The future once looked like a promise of endless possibilities, with flying cars humming above neon-lit cities and meals arriving in pill form at the push of a button.
This vision, known as retrofuturism, captures how people of the past imagined the world we now live in.
Their predictions, a mix of naive optimism and uncanny foresight, continue to inspire artists, designers, filmmakers, and musicians today, drawing on the technological dreams of a bygone era to reimagine what tomorrow could look like.
A 1935 concept showing a centrifugal force machine designed to reverse aging.
Although the word “retrofuturism” is relatively new, the concept has deep roots in the imaginations of those who lived through the early and mid-20th century.
The term gained traction during the technological boom of the 1970s and 1980s, an era when computers and space exploration advanced rapidly, but not always in the ways early futurists had envisioned.
Their once-bold predictions began to seem quaint, sparking a nostalgic curiosity about the bright, utopian futures people once believed were inevitable.
Air travel over Paris in the year 2000, as imagined in 1882 by artist Albert Robida.
It is no coincidence that retrofuturism rose in popularity alongside the growing fascination with dystopian science fiction.
As the real future became more complex and uncertain, the cheerful visions of rocket-propelled cars, personal robots, and glass-domed cities offered a comforting contrast, reminding us of a time when the future felt like an adventure waiting to happen rather than a looming challenge.
A look at what shopping in the future might look like, from 1965.
And what visions they were. Retrofuturistic illustrations from the early 20th century reveal a world obsessed with transforming everyday life through technology, particularly in transportation.
Artists imagined skylines filled with personal helicopters, hovering cars gliding over suspended highways, and dirigibles floating gracefully above futuristic cities.
Roads transformed into glowing, magnetized loops snaking above cityscapes, or into sleek underground tunnels beneath bustling streets, painting a world that felt like it belonged to the pages of a comic book.
An American mother and daughter return home from shopping in a futuristic spaceship, circa 1950s.
Domestic life was also reimagined with equal parts whimsy and ambition.
Kitchens of the future promised to eliminate the drudgery of cooking, with automated systems preparing meals at the touch of a button, or in some predictions, replacing entire dinners with a single flavored pill.
Fashion embraced shiny chrome fabrics, high plastic boots, and streamlined silhouettes, while homes transformed into glass structures perched on the moon, reflecting a world that appeared ready to leave behind the ordinary constraints of Earth.
A late 1950s illustration of a self-driving car.
Yet, while many of these retrofuturistic dreams now appear amusing or outlandish, some turned out to be remarkably prescient.
Self-driving cars, a recurring fantasy in retrofuturistic art, are now on the verge of becoming commonplace.
Video calls, once a far-off fantasy, are part of everyday life, and wearable devices can stream entertainment directly to our wrists.
Automation has become a reality, with robots and intelligent systems managing tasks in homes and factories around the globe.
A sleek futuristic limousine with butterfly doors.
Visually, retrofuturism often embraces styles like Googie, Populuxe, and Doo Wop, blending neon colors, sleek steel designs, curved geometries, and expansive glass elements.
This aesthetic, sometimes called Raygun Gothic, captures the optimistic energy of a future imagined through the lens of mid-century design, merging whimsy with a bold sense of possibility.
A network of underground tube trains beneath a city, by artist Klaus Bürgle, 1969.
There is another layer to retrofuturism as well. Beyond the past’s vision of tomorrow, the genre also explores how the present reimagines the past infused with futuristic technology, creating an alternative history that never existed.
This perspective gives rise to worlds where Victorian streets are lined with steam-powered computers and airships drift through gaslit skies, blending nostalgia with innovation in a narrative that feels both familiar and strangely new.
As these striking photos reveal, the future, seen through the eyes of the past, is not just a reflection of technological ambition but a testament to the endless creativity of the human spirit
A painting from around 1950 showing how people imagined the future would look.
A vision of what beach vacations might be like in the future.
The “House of Tomorrow” as featured in Mechanix Illustrated, circa 1950.
Mail delivery by rocket, illustrated by Frank Tinsley in 1957.
An inflatable lunar base concept by Shigeru Komatsuzaki, circa 1970s.
The “Hoppicopter,” a one-person vehicle for low-cost air travel, by Frank Tinsley, 1950.
A futuristic landscape of skyscrapers with winding roads and moving sidewalks.
Elevated trains cross the skies among towering skyscrapers.
Astronauts explore the surface of another planet in this 1954 artwork by Fred Freeman.
Space food concepts from George Pal’s sci-fi film Conquest of Space (1956).
An amphibious, futuristic RV vehicle from 1947.
A look inside a glass house of the future.
The “half-mile-high” pleasure tower, with a restaurant and 500-car garage, envisioned in 1933.
“Voice bombs,” balloon-suspended tape recorders dropping propaganda messages, by Frank Tinsley, 1951.
Women model futuristic fashion for the year 2000 during Engineering Week, circa 1965.
An illustration from World of Tomorrow — School, Work and Play (1981), showing future technology in everyday life.
A scene from the 2001 film CQ, which features a retro 1960s sci-fi subplot.
NASA’s vision of a space colony that would look like Earth, complete with a giant central engine.
These space cities were designed to include houses, greenery, roads, and rivers like cities on Earth.
A 1969 concept of a nuclear-proof city beneath Manhattan.
An early 1950s concept for a television newspaper.
A futuristic city concept from the 1970s.
An indoor futuristic home design from the 1960s.
(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons / Flickr / RHP).