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IN THE SPRING OF 1973, heads were turning in downtown New York as Motorola engineer Martin Cooper strolled along the street talking on the world’s first mobile phone. Seeing someone on the move as they made a call was a sight to behold at a time before cordless telephones had even been invented. The shift from making calls to a person instead of a place represented a revolution in telecommunications, one that drew inspiration from science fiction, specifically Captain James T. Kirk’s handheld communicator from the popular television show Star Trek. In 1996, Motorola famously based the design of its flip-up


‘StarTac’ phone directly on Kirk’s device and it became a bestseller. In imagining potential futures, science fiction has influenced daily life in multiple ways, from the cars we drive and the clothes we wear, to the buildings in which we live and work, and the fittings, furniture and devices used within them. The symbiotic relationship between science fiction and design is the subject of the exhibition Science Fiction Design: From Space Age to Metaverse (18 May 2024 – 11 May 2025) at Vitra Design Museum’s Schaudepot space in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Featuring more than 100 objects from the museum’s


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