If you’re interested in seeing how people perceived the scientific revolutions that surrounded them during the Cold War, this blog might be of some interest to you. It’s a great collection of commercial sf artwork (movie posters, book covers, etc.) and documents of space-age era interior design, technology, and aesthetics. I think the whole thing strikes a really interesting balance between comfortably nostalgic and genuinely unnerving.
LINK! –> https://thevaultoftheatomicspaceage.tumblr.com/ <– LINK!
Love this stuff! Where we stand now, we can look back at this and call it “past-futurism” or “retro-futurism,” although that is a a somewhat confusing term, as “retro-futurism” can also apply to current futuristic visions that hark back to early ones. A term linked with much of the “atomic age” or “space age” design (especially architecture and commercial design) in California and out west (north and south), is “googie”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googie_architecture#:~:text=Googie%20architecture%20(%2F%CB%88%C9%A1u%CB%90,Age%2C%20and%20the%20Atomic%20Age.&text=Features%20of%20Googie%20include%20upswept,of%20glass%2C%20steel%20and%20neon.
Hey Alan,
The “space-age” design is something that was super interesting to me when I was growing up. Whenever my family would go to Nevada (living in California at the time) we would pass houses similar to the picture you provided. I also got the chance to visit Roswell, NM this past summer because my girlfriend lived there, and it was really cool to see this fantasy of science-fiction incorporated into these houses! I really enjoyed this post! Good job!