Machine design as a graphic art form has rarely been exhibited. Museums have acquired design drawings for industrial machinery and consumer products, but the private collector is only now discovering machine designs as the art of our time.

Alfonso Iannelli was one of Chicago's most prolific industrial designers of the 1930s and 40s. His clients included Sunbeam, Eversharp, Goodyear and Oster for which he sketched countless refrigerators, shavers, mixers and ball-point pens in his trademark streamlined style. Al Eckel was the chief product designer for Sears Roebuck during the 50s and 60s. Some of his most futuristic designs for percolators, hair dryers, clothes steamers and toasters never made it past his drawing board but remain brilliant household icons for a lifestyle that never happened.

Beginning February 11th and continuing through April 15th, ArchiTech presents The Form of Function - Art of the Machine, an exhibition and sale of design drawings, prints and photographs of machines from steam irons to skyscrapers. From Nineteenth Century engravings of cotton gins to pencil studies of futuristic locomotives, all demonstrate our fascination with the devices that mark our modern age.

Raymond Loewy
T-1 Locomotive
Lithograph, 1978
21 x 28 inches

Alfonso Iannelli
Design of hand held clippers for Wahl
Pencil on paper
10x 8 in.

R.G. Martelet
Design for Faucet
pastel and chalk on black paper, 1960
10 x 12 inches

Alfonso Iannelli
Design of toaster for Sunbeam
Pencil and pastel on tracing paper, 1947
14 x 19 1/2 in