Charles Frederick Beauvais’ areas of interest were automobile design, transport systems and product design. Originally from England, Beauvais gave an Australian interpretation to the international futurist movement.
While in England Beauvais worked in a variety of car related areas:
Technical Art Editor at The Motor magazine 1925-29; Designer for Star Motor Co in Wolverhampton; Designer for Singer & Co Ltd Coventry; and Designer for the New Avon Body Company, Warwick and Crossley motors.
During the 1930s Beauvais developed his concept of the Car of the Future. In 1936 he built a scale wooden model and had an article published in The Motor titled ‘Rear-Engined Car Possibilities’. His design placed the engine at the back and a luggage compartment in the bonnet, and the car body was a streamlined shape.
This shape may have been influenced by the futurist designers Raymond Loewy, Norman Bel Geddes and Henry Dreyfuss, from the United States, who drew on the science of flight and streamlining. They applied this style to everything, from staplers to refrigerators and cars.
Beauvais came to Melbourne in 1937 and worked for the special body division of General Motors Holden, designing streamlined motor coaches, limousines, caravans and commercial vehicles. During the war he designed jigs and tools for wartime aircraft production. Beauvais then began working for the Argus as a war illustrator, depicting both the home war effort and the deeds of Australians in overseas battles. He also contributed articles and illustrations on futuristic cities and appliances. One such article, ‘The Post War Car’, published in 1946, was about Beauvais’ own ‘Car of the future’.
One illustration by Beauvais, titled ‘Sydney of the future’, depicted a Sydney sky filled with helicopter ‘Aerobuses’. The Aerobus appears in another drawing, which shows Beauvais’ vision of a futuristic Sydney, with a helicopter bus service from Wynard Station to the Sydney suburbs. The Aerobus in the centre of the drawing has the sign ‘Mosman’ on its front. This image appeared in Pix magazine, 15 December 1945, as part of an article titled, ‘Atomic Age, artist foresees New Transport Methods’.
In the mid-1940s Beauvais moved to Sydney and started the Industrial Styling Company, Australasia. The company undertook a range of industrial work, from exhibition displays to food mixers, oil stoves and lights. In 1947 Beauvais created a model ‘City of the future’ for the Atlantic Union Oil Company. The model was displayed at the Sydney Royal Easter Show and the Melbourne Show. In 1954 the Beauvais Company designed and constructed two arches which were commissioned to be erected over Sydney roadways for the royal visit by Queen Elizabeth II.
Charles Beauvais’ son, Peter, took over the company in the 1950s. At this time it was known as Beauvais Associates. The activities of the organisation were divided between the two companies: Beauvais Associates concentrated on industrial product design and the International Styling Company manufactured Beauvais products and produced store modernisation schemes, exhibitions and displays.
In 1953 the company moved from Pitt Street, Sydney to Chippendale and in 1960 to new premises in Revesby. Ron Harrison became director in 1960s and remained in charge until 1988 when his son took over. The company is still in operation and is known as Beauvais Display & Contract Ltd.
From the ‘rear-engined car’ to his ‘city of the future’ Charles Frederick Beauvais believed he could reshape things into attractive forms without transgressing mechanical laws or upsetting practical requirements. Many of his designs came from his practical experience in car and product design. However his drawings of war ships made from ice, and a two layered city of Sydney filled with Aeorbuses were part of a broader, grander and more experimental vision of a future.
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2012
- Last updated:
- 2012
