Herman Miller Modernist Table Clock by Gilbert Rohde • 1934 Worlds Fair

“A Century of Progress International Exposition” was the name of a World’s Fair held in Chicago, Illinois from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city’s centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation. Its motto was “Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms” and its architectural symbol was the Sky Ride, a transporter bridge perpendicular to the shore on which one could ride from one end of the fair to the other. This stunning clock was designed especially for the 1934 Worlds Fair by Gilbert Rohde for the Herman Miller Clock Company of Zeeland, Michigan. It is all original and has been fully restored/rewired to perfect working condition. It is a prime example of the forward-thinking Modernist design of the 1930s. The richly grained and curved Macassar case is adorned with three curved chrome streamline accents. There is a brass second hand while the minute and hour hands are a stepped design in black enamel. There is an official “1934 Worlds Fair Clocks” brass tag attached to the back of the radio. It reads: 1934, A Century Of Progress, Chicago, Original Design, World’s Fair Clocks, by Gilbert Rohde, Manufactured by Herman Miller Clock Co / Zeeland, Michigan, U.S.A.

About Gilbert Rohde 

(b New York, 1894; d New York, 16 June 1944). American industrial designer. He learned cabinetmaking in his father’s shop in the Bronx, New York, and then worked as an illustrator of furniture for several New York retail shops. In 1927 he made a trip to Paris and there saw examples of the modernism known subsequently as Art Deco. On his return to America he undertook freelance interior design projects and made custom-built modern furniture for private clients In 1929 he opened a design office in New York, concentrating on interior design and developing furniture in the early modernist style. In 1930 he established a relationship with Herman Miller Inc. of Zeeland, MI, a firm that had previously made products imitating various traditional styles. Rohde convinced the firm of the superiority of the ideas of modernism at a time when this direction was virtually unknown in the USA; he developed an extensive line of furnishings that combined functional ideas and simplicity of form with decorative details that were characteristically ‘modernistic’.

About Herman Miller 

Herman Miller began in 1923 as a manufacturer of traditional residential furniture, became a leader in “modern” furniture in the 1930s and 1940s; developed lasting ties through the 1950s with legendary industrial designers like Gilbert Rohde who led us in new directions.