The year is 2020, and as in any round-number year, we tend to envision what our society will look like in the future, whether it be in a decade or in a century. But it’s also a time to look back into the past to see what our predecessors believed their future and our present would unveil.
Home services website Angie’s List took a dive into the past and uncovered a half-dozen visions of what futurists from throughout the 20th century imagined homes and apartments of the future would look like. Ranging from a century-old vision of a modern-day boudoir to a truly 1980s “back to the future” take on the family bathroom, these vintage illustrations have been reimagined in brand new modernized images.
Kitchen of the future (1963)
Source: Angie’s List via Popular Mechanics
Over the years, Popular Mechanics magazine imagined what the future would look like many times. In early 1963, as America reveled in JFK’s Camelot, the space age was dawning and shows like “The Jetsons” were giving us a glimpse into the home life of the future. The magazine (in an article sponsored by Frigidaire, of course) took some of that Jetsons’ automated magic and created a futuristic kitchen Rosie the Robot would be proud of.
Popular Mechanics’ vision included a glass-domed countertop oven, a self-cooking induction-heated range seamlessly integrated into the marble, a built-in space-saving infinity sink and a half-cylindrical refrigerator with revolving shelves (which could be loaded from the outside or inside) with matching Lazy Susan-inspired dry good storage above.
The original article goes on to predict disposable plastic plates that disintegrate under hot water, an ultrasonic wave dishwasher and a “hands-free, distant-talking TV telephone” with memory that could hold up to 50 numbers and could be used to start your oven or open the windows remotely. Very prescient.
Bedroom of the future (1969)
Source: Angie’s List via Daily Icon
In 1969, at the height of hippie chic and as Americans were blasting off to the moon, Italian interior designer Joe Columbo introduced a vision of the future as the world approached a new decade. His retro-futuristic concept home known as Wohnmodell (German for “residential model”), unveiled at the Visiona 1 conference in Cologne, featured rooms like the kitchen box, central living and this, the night cell master bedroom pod, seen on the left side of the image above.
The futuristic sleeping habitat, separated from the open floor plan apartment via automated accordion walls, looks right out of “Logan’s Run” or “The Andromeda Strain.” The pod-style room features a cylindrical king-sized bed with an at-your-fingertips control panel, integrated radio, telephone and (it was 1969 after all) a cigarette lighter. Rotating television screens hang from the ceiling and are ringed with removable reading lamps. The night cell is individually climate-controlled and made from space-age materials. The master bedroom also offers a sphere-like closet wardrobe and a gadget-filled compact master bath.
Bathroom of the future (1989)
Source: Angie’s List via The Mary Sue
While the 1985 blockbuster sequel “Back To The Future II’s” cartoonish vision of a fictional 2015 is best remembered for hoverboards and self-tying shoes, Robert Zemeckis’ film featured a slew of future tech like flying cars, drone dog-walkers, mind-controlled video games, dehydrated pizzas and, of course, Mr. Fusion. But when future consultant Tim Flattery and concept artist Edward Eyth teamed up to design the movie’s 21st-century cinemascape, there was much that never made it past the sketch pad.
“We were highly motivated to make it so we didn’t look like fools in 25 years,” explains “Back To The Future II” concept artist Edward Eyth.
One of the most interesting ideas within that unused concept art is a giant open-spaced futuristic McFly family bathroom full of gadgetry and automation. The toilet was central to the room, isolated in the center making privacy an issue.
Hygiene was fundamental in BTTF’s future, as items like toothbrushes and combs were housed on antiseptic trays and cleaned with laser lights, used towels were stored on a sanitizing wall and showers were replaced with horizontal “bio-cleanse environments” that conserved by using steam sprays and “sani-ray” lights instead of water. The bathroom also features a touchscreen “Family Diagnostic and Medical Treatment Center” terminal that offers a full-body medical issue scan.
Living room of the future (1950)
Source: Angie’s List via Modern Mechanix
In February of 1950, Popular Mechanics — celebrating the mid-century — published an article entitled “Miracles You’ll See in the Next Fifty Years,” written by science author and museum director Waldemar Kaempffert. The futurist imagined that “housewives” of the year 2000 would see a marked improvement in the ease of cleaning the house. “When Jane Dobson cleans house,” he writes, “she simply turns the hose on everything.”
In this vision, the entire living room — all furniture, upholstery, drapes, rugs and even scratch-resistant floors — would be made of a new synthetic fabric or some waterproof plastic made from “inexpensive raw materials such as cottonseed hulls, oat hulls, Jerusalem artichokes, fruit pits, soybeans, bagasse, straw and wood pulp.”
But it wasn’t just about hosing down patio furniture. The water in the hose (coming from some unknown source) also contains dirt-dissolving detergent. The runoff simply drains down a hole in the floor, no worry, no mess. The room is magically then dried with “a blast of hot air.”
Den of the future (1977)
Source: Angie’s List via Le Galion Des Etoiles
Some apartments out there on the market have some pretty cool and unique features. But if you’re looking for a swimming pool, arcade and a tropical indoor forest all-in-one in your next rental, look no further than science fiction paperback cover art illustrator and architectural designer Paul Alexander who imagined this intense den for his 1977 “Future Home” series.
In this retro-future Poconos resort/Biff Tannen penthouse, Alexander created a next-level game room that focused around a marble-inlaid swimming pool with swim-up semi-submerged pinball machines. Overlooking the pool is a large elevated circular futon couch perched above an indoor lake in a rocky mountain garden setting. And towering over it all is a monstrous multimedia entertainment station with gaming screens, TV monitors and a MIDI keyboard.
Walk-in closet of the future (1900)
Source: Angie’s List via Public Domain Review
Way back in 1900, French artists, including Jean-Marc Côté, created a series of paintings of their vision of what life would be like a century later in 2000. The images were to be enclosed in cigar boxes like baseball cards and sold at the 1900 World Exposition in Paris. Economic issues prevented the distribution from happening and the postcards never saw the light of day until a set was discovered by Isaac Asimov, who published them in a 1986 book entitled “Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000.”
In one of the images, a very turn-of-the-century mademoiselle is grooming for the day in this steampunk-style automated dressing room. The brass and teak vanity features a contraption of articulated levers, keys and anxiety-inducing mechanical arms with automated combs and brushes that would apply makeup and style your hair while you sat and relaxed on a fainting couch or barrel-back chair without having to lift a finger. The unit’s control panel is right out of a Sean Connery-era “James Bond” film, a series of buttons and knobs and dials with programmed looks stored on reel-to-reel magnetic tape.
The future today
As you consider modernizing or remodeling your apartment, why not hearken back to the apartments of the future our forerunners imagined our living spaces would look like today. A bio-cleanse bath or waterproof couch would look simply amazing in your two-bedroom rental.
