ohio paper put out a competition to find the woman who most closely matched Norma, and here is the winner. (No such search for Normman!) pic.twitter.com/Aho3tFMnYR
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
90 Finally, it’s no coincidence that the city that invented mass-produced cars also invented the music production system of Motown. Here’s Martha and the Vandellas singing in the River Rouge Plant, while the line was still moving. https://t.co/UYB717ebBI Stone cold classic.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
91 Detroit also helped set the tenor of labour rights in the 20th century through the steadfast work of the United Auto Workers union. These posters they produced in the 1950s still speak to issues we are grappling with today. pic.twitter.com/edohKyOxTe
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
92 The fight to unionize was fierce and bloody. Here is a homemade weapon used in the Flint sit-down strike of 1937 against General Motors. The success of this strike turned the tides leading to labour representation at all the major car makers in Detroit. pic.twitter.com/iceqS2V5uQ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
93 Of course, a big fear amongst workers in car factories has been automation. This is the first ever robot used in a factory, the Unimate. It was introduced in 1961 to a GM factory in Trenton, New Jersey. pic.twitter.com/nwnCmYh4pE
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
94 This promo film (1968) for the Unimate imagines how it might be useful in the home. It includes one of the worst champagne pours in history. https://t.co/wrb2NJmLna
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
95 To show how far we have come since the moving assembly line, we shot inside the BMW factory in Munich. We tried to create a 1:1 window into an automated landscape with hardly a person in sight. pic.twitter.com/O1j7sAS7G8
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 8, 2020
Alright I know this is getting long, and I’m sure most of you have had more than enough – but hear me out, I’ve started this thing and now I need to finish it. (I’m about halfway, twitter is hard)
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
96 From mass-production we turn to mass-consumption to explore how the car industry came up with new ways to sell cars to the people. If you can all of a sudden make a million cars, you need to find ways to sell them too. pic.twitter.com/E6CjNt5KXw
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
97 Let’s start by looking at luxury cars, the polar opposite of the Model T. At the beginning of the century there was a booming industry for bespoke handcrafted cars like this Hispano Suiza ‘Skiff Torpedo’ from 1922. pic.twitter.com/nnzlHT9wiD
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
98 They would have cost an enormous amount to purchase – a true signifier of your wealth. Vogue magazine in the 1920s is full of luxury brands that pivoted to automotive fashion accessories, Hermes driving gloves, LV luggage and so on. pic.twitter.com/o5hKYQeeSw
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
99 The conspicuous display of wealth was so extreme that you would hire the most famous glass maker of the time, René Lalique, to make glass hood ornaments for your car. Here are a few. Not the most practical material for bumpy rides. pic.twitter.com/EFNyok5Ozx
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
100 A whole new subset of ‘motoring fashion’ emerged, specific outfits to wear while driving. Burberry was quick to pick up on this trend. pic.twitter.com/djppkce9nc
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
101 All well and good for the luxury brands, but what if your market was the middle class? You were left with a problem – the Ford Model T was impossible to compete with. This is where General Motors started a revolution.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
102 The CEO Alfred Sloan looked to the Paris fashion system and saw two takeaways: you can motivate people to keep buying new things every year even if you don’t need it. He also saw how high-end fashions were quickly copied by local shops and sold cheaply.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
103 Can you make a cheap car look expensive? Ledyard Towle – a camouflage artist who had previously designed dazzle ship patterns – was asked by Sloan to use the new fast-drying Duco paints to do just that. It led to the first-ever styling dept in a car company. pic.twitter.com/hTxGlnFK6S
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
104 It was called the Art and Colour Section, led by Harley Earl. Earl’s early design for the LaSalle (1927) seen here proved to be a smash hit, bringing the look of a luxury car to a mass market. Other companies adopted styling sections to compete. pic.twitter.com/vjfmdMwdGR
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
105 The film ‘Styling the Motor Car’ (1949) celebrates the department’s achievements. It also has one of the most ridiculous biblical openings ever. https://t.co/EO8F5EaWeL
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
106 The idea that colour variations could help boost sales quickly took hold in other product designs. Kodak hired William Dorwin Teague to revitalize the Brownie camera with the ‘Beau Brownie’. Corona Typewriters came in several different colours using the same Duco paint. pic.twitter.com/VrKn0JtQBr
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
107 The other idea Sloan introduced was the annual model change. The Model T barely changed in its 19 years of production. GM instead made superficial changes every year to their models to accelerate obsolescence. pic.twitter.com/bwXyb65XvS
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
108 These annual models were introduced at the OTT spectacles of Motorama. Here are some of the design boards (1954) as well as rendering of one such show, featuring our old friend the Firebird in the middle. pic.twitter.com/BcLHzJ6Jsd
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
109 Equally ornate films like Design for Dreaming (1956) feat Tad Tadlock – a psychedelic mixture of song, dance, slapstick and promotion – were produced for the events. https://t.co/ZpkOugp5ad
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
110 By the 1950s, the big American automakers realized women were a major force in the buying decisions of a household, and so began to concoct tactics to appeal directly to their tastes.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
111 GM set up its ‘Damsels of Design’ division of women designers charged with creating new interiors for cars (they were not allowed to design the outer body of the car) Several cringe PR material followed. https://t.co/tKp6fU7yS7 pic.twitter.com/xEUg1bDWDe
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
112 One of the ‘damsels’, Suzanne Vanderbilt, was able to build a successful design career at GM, – long after the program had been disbanded – eventually becoming Chief Designer. Here are some of her interior detail renderings. pic.twitter.com/X9jD2DG9gB
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
113 A handful of carmakers attempted to design the ‘ideal woman’s car’. Here, the Dodge La Femme (1955), included several additional accessories like umbrella and compact. The project was dropped in 1957. pic.twitter.com/783NILfgYC
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
114 Of course all of this hyper consumerism through design was reaching a tipping point by the 1960s. DDB’s outrageously successful advertising campaign for Volkswagen openly mocked superficial style – VWs strength was that it never changed. pic.twitter.com/EElyHJANQz
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
115 A more literal critique was Ant Farm’s Media Burn (1975) film, in which a space-age concept car crashes into a flaming pile of TVs. It’s amazingly campy in all the right ways. https://t.co/s3la4eyfNL
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
116 This gets to my favourite bit – subcultures! While the car became this tool for buying into a notion of mainstream consumer society, at the same time, it became a tool for various- often marginalized – groups to express themselves and their own group identity. pic.twitter.com/VMPEPknuBp
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
117 One example is the lowriding community in Los Angeles. This is Tipsy, a modified Chevy Impala that Tomas Vazquez has been working on over the past several years. The paint and metal work is everywhere, even under the chassis and the hood. pic.twitter.com/769uFGH9OI
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
118 Low and slow is the lowriding motto. People used to put sandbags in the trunk to weigh the car down. When police started ticketing these cars, the sandbags were replaced with hydraulic systems like this. And thus the iconic bouncing cars. pic.twitter.com/9j3I7ZXHDd
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
119 We produced several films looking at different subcultures around the world. Here is the film about Tomas and his lowrider: https://t.co/E7oypQQrqG
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
120 Here’s our film about Junichi Tajima, president of Utamarokai, the largest and oldest dekotora association in Japan https://t.co/KKJxVARX3G
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
121 And finally, my favourite film, the incomparable Stacey Lee May in South Africa, introducing us to spinning: https://t.co/wD3Uo0EUnO All films by @Masters_Alice ‘s studio Zuketa https://t.co/wPrLrkQ1cC She is incredible and you should hire her for all your filmmaking needs.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 10, 2020
122 In the final third of the exhibition, we look at how the car shaped the spaces around us. If speed was the initial attraction, and mass-production brought it to everyone, what is now the spatial impact of a 1 billion cars on the planet? pic.twitter.com/gdveRYmS0q
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
123 Let’s start with what literally drove it all: Oil. But did a world of universal automobility necessarily require oil? Three different propulsion systems powered cars 100 years ago: electric, steam, and internal combustion. pic.twitter.com/SFQ4seCqpy
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
124 Why did the internal combustion engine win out? Partly, it was to satisfy people’s urge for long-distance travel, something early car manufacturers were very quick to promote. Take Citroën and la Croisière noire, for example. pic.twitter.com/aQBdD8rfbs
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
125 From 1924-25, the 5-year-old company wanting to make a name for itself sponsored an expedition across Africa, from Algeria to Madagascar using 8 of these ‘autochenilles’. (Note the Louis Vuitton luggage in the back) pic.twitter.com/iRLzBCAP7M
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
126 A film was made, photographs taken, and objects collected along the way, culminating in an exhibition at the Louvre. The message: the car can turn you into an adventurous world explorer. (with some pretty problematic colonial overtones) https://t.co/pGDeXQzO1R
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
127 And in case you wanted that rugged world explorer look, Burberry had you covered with this Puttee Collar Motoring Overall (1900). pic.twitter.com/uspHgabSQU
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
128 But it’s hard to be an explorer without roads – which weren’t always particularly well-adapted to cars. In the 1930s, the tire company Michelin produced this incredible photographic account of road conditions around the world. (Also one of @officemmx ‘s best case designs) pic.twitter.com/cgDoyt6FM4
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
129 By the 1920s, the internal combustion engine was dominant, and oil exploration rapidly accelerated. These two survey maps (1916, 1942) show how interests in the Middle East were shaped around oil. (mixed with archeology – exploration for culture and resources overlapped) pic.twitter.com/AuzSv86Zi3
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
130 And here’s a useful graphic showing, in part, how global wealth and power have been transformed today by the logistics of oil. pic.twitter.com/7wV5oL2y9o
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
131 This drive to extract oil has gone to some pretty drastic extremes. In the 1950s, for example, the US ‘Operation Plowshare’ sought ‘peaceful’ uses of atomic weapons; one such use – nuking the earth to access oil in hard to reach areas. https://t.co/7DegggjQit
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
132 And here’s an example of it almost being put to use, a study for dropping a nuclear bomb on the Oil Sands in Alberta in 1959. (this example taken from the @ccawire ‘s excellent exhibition ‘It’s All Happening So Fast’) pic.twitter.com/fWlahDaSeh
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
133 And here’s another study commissioned by the Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists for potential oil resources in the Arctic in 1960, which again has become hotly contested with the melting of the ice caps (note though the very pleasing circular projection). pic.twitter.com/TbQnLz4wvG
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
134 For the first half of the 20th century though, people were for the most part wholly unaware of the negative consequences of widespread oil consumption. It was seen as a miracle material of sorts, and optimism could be seen everywhere.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
135 For instance, the invention of Nylon by the chemical company Dupont in the 1930s opened up new possibilities for the clothing industry. In the 50s, with advances in plastics, Tupperware became a popular sensation. pic.twitter.com/VwTbbsbf7X
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
136 In 1936, the city of Baku published a tourism campaign which foregrounded their oil infrastructure as the main attraction. (the city is in the background) In 1960, the Soviet graphic artist Viktor Koretsky produced this poster, ‘From oil, we take the needs of our country.’ pic.twitter.com/uPLLvEGByA
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
137 But perhaps the most jaw-droppingly misplaced celebration of oil comes with this 1962 advertisement for Humble Oil published in Life Magazine – equating the power of Humble Oil’s output to the ability to melt glaciers. pic.twitter.com/LhzcwzRAzr
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
138 Meanwhile, optimism for the motor-age was also finding expression in new architectural types. Here’s an indredible design for an Esso service station (1970) from Vittorio De Feo, Fabrizio Aggarbati, Carla Saggioro and Andrea Vigni courtesy of Maxxi. pic.twitter.com/Hgk1YestNc
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
139 For the 1964 World’s Fair, GM offered up a vision of automobiles as machines for more extreme forms of extraction, taking deep into the rainforest, to the bottom of the ocean, Antarctica, and the moon. https://t.co/S0Lp1BJkCL pic.twitter.com/EgCIEQ8nn8
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
140 Today, the entire skyline of Dubai can be considered a visual celebration of the wealth the oil economy has brought to the UAE. This includes the privilege of having the tallest tower in the world, the Adrian Smith-designed Burj Khalifa. pic.twitter.com/7OXmI7uFwl
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
141 The first rumblings of an oil shock came in the 1950s, when prices rose following the Suez Canal Crisis. A spike in gas prices helped make popular – for a very short period – small fuel-efficient ‘bubble cars’, like this Messerschmitt KR200 (1959) pic.twitter.com/bDw3jnql2E
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
142 Companies were also thinking of different fuel sources in their concept cars. Here’s a model of the Ford Nucleon (1957). Designers imagined that one day, the technology of a nuclear reactor could be shrunk to the size of a car boot. pic.twitter.com/BpAmtr8RN3
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
143 But the real public awakening to the damages of our dependence on oil, came in the 1970s, partly with the two oil shocks in 1973 and 79. With gas shortages across the Western world, US President Carter gave this remarkable address: https://t.co/TG7kS54tCs
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
144 It was also the time of a bourgeoning environmental movement. Above you can see the poster to the first-ever Earth Day in 1970 by Robert Leydenfrost. pic.twitter.com/4fuOENgRvn
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
145 Today, those concerns from the 1970s are being echoed with even greater urgency and anxiety. This is one of the most effective demonstrations of that urgency represented in temperature anomalies per counrty across the century. https://t.co/qyMPIrEJTm
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
146 In this room we also commissioned three films which slowly pan across different landscapes affected by cars – a spaghetti junction in Tokyo, oil fields in Bakersfield, and lithium fields in Chile, crucial for the production of electric cars. (It’s very large slow TV) pic.twitter.com/4NV2lLE7L1
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 12, 2020
147 Another remarkable fate of the automobile is that its emergence is concurrent with the rise of nation-states. The car (and various car brands) not only helped form the image of a nation, but were explicitly used as tools for nation-building. pic.twitter.com/hZwpnArfru
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
148 One way was through the construction of an infrastructure to serve the automobile – a comprehensive network of motorways. Road infrastructure adapted to the specific needs of the automobile was sorely missing until the 1920s. pic.twitter.com/5BoCxpKTAE
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
149 The Italian engineer Piero Puricelli was an early advocate of such infrastructure, and was responsible for building the first motorways in the world, including the very first in 1922, connecting Milan to Lake Como and Lake Maggiore. pic.twitter.com/a4WAzN2dXj
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
150 The key to his success? Making the easy sell to the rich and powerful of Milan that wouldn’t it be great to have a super-fast road connecting their urban residences to their extravagant second homes in the lake district. pic.twitter.com/Y0s5vYza4l
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
151 Puricelli was a fierce advocate for motorways, spreading his gospel across Europe. Motorway construction in the 20s in Italy was relatively slow compared to Germany who accelerated the production of motorways in the 30s.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
151 Partly as a make-work project, partly as a scheme to motorize the nation, the Nazi-regime’s Reichsautobahnen programme managed the construction of 5,000 kilometres of motorway in the 1930s. pic.twitter.com/8pDlM8NZNO
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
152 America was relatively late to planning a comprehensive national motorway system. Here’s the hand of Roosevelt in 1933 plotting out where he thought the highways should go. A true interstate system didn’t arrive until the 50s. pic.twitter.com/rTtFqhPEhz
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
153 In Yugoslavia after WWII Tito sought to connect the different federal states through his Brotherhood and Unity Highway. In 1950, the first stretch between Zagreb and Belgrade was opened. pic.twitter.com/2oUpEQal51
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
154 What did all this road building look like? We worked with @studiofolder to produce a visualization of motorway growth in Europe across 100 years. You can see it here: https://t.co/W1suKDo64c
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
155 Many national leaders also sought to strengthen their respective automobile industries. In 1934 Hitler hired Ferdinand Porsche to design a people’s car (Volkswagen) for Germany, with the first prototypes completed in 1935. pic.twitter.com/HSxRQpgl8g
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
156 He was emboldened that this could work due to the early success of another state project – a cheap affordable people’s radio (the Volksempfänger) which handily brought Nazi propaganda into the households of millions. pic.twitter.com/HTFLnGhgrz
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
157 The car was part of the Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) division, which promoted leisure activities. It was promoted as a tool to get people out of cities (full of sin and vice) and into the countryside, to experience a purer expression of the so-called Vaterland. pic.twitter.com/z2mDlTp9UE
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
158 None of that transpired. Before the car went into serious production, the war broke out and the factory in Wolfsburg was retooled to make military equipment. Curiously, it was eventually the British who played a role in aiding VWs post-war rebirth.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
159 In 1945, the British army re-started the factory to make cars for their officers to get around. Unable to find any British companies interested in the car, in 1949 the factory was handed back to German-ownership and the VW became a global success. pic.twitter.com/iWbnNvQdCN
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
160 The car was also closely tied up with the image of a country’s top cultural sights and destinations. The car was a way to get you to go see and enjoy your country’s heritage. This advertising campaign by Shell (1931) played on that idea. pic.twitter.com/6vt46ucnOh
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
161 Michelin were the first to exploit this idea. In 1900, they invented the Michelin Guide – a tool for touring France with your car. They printed 30,000 copies at a time when only 3000 cars existed in France, trying to spur demand through the invention of the road trip. pic.twitter.com/BpqhSjIsvn
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
162 With the economic miracle in Europe following WWII, millions of people could now afford a car and go on holidays. Fiat responded with the first ever mini-van, the 600 Multipla (1956), so you could pack in your whole family for a road trip. pic.twitter.com/2Zy30inXg7
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
163 This was paired with the emergence of futuristic road-side architecture like the Italian Autogrills, which allowed you to take in the spectacle of the motorway (on top of it!), like this one at Limona-Padova designed by Pier Luigi Nervi (1961) pic.twitter.com/ktLDB6MVv8
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
164 In the 1960s, the Shah of Iran aimed to modernize the nation in part through motorisation. The upstart company Iran National struck a deal with Rootes to ship knock-down kits of their Hillman Hunter to Iran, rebadged as Paykan. pic.twitter.com/p9EEELWej1
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
165 Paykans were cheap and affordable and quickly dominated the streets of Iran. To mark its 3rd birthday, in 1970 a TV ad was produced, directed by Kamran Shirdel featuring happy couples singing and dancing around a birthday cake. pic.twitter.com/fU6EzJfKbV
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
166 Not wanting to sing the American ‘happy birthday’ song, they hired Anoushiravan Rohani to compose a new Farsi-language song – which amazingly has gone on to be the standard birthday song in Iran. pic.twitter.com/RjVHeKO80l
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
167 While cars are so often potent symbols of national images, they were also complex global objects. The Paykan is a good example, a British model repackaged for an Iranian audience and later bought out by Chrysler (US) and then Peugeot (FR). pic.twitter.com/0nzisU9GAQ
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
168 The entire history of the automobile is one of increasing globalized and interconnected ownership and production. This chart does a good job at showing the progression from 100s of independent workshops to a handful of multinationals. https://t.co/7qz8QQg7KI pic.twitter.com/6lvLggDof6
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
169 Conclusions are some of the trickiest things to do in an exhibition (and threads!). But for us, it was important to somehow synthesize what the history of the car can tell us about what the future challenges will be. pic.twitter.com/OH5yXAaaPb
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
170 We worked with Luke Halls Studio to produce four short 1-minute films, which each explore through lots of found-footage, how the car offered an initial promise, an unintended consequence, and now new challenges to overcome – a cycle of design.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
171 In the foreground is the Pop.Up Next, a car designed by Italdesign which neatly sums up the four major strands of future design thinking in cars – it’s 1. Electric 2. Autonomous 3. Rented, not Owned and 4. Flying. (ok the flying bit won’t likely happen) pic.twitter.com/ZlZiPsPtLE
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
Here’s film 1: The promise of the open road. pic.twitter.com/lqBvW4Kyz7
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
Here’s film 2: the promise of speed. pic.twitter.com/Llo0H4Zt2w
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
Here’s film 3: the promise of mass-production. pic.twitter.com/PBiy3365YN
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
And finally, last one, film 4: the promise of oil. pic.twitter.com/dcfBBpzjg0
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
176 – And there you go, that’s the thread! If you’ve read this far and are curious, that’s 6500+ words – so now we know: an exhibition is roughly equivalent to a ‘long read’ when you write it all down. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it! Stay home if you can and stay safe.
— Brendan Cormier (@BrendanCormier) April 13, 2020
Exhibition Credits
Curators: Brendan Cormier and Lizzie Bisley
Assistant Curator: Esme Hawes
Exhibition design: OMMX
Organized by: Victoria and Albert Museum
Supported by: Bosch Group
Dates: November 23, 2019–April 19, 2020
Brendan Cormier is a Senior Design Curator at the V&A and co-curator of Cars: Accelerating the Modern World. From 2014 to 2017 he was the lead curator of the V&A Gallery at Design Society in Shenzhen, China. In 2016 he curated the first Pavilion of Applied Arts at the Venice Biennale, with an exhibition called A World of Fragile Parts. Prior to working at the V&A, he was managing editor of Volume magazine.
www.cargocollective.com/brendancormier | @BrendanCormier
Tags: 2020, BRENDAN CORMIER, CAR, DESIGN, EXHIBITION, LONDON, OBSERVATIONS, V&A, VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM
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