The development of a characteristic style

In the pioneering age of air travel, the interiors of passenger planes often emulated other means of transportation like the boat or train, or even, as in the Dornier Do X airboat, the domestic atmosphere of a living room. But due to technical progress, increasing professionalism, and the rapid growth of international air travel, the passenger cabins of the aeroplanes began to develop their own characteristic style. A number of prominent industrial designers played a key role in this development, including Norman Bel Geddes, Henry Dreyfuss, Walter Dorwin Teague, and Raymond Loewy. The exhibits document their work for aeroplane manufacturers and airlines with more than a dozen models of the most important aeroplanes, hundreds of archival photographs and historical film material, spanning from Norman Bel Geddes' visionary Airliner N° 4 (1929) - a gigantic aeroplane with its own concert hall, tennis fields, and a solarium - through the Junkers Ju-52, the Douglas DC3, the Boeing B377 Stratocruiser, the Jumbo Jet and the Concorde, up to a current study of a so-called Blended Wing Body (2003), which is intended to seat almost 1000 passengers. Original aeroplane seats from the museum's own collection also show how passenger accommodations have changed during the history of air travel: from the wicker seating of the Ford Tri-Motor, through seats made of aluminium and magnesium pipes, the first upholstering with foam rubber and plastic shell seats, up to the present-day high-tech seats for first class passengers.

Corporate Design at the beginning of the jet age

The beginning of the jet age around 1960 was not only decisive in a technological and economical sense, but also in terms of design: for the passenger cabin of the Boeing 707, Teague created in collaboration with the manufacturer new design standards such as passenger service units with integrated lighting and fresh air vents that are still partially in use. In addition, the arrival of the first jets and the consequent expansion of flight networks awakened the desire for the first time to invest in a comprehensive corporate design. In this they were among the first businesses to hire prominent designers to develop a unified corporate image. Thus, Otl Aicher and the Entwicklungsgruppe 5 at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm developed the clear and 'objective' Lufthansa image in 1962. In the same year FHK Henrion gave KLM a "new look," and in 1965 the American designer Alexander Girard created the extravagant corporate design of Braniff International. Some trademarks of international airlines from the early days of flight are still in use and known across the world, but the architects, designers and graphic artists responsible for these designs - like Otto Firle (the Lufthansa crane, 1919), Rudolf Bircher (the Swissair arrow. 1952), or Charles Forberg and Edward L. Barnes (the Pan Am globe, 1955) - are now almost entirely unknown. Airlines today still continue to use the services of prominent designers when they seek to give their image a more contemporary look: the new Swiss International Airlines entrusted Tyler Brûlé with the job (2001), and SAS recently developed a new look with Stockholm Design Lab (1998).

Flight attendant uniforms as part of the public image

In addition to airline interiors and graphics, flight attendant uniforms form a further important contribution to the public image of an airline. If flight attendants in the 1930s and 1940s usually wore military inspired outfits or white - after all, they were then usually trained nurses - in the 1960s and 1970s they were often outfitted by prominent fashion houses: Emilio Pucci designed the uniforms for Braniff International, Dior for SAS, Balenciaga for Air France, and Valentino and Ralph Lauren for TWA. Their extraordinary creations often had hardly anything to do with a uniform. Even if they are now dressed in a more scaled back and conservative way, flight attendants have remained the most important part of an airline's public image.

One of their main tasks is on-board service. The development of on-board cutlery and plates represented a special challenge for industrial designers, and is an example for the difficulty of any kind of design in the narrow space of the aeroplane cabin, where every millimetre and every gram count. From the economy class plastic to first class china, the exhibition shows all the on-board utensils of Lufthansa from 1955 to today, including designs by Wilhelm Wagenfeld (1955), Nick Roericht (1962), and Wolf Karnagel (1984).

Logistic challenges of airport construction

'Faster, higher, farther' was the motto in the fierce competition of the airlines and aeroplane manufacturers, which into the 1970s brought ever larger planes capable of higher speeds and longer distances onto the market. Airport construction was often unable to keep up with these developments, but all the same, good airport architecture could give a sense of the special attraction of flying, even enhance it. One of the most excellent airport constructions in doing this is Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal at JFK Airport in New York (1956- 1962), with its organic shape of reinforced concrete, and his John Foster Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C. (1958-1962). Using architectural models, plans, and sketches, the exhibition shows these and other masterful achievements of airport architecture, for example Paul Andreus' Paris airport Charles de Gaulle Roissy (1967-2003). The selected projects also represent the various basic types of airports that were developed to fill the growing complex logistical requirements and to secure a smooth flow of passengers, luggage, and cargo. Transparency and ease of passenger orientation, as embodied by Norman Foster's Stansted Airport (1991), are major criteria of successful airport design.

The exhibition

Airworld - Design and Architecture for Air Travel celebrates the aesthetic of the golden age of air travel, a time when flying still retained something of the attraction of the unusual. The exhibition also presents some convincing and visionary projects of today. The catalogue in both English and German versions has approximately 250 pages and more than 400 illustrations - and it fits in your carry-on luggage. The nine essays focus on topics like the history of air cabin design, the corporate design of airlines, uniform fashion, the graphics of air travel posters, and the significant role that aviation played as a inspiration for architecture, design, and art up to the present day.