Walter Dorwin Teague (December 18, 1883 - December 5, 1960) was an American architect, designer and one of the most prolific American industrial designers in terms of volume of completed work.
Teague was raised in Pendleton, Indiana as the son of a Methodist minister and left for New York City in 1902. For five years he attended the Art Students League of New York with the idea of pursuing a career in magazine illustration, and produced commercial magazine illustration until 1927, when he was contracted by Eastman Kodak to design cameras. Kodak would remain his client for 30 years. Between 1934 and 1937 Teague designed several models of streamlined Texaco gas stations, and the company had built 500 of these buildings by 1940. These porcelain-clad Texaco stations became an Art Deco icon of war-era America, as much as their original Polaroid Land Camera.
His company's work with Boeing began in 1946 with the design of the Stratocruiser's passenger aircraft interior. This relationship with Boeing has lasted more than 60 years with Teague's Aviation Studios work on every Boeing aircraft including the 707, 747, 777 and 787.
Walter Dorwin Teague and his son of the same name made contributions to many basic industrial and consumer products, including the A.B. Dick Mimeograph to Cold War missiles like the Lark and Loki. His firm's Steinway Peace Piano, built for the 1939 New York World's Fair, is now at the Smithsonian.
Teague's architecture work included the Texaco exhibition hall at the 1935 Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas, the Ford pavilion for the California Pacific International Exposition (1935) in Balboa Park in San Diego, structures in the Soviet Union for the United States Information Agency, and the 1961 Civil War Centennial Dome in Richmond, Virginia. In 1940 he articulated his own view of the industrial design profession, Design This Day.
Walter Dorwin Teague Jr. (1910 - 2004) joined his father's firm in 1934 and won an award from the Industrial Designers Institute for a fully-reclinable dentist's chair, which allowed dentists to sit while working on patients.
Teague's legacy continues today as his company Teague remains an important industrial design consultancy. Based in Seattle, Washington, Teague has worked with clients such as Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Boeing.
Teague's' product designs are in major museums around the world including the Wolfsonian and Cooper-Hewitt. In Virginia Roanoke’s Art Museum of Western Virginia held an exhibition, sponsored by Norfolk Southern, that included the firm’s work.
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