Geddes at the Fair

When the Chicago World's Fair opens in 1933 it will disclose a synthetic metropolis eight square miles in area, as colorful as the vanished palaces of Carthage, as modern in design as a straight-eight motor. These qualities are assured by a commission of eight architects who long ago for sook archaeology to create skyscrapers: Harvey Wiley Corbett (Chairman), Ralph T. Walker and Raymond M. Hood, of Manhattan; John A. Holabird, Edward H. Bennett and Daniel H. Burnham of Chica go; Arthur Brown Jr., of San Francisco; Paul P. Cret of Philadelphia.

Further assurance is the recent appoint ment, in an advisory capacity, of Norman Bel Geddes of Manhattan.

So diversified are the Geddes' talents that they prevent inclusive labelling. He has written and designed an Indian epic-drama called Thunderbird. He originated the square lettering seen in the advertising of Dodge motorcars. The modernist trend of store-window decorating owes much of its momentum to Mr. Geddes' early influence. He has conceived scintillating decors for Ziegfeld pageantries. He was co-architect of Manhattan's new Guild Theatre. When Producer Max Reinhardt staged The Miracle in the U. S., Mr. Geddes transformed the theatre into a Gothic sanctuary which cast a mediaeval and holy glamor on the nunneries. Now, among other projects, he is designing automobiles and a Detroit factory.

The Geddes' vitality and versatility seem sufficient to permeate even so vast a project as Chicago's. He is donating his services and he contemplates the work with a festal excitement which no salary could induce. Architects and designers enjoy world's fairs as spectacular outlets for their creative urge, and this time Chicago will not tolerate a stale display of plaster-of-paris Classicism, bad Byzantine and garbled Gothic. The architecture will be 20th Century in spirit and detail.

Norman Bel Geddes is short, with a muscular chunkiness. His sandy, habitually tousled hair and careless attire indicate no esthetic pose. They suggest the informality of a summer camper, or a man tinkering in a workshop. He was born in Adrian, Mich., in the '90s, and christened Norman Geddes.

He attended the Cleveland School of Art and then one day met the Norwegian painter Henrik Lund, who scorned orthodox artistic education and advised him to strike out for himself. Geddes began painting portraits of such people as Brand Whitlock, Mme. Schumann-Heink, Mme. Galli-Curci, Enrico Caruso, and a dozen others, but having a mother and younger brother to support (he was then 20 years old), he got a job in a Detroit Advertising agency. He was ousted when the president discovered that Mr. Geddes spent many office hours dictating dramas to the presidential private secretary.

From a Los Angeles little theatre, Geddes later vaulted into important and lucrative stage design. He now has a studio-home in one of the many brownstone houses in Manhattan's Murray Hill residential district. There some 24 subalterns assist him, a blonde little Leonardo, in his multifarious labors.

The minions are not wholly occupied by Mr. Geddes' public projects. They also help him to make games. For in esoteric circles gamester Geddes is acclaimed Manhattan's greatest. Auction bridge and poker are dismal to him, and so, with the fervor and precision of a half-mad mathematician, he creates games colossal in scale, appalling in complexity.

The Geddes horse-racing game was one of his most famed. It occupied an entire floor of his studio. The miniature race track was 20 feet long, lined with real grandstands. Twenty mechanical horses ran at one time, drawn by invisible threads from specially built, sensitive electric motors. Each motor had a rheostat, for speed variations. When a race was about to begin the rheostats were set so that each horse would travel at a speed proportionate to its "past performance record" (.0 to 1,000). Then a so-called Chance Machine distributed ball bearings so that ten added impulses were given haphazardly among the horses by a second series of electric motors. Thus any horse might suddenly frisk ahead, outdistancing rivals with a higher starting speed, only to "stumble'' in the middle of the race or "blow up" at the finish.

A weekly series of races was run. The season began with 20 invited guests and ended with scores of interlopers. A blackamoor in jockey silks doled out refreshments. There were printed racing sheets, from Mr. Geddes' own press. A bugle sounded before each start. Comic relief was provided by steeplechase events in which obstacles were placed on the course to cause realistic jumps and falls. In all there were 800 horses, owned in groups or "stables" by 100 people, among them Dramacritic Alexander Woollcott, Colyumist Heywood Broun, Artist Peter Arno, Ziegfeld Ballerina Claire Luce.

Horses were bought and sold, betting was furious. Mr. Geddes found that his home had become a public sporting arena. After he retired for the night, taxicabs would swerve to his doors laden with inebriate racegoers. At last neighbors complained of pandemonium. The game ceased. The apparatus had cost Mr. Geddes $4,000. He was offered $1,000 per night to operate it at Saratoga Springs, N. Y., but he refused.

He now contents himself with a quieter amusement. It is a chess-wise war game. The board is 20 ft. long, 4 ft. wide, a topographical relief map of an imaginary coast line. There are 20,000 square kilometers and over 4,000 pieces, representing every arm of war. Sixteen levels are used, affecting the "travel" and "range" of the miniature units. The game is played in weekly sessions over a period of months. Five Generals and a Commander-in-Chief play simultaneously on each side. The Commander-in-Chief walks back and forth behind his subordinates, surveying the entire field of action, and issues sealed orders on printed forms at half-day intervals. An electric clock rings a gong every 15 minutes, which is the equivalent of the half-day period. Mr. Geddes is one commander. Famed Chess-Player Edward Lasker is the other.