In its second design collaboration with Angie’s List, UK-based creative studio NeoMam Studios has reimagined six forward-looking “rooms of the future” from the 1950s, 60s, and 1900s as modern interior design renderings.
While not all of these visions have come to pass in the 21st century, the concepts below provide a look at what could have been. Click through in the descriptions to see the original illustrations – and compare and contrast what you see in the industry today.
1. Living Room, 1950s
In “Miracles You’ll See in the Next Fifty Years”, published in Popular Mechanics in February 1950, Waldemar Kaempffert wrote that “the housewife” of the year 2000 would be able to use a hose to clean her furniture, as everything would be made of waterproof plastic or fabric. The water would run down a drain in the middle of the floor – usually concealed by a synthetic-fiber rug – and she would dry the room with a blast of hot air.
(For examples of early 2000s home design trends, take a look at the 2003 and 2004 Custom Home Design Awards.)
2. Kitchen, 1960s
Frigidaire’s 1963 “kitchen of the future” concept includes a cylindrical refrigerator with rotating shelves, which could be loaded from the indoors or outdoors. The glass-dome oven could be started using a “distant-talking TV telephone” – a forerunner of the Internet of Things. A section of the marble countertop serves as an induction heating surface.
3. Bedroom, 1960s
The “Wohnmodell 1969”, a retro-futuristic home concept by Italian designer Joe Colombo, envisions an open floor plan space with a “Kitchen-Box”, “Central-Living” entertainment area, and “Night Cell” sleeping pod.
Colombo modeled the concept at the Visiona 1 show in Cologne, Germany in 1969 – original footage of the display is available here.
4. Games Room, 1970s
The “Future Home” illustrations by sci-fi illustrator Paul Alexander included a lavish game room with a futuristic circular couch, multimedia entertainment station, interior landscaping and a pool with “swim up” game consoles.
5. Bathroom, 1980s
Based on unused concept art for Back to the Future II by future consultant Tim Flattery and concept artist Edward Eyth, this expansive bathroom of 2015 features antiseptic trays that clean toothbrushes with laser light, “sanitation chambers” that clean with steam sprays and “sani-ray” lasers, and a “family diagnosis and medical treatment center” terminal. (Compare and contrast some of BUILDER’s kitchen and bath trends of 2015.)
6. Dressing Room, 1900s
“Madame at Her Toilette”, one of a series of picture cards by Jean-Marc Côté that envisioned life in the year 2000, predicts a dressing room/vanity center with beauty accessories operated by a series of mechanical arms, levers, and keys.
