Raymond Loewy 3

By the late 40's Loewy employed over 140 people and ran a giant design firm executing designs for major clients across the country. In 1949 Loewy appeared on the cover of Time magazine, he was a culture hero. Above is his redesign ( and streamlining ) of the Coca-Cola bottle, and below the machine from which it was sold. Those rounded shoulders showed up on refrigerators and lots of other things in that era. Loewy's designs were often a "treatment" they all have a lot in common, the rounded off corners and the bulked up all steel look. This stuff was built to last and it was of high quality, little built today is made as well.

Here is a happy housewife in an all steel kitchen, I had these cabinets in apartments. Never had her in my apartment though. Think she was a friend of my mom's. I wish she'd put her arms down.

Below is one of the many radios that Loewy designed, this one is an Emerson. You could listen to Monitor radio, or maybe Clyde Clifford doing Beaker street out of Little Rock.

Here is a toaster, wish I had that. That black plastic handle and its base were made of Bakelite
( polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride) an early thermosetting plastic that is little used today. I think someday soon I may do a post called, "Great Plastics of the Past".


I did have this refrigerator. In the 70's this stuff moved into the apartments I rented. These refrigerators ran for ever, this one is still running , maybe in a landfill somewhere .


Tomorrow night, the final post on Ray, cars! Here comes the Avanti!