The Year 2000 As Imagined In 1910

The National Library of France (BnF) has an amazing collection of prints from 1910 which depict life in the year 2000. They are credited to Villemard.

Back in 1910, Villemard started predicting the future on paper. With each brush stroke, an elegant picture of the future came to life. It is amazing how accurate these paintings are. Sure, we don’t have personal wings or flying machines (individual ones that is) just yet, and the cars are a bit different as well. However, the overall look of 2000 pretty much made perfect sense.

The accuracy of these images is not in the way they are drawn but in the toys, gadgets and gizmos that are depicted therein. I wish someone today would do the same thing and predict the future in a hundred years from now. That would give our children a chance to see how lame we were, and how off we were in predicting their future. I can’t stop looking at these masterpieces. They are just… oddly beautiful in so many ways.