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).