University of Texas at Austin

Maurice Goldberg (b. Russia, 1881-1949)
Upholstered chair for J. Walter Thompson Assembly Room
Ca. 1930
Gelatin silver print

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Norman Bel Geddes Database

Job 133, J. Walter Thompson Assembly Room, 1928-1947

Summary: In 1928, Bel Geddes designed a two-story conference room and presentation hall for the offices of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in Manhattan, where sleek walls hid all of the messy accoutrements of business to create a stage set of streamlined corporate efficiency.

Geddes’s goal was to create a room “machine-like in its efficiency, in its ability to help its occupant get through his day’s work with a minimum of interference and distraction.”

Geddes’s work for the ad agency led to many other commissions from its clients. One of the most far-reaching of these commissions was the Shell Oil “City of the Future” ad campaign (job 356).


(click image for description)

Box/Location Folder Description
box 6 133.1 Contract Jun1928. Letter rec. Apr1947.
box 7 133.2 Record Copy photograph captions.
box 7 133.3 1 Photostat.
box 7 133.4 Record Copy Book labels (photos separated).
photo box 1a 133.1 Publicity --- Ca. 90 photographs of room.
photo box 1a 133.2a-b Publicity --- Ca. 90 photographs of room (continued).
photo box 2 133.3 Publicity --- Ca. 90 photographs of room (continued).
box 7 133.5 Negative envelope (negative separated).
negative box 1 133.1 15 Negatives. [1 damaged]
flat file 133.1 Drawings --- 3 plans and 3 detail sketches; working drawing.
oversize box 3 133.1 Publicity --- Offprints of articles reproducing designs not represented among originals (1929, n.d.); Horizons (1932).

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