Design
When the Future Looked Like Toledo
In 1945, designer Norman Bel Geddes created Toledo Tomorrow, an exhibit that imagined a bold new direction for his Ohio hometown. At least part of it came true.
The Fourth of July, 1945, brought unbridled optimism to Toledo.
The war in the Pacific was winding down, and the booming Ohio industrial city was making big plans. On that July day, city leaders unveiled a 61-foot diameter scale model called Toledo Tomorrow in a display at the Toledo Zoo. The huge exhibit, designed to showcase the city’s speculative future, was masterminded by the famed industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, who’d spent some of his childhood in Toledo; it was funded by the city’s largest newspaper, the Toledo Blade, and its owner and publisher, Paul Block.