What a feature! That’s surely from a house built for THE ATOMIC AGE!

“A swimming pool that becomes an automatic decontamination bath during an A-bomb attack is one of the features of a home that Hal B. Hayes, Hollywood contractor, is completing himself,” we read in Popular Mechanics, beneath a lovely photo of a woman drinking tea beside a faux-lava wall.

It’s like the apocalypse, but sexier. Just imagine if there is a nuclear war, we’ll all be cooped up inside with nothing to do. Nothing to do, that is, except… [Cue the robot bartender and Tito Puente cover band.]

In any case, I’ve become fascinated by designers in the atomic age. I have in my possession an entire book called “Design for the Atomic Age” featuring a series of talks from a conference on safer power plant designs, cities with attractive fallout shelters, etc. It’s amazing how hard people tried to make lemonade out of nuclear weapons.