The home of the future, similar to the

office of the future The office of the future is a concept dating from the 1940s. It is also known as the "paperless office". Memex desk and related machines The first practical office of the future concept was probably the series of machines which were presented in ...

, is a concept that has been popular to explore since the early 20th century, or perhaps earlier. There have been many exhibits, such as at

World's Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

s and

theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

s, purporting to show how future homes will look and work, as well as standalone model "homes of the future" sponsored by builders, developers or technology companies. After a few years, each successive version of such an exhibit will start to look dated and old-fashioned, with some of its "futuristic" things becoming commonplace and others never catching on at all. The film ''

Design for Dreaming ''Design for Dreaming'' is a 1956 industrial short or sponsored film produced to accompany the General Motors Motorama show that year. A ballet with voiceover dialogue, it features a woman (danced by Tad Tadlock and voiced by Marjorie Gordon) ...

'' (1956) shows a

Frigidaire Frigidaire Appliance Company is the American consumer and commercial home appliances brand subsidiary of multinational company Electrolux. Frigidaire was founded as the Guardian Frigerator Company in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and developed the first s ...

"Kitchen of the Future"—part of the 1956

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

Motorama The General Motors Motorama was an auto show staged by GM from 1949 to 1961. These automobile extravaganzas were designed to whet public appetite and boost automobile sales with displays of fancy concept cars and other special or halo models. Mo ...

—which features centralized controls and a "computer screen" showing a completed recipe. General Motors also presented '' A Touch of Magic'' (1961), which also showed a Frigidaire kitchen of the future. In the 1960s and 1970s, such exhibits usually included

videophone Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...

s. While such technology has actually existed since the 1960s and has been developed and improved since, many new mobile phones can now make video calls and use of a home web camera on an

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

client and sending of pictures via cell-phone cameras has become prevalent. Other common features of "home of the future" exhibits include centralized and automated control of all appliances, and the use of voice commands to operate devices. Since the 1980s,

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

technology has figured heavily in the design of these homes. The

Monsanto House of the Future The Monsanto House of the Future was an attraction at Disneyland's Tomorrowland in Anaheim, California, USA, from 1957 to 1967. It offered a tour of a futuristic home, and was intended to demonstrate the versatility of modern plastics. Histor ...

, a house made entirely of plastics in

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney in ...

from 1957 to 1967, was a famous example in this genre.

Notes and references

External links

IBM podcast on the future of the home

Touring the home of the future (Wired)

Free legal download of ''Design for Dreaming'' at Internet Archive

Free legal download of ''A Touch of Magic'' at Internet Archive
Futures projects {{future-stub

See also

Notes and references

External links