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This is the first biography of Joseph Urban designer of furniture, stage, opera and film sets, also interiors, decorative objects and buildings. He was a household name in his time and his reputation is now set for a revival. Born in Vienna in 1872, the multi-talented Urban was already enjoying a career in archiecture, stage design, and book illustration before he was brought to America in 1911 to do stage settings for the Boston Opera. By 1914 his highly regarded productions had caught the eye of impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, who lured him away to design nearly all of his shows and Follies on through the 1920s. His lush stagecraft soon revolutionized all of American theatre design, attracting the attention of William Randolph Hearst, who enticed Urban into becoming artistic director for his Cosmopolitan movie studio, where he designed all of the Marion Davies films. During this period he also operated a showcase on Fifth Avenue for the Wiener Werkstatte and was artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera. Many of his original opera settings continued in use well into the New York cityscape, many of which, unfortunately, have been demolished, including the original Ziegfield Theatre and Central Park Casino. However, the Hearst Building and the New School for Social Research, the city's first International Style building, remain. Several of his works in Palm Beach still stand, including his most extravagant extant construction, Mar-a-Lago, the former Post estate now owned by Donald Trump.

Théâtres --- Architecture --- Urban, Joseph

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From the 1920's through the 1950's, two individuals, Joseph Urban and Norman Bel Geddes, did more, by far, to create the image of "America" and make it synonymous with modernity than any of their contemporaries. Urban and Bel Geddes were leading Broadway stage designers and directors who turned their prodigious talents to other projects, becoming mavericks first in industrial design and then in commercial design, fashion, architecture, and more. The two men gave shape to the most quintessential symbols of the modern American lifestyle, including movies, cars, department stores, and nightclubs, along with private homes, kitchens, stoves, fridges, magazines, and numerous household furnishings. Illustrated with more than 130 photographs of their influential designs, this book tells the engrossing story of Urban and Bel Geddes. Christopher Innes shows how these two men with a background in theater lent dramatic flair to everything they designed and how this theatricality gave the distinctive modernity they created such wide appeal. If the American lifestyle has been much imitated across the globe over the past fifty years, says Innes, it is due in large measure to the designs of Urban and Bel Geddes. Together they were responsible for creating what has been called the "Golden Age" of American culture.

Design --- Theaters --- Opera-houses --- Playhouses (Theaters) --- Theatres --- Arts facilities --- Auditoriums --- Centers for the performing arts --- Music-halls --- History --- Stage-setting and scenery --- Urban, Joseph, --- Geddes, Norman Bel, --- Bel Geddes, Norman --- Criticism and interpretation.