“Evoluon”: a Space Age name for a Space Age building in Eindhoven, Holland, constructed in 1966 by the Dutch electrical and electronics company, Philips. The building was designed by Leo de Bever and Louis Christiaan Kalff, and functioned for a number of years as a science museum, combining exhibits of innovative gadgetry with a three-dimensional representation of “the future” familiar from exposition architecture. I’d guess that Kalff was responsible for the flying-saucer shape, having already designed a range of lamps for Philips with similar shapes in the 1950s.
Bert Haanstra’s Evoluon was a short promotional film which was broadcast regularly by the BBC from 1968 to 1972 for trade test purposes, although I don’t recall ever seeing it before. Being someone who’s always liked architecture that looks like it fell out of a science-fiction magazine (preferably with a name to match: Skylon, Atomium, Space Needle, etc), an exhibition centre shaped like a flying saucer would have made an impression. British TV schedules were often empty during the daytime so films like this were broadcast for the benefit of TV retailers who needed something better than the testcard flickering on the screens of their brand-new colour boxes. As a science museum Evoluon looks like it was more fun to visit than the London Science Museum, with a profusion of interactive exhibits. (Although this isn’t to say that the London museum isn’t worthwhile, I went there several times in the 1970s. They have many large historical exhibits in the bigger halls, including the re-entry module from Apollo 10.) The music in Haanstra’s film isn’t much better than the bland testcard soundtracks but you do hear a snatch of eerie sound produced by a Cristal Baschet when the unique instrument makes a brief appearance. Philips’ own record division had many more suitable soundtracks at this time via their very collectable Prospective 21e Siècle recordings of avant-garde music. Most of these records aren’t easy listening by any means but the series was aiming at the same idea of a shiny future filled with surprising novelties.
And speaking of “futuristic” music, a computer-generated Evoluon may be seen flying through the 3-D concert visuals for Spacelab by Kraftwerk who also played one of their recent concerts inside the building. I thought they could have done more with the visuals for this number, and with some of the other videos in the 3-D collection. Maybe they look better through 3-D glasses. I wouldn’t know, my eyesight has always been (and will remain) resolutely two-dimensional.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The world of the future
• Space Needle USA
Favourite outing when I was a kid. Appropriately, these days they run a ‘Retro Futurism’ exhibition.
I’d love to have done the same. The closest I got was a Belgian camping site in 1974. I’m pleased the building is still in use. Oddities like this often get demolished when their original purpose expires.
I was weirdly fascinated by the film when I was small – it was one of the TTTs that I watched over and over (when available) – though it lurked in the world of the dimly remembered between 1972 and whenever the internet had grown enough to tell me what it had been. Another favourite was the film about John Piper making the stained glass for the modernist cathedral in Liverpool. When I was that small, television was experienced as a continuity rather than a set of discrete programmes, so it’s stored as part of a strange collage of Dutch expo, Pogles, Dr Who, news bulletins and the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.
It’s strange, I don’t recall seeing any of these filler things at all. They’re either blanked from my memory or they weren’t shown in the north-west, although this seems unlikely if one of them concerned Liverpool Cathedral.
One thing I do recall from about the same time was a series about life in the year 2000. I recall it being Canadian although this may be more faulty memory. Searching for anything about the year 2000 brings up a million unwanted links.
(Removed your autocomplete error.)