Sphere Factor: Atomic Geometry in Design

- Prasad Boradkar, Arizona State University

On December 6th, 1941, President products, film, pulp and science fiction,
Roosevelt decided to provide the as well as music.
financial and technological support
necessary for the construction of an
atomic bomb. Roughly two decades
later, on August 5th, 1963, President
Kennedy signed the “Treaty Banning
Nuclear Weapon Tests in the
Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under
Water” for the United States of
America, along with the Soviet Union
and Great Britain. The Atomic Age
includes these two significant events
and connects the two rather dissimilar
times in the US; the forties, a decade
ravaged by the images of a mindless, Diagrammatic Representation of the atom
horrifying war, and the fifties, a decade
of unabashed materialism. A time full of Physical models of molecular and
fear as well as promise for a better atomic structures, often represented as
future, the atomic age expressed a spheres connected with cylindrical rods
polarity in more ways than one. The used in science class and research
innocuous, invisible atom could unleash laboratories, became inspirations for
furious destruction as witnessed in architecture. The most literal translation
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it could of this was the Atomium designed by
also be reined in to supply inexpensive André Waterkeyn and built for the
electrical power to fulfill each and every World’s Fair in Belgium in 1958. Now at
American dream. It was at once the Heysel Park in Brussels, this 335 feet
threatening and tempting. tall building mimics the structure of the
iron crystal in an exaggerated scale with
As is often observed when novel nine spheres and connecting tunnels
technologies arise, this new nuclear between them. Designed to portray
power was explained as something that “scientific progress” and “world
would create a world “in which there is peace,” this building may be seen as a
no disease, food never rots and crops signifier of the techno-optimism of this
never spoil… where dirt is an old age.
fashioned word and routine household
tasks are just a matter of pushing a few
buttons.”1 Perhaps because of the
power it possessed, the scientific notion
of the atom was highly politicized,
advertised, commoditized, and
domesticated. Though abstract and
invisible, it entered the public realm and
assumed material form in artistic and
popular expression. The symbol of the
atom, a nucleus encircled by vigorously
spinning electrons, became a metaphor
for scientific progress as well as Atomium, Brussels, 1958
technological superiority, and started
appearing in art, architecture, graphics,
Apart from architecture, countless
examples of graphics and products,
such as the Ball Wall Clock done by
Irwin Harper for George Nelson’s office
or the Zelda wallpaper designed by Els
Calvetti for John Line. Initially derived
from an illustration done during the
design process of six lines intersecting
at one point to represent the
measurement of time, the Ball Wall
Clock designed in 1947 looks uncannily
like electrons revolving around a
nucleus, and has been described as an
object that has “spokes with spherical
terminals.”2 Similarly, the graphics for
Zelda are based upon the geometry of
hexagons, circles, and lines seen in
visual representations of atoms and
molecules.
Ball Clock, George Nelson
Just as the government campaigned to
promote acceptability of the atom,
technology was used as a means of
selling household products. Everything
from cars to cooking ranges was
advertised with techno-jargon. Though
this form of visual exploitation of
prevalent and progressive technological
icons is not unusual in advertising, it
seems particularly tactless in light of the
demonstrated destructive power of
atomic energy. The ball-and-stick
structure, as well as the use of metal
and painted wood seen in the Ball Wall
Clock can been compared to sculptor
Alexander Calder’s work. “An
underlying sense of form in my work has
been the system of the universe,”3 said
Calder, referring to the patterns and
forms of his wallpapers and mobiles.
Atomic structure is analogous to
planetary structure. The obsession with
the microcosmic world of the atom was
paralleled with an immense interest in
venturing into macrocosm, the
unexplored and unmapped outer space.
Political power was expressed through
nuclear domination, technological
superiority, and control of space. In the
late fifties, the Soviets and the
Americans launched satellites in quick
succession, made plans to send beast
and man to the moon, and started the
space race. With no air drag to worry
about, these satellites hovering over
earth did not need teardrop profiles or
tailfins. They could have essentially
taken on any form, but the initial ones
were spherical, evoking the formal
vocabulary of the atom.
Sputnik I
The Constellation, a spherical vacuum
cleaner designed by Hoover
successfully exploited the idea of
spatial/atomic metaphors, as did a host
of other products, such as Ray and
Charles Eames’ Hang-it-All as well as
Richard Neagle’s The Bamboozler.
Hoover Constellation

Ray and Charles Eames, Hang-It-All
Interestingly, the Constellation featured
as a pop icon in Richard Hamilton’s
collage/painting from 1956, Just What
Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So
Appealing? In Hamilton’s living room,
this vacuum cleaner is one of many
iconic objects that make a commentary
on consumption in the fifties,
proliferation of electronic gadgets and a
popular obsession with space.
Hamilton, Just What is it that Makes Today’s
Homes So Appealing?
The fascination in American minds with
the atom, space, science and
technology can be explained as
“commodity scientism,”4 a term coined
by Michael Smith, and defined as
people’s faith in the overwhelming
qualities and rewards of science and
technology. On products, no other
device promised the ease, magic,
instant reward and hidden power of
technology better than the push
button.5
Banks of these switches started
appearing on stove tops, television sets,
cars (the Edsel had them on the
steering wheel) and other appliances,
promising sophisticated and detached
convenience. The push button too was
not without its polarity. Though it
signified control over the appliance, it
also meant that once pushed, the
device took over, defiantly exercising its
own control. This simple mechanical
device, still seen on some washing
machines and blenders, became a
potent symbol of progress.
Sometimes, these appliances that had
flooded homes would appear in music.
In a track called You’re The Top, a Cole
Porter song, Dean Elliott and His Big
Band created music capturing the aural
landscape of the kitchen. Whirring
blenders and ringing telephones
provide electro-mechanical backup to
the horn section. Cataloged as “space
age pop” or “bachelor pad” music,
these albums from the atomic age
exploited some of the technological
advances made during the fifties, such
as Columbia’s 1948 invention of long
playing records (LPs) which promised
high fidelity, and stereophonic sound,
first introduced in 1956. In Juan Garcia
Esquivel’s Latin-Esque, sound pans from
left to right speaker and back in an
effort to create “movement so real, your
eyes will follow the sound.”6 Needless
to say, the front cover of the recently
released CD features a diagrammatic
representation of electrons spinning in
their elliptical orbits.
Esquivel, Space Age Bachelor Pad Music
This is “mood music,” to be played by
swinging bachelors on their fancy hi-fis
while mixing cocktails for their dates.
Album covers often presented dark,
fantastic moonscapes and had titles
such as Man in Space with Sounds and
Countdown!
Man in Space with Sounds
A track from Music out of the Moon
(which was incidentally the first color LP
cover) called Lunar Rhapsody, is an
eerie, haunting song composed by
Harry Revel and arranged by Les Baxter
that evokes a sense of the large vacuity
of space.
Music Out of the Moon
In Powers of Ten, the extraordinary film
directed by Ray and Charles Eames, the
space within the atom and the space in
our universe are elegantly compared as
being equally quiet and still.
There were some direct musical
references in music to the atomic age in
song titles like Uranium by the
Commodores and Atomic Power by the
Buchanan Brothers. Metaphorical
references to nuclear chemistry are seen
in the lyrics of Atom Baby Atom, a song
by the Five Stars.
Atom bomb baby, boy she can start
One of those chain reactions in my heart.
A big explosion, big and loud,
Mushrooms me right up on a cloud.7
In his book Profane Culture, Paul Willis
sees “cultural experience essentially as
shared material experience.”8 Cultural
experience involves interaction with
everyday life and the objects one
encounters within it. Big changes affect
small things. The tiny atom, with its
hidden energy, its political power, its
scientific signature, and the propaganda
around it formed the nucleus of an
ambivalent worldwide experience. And,
as Charles Dickens has said before, this
was indeed the best of times and the
worst of times…
1
Harold E. Stassen, “Atoms for Peace,” in
Ladies Home Journal, August 1945, cited
in Timothy D. Taylor “Strange Sounds:
 Music, Technology, & Culture,” (New
York: Routledge, 2001), 73.
2
Martin Eidelberg, Design 1935- 1965:
What Modern Was, (New York: Harry N.
Abrams Inc., 1991), 255
3
Ibid., 242
4
Michael L. Smith “Selling the Moon: The
U.S. Manned Space Program and the
Triumph of Commodity Scientism,” in The
Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in
American History, 1880-1980, ed. Richard
Wightman Foz and T.J. Jackson Lears
(New York: Pantheon, 1982)
5
See Thomas Hine, Populuxe: From Tail
Fins and TV Dinners to Barbie Dolls and
Fallout Shelters, (New York: MJF Books,
1986)
6
Liner notes from Esquivel, Space-age
Bachelor Pad Music, re-released by
Bar/None records in 1994, original by
RCA
7
Allan M. Winkler, Life Under a Cloud:
American Anxiety About the Atom, (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 142
8
Paul E. Willis, Profane Culture, (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 2.

References
George H. Marcus, Design in the Fifties:
When Everyone Went Modern, (Munich:
Prestel-Verlag, 1998)
Thomas Hine, Populuxe: From Tail Fins and
TV Dinners To Barbie Dolls and Fallout
Shelters, (New York: MJF Books, 1986)
Lesley Jackson, The New Look: Design in
the Fifties, (Manchester: Thames and
Hudson, 1991)
Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Kevin L. Stayton
with contributions by Paul Boyer… et al,
Vital Forms: American Art and Design in
the Atomic Age, 1940-1960, (New York:
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001)