In the pioneering age of air travel, the interiors of passenger planes often emulated other means of transportation like the boat or train, or even, as in the Dornier Do X airboat, the domestic atmosphere of a living room. But due to technical progress, increasing professionalism, and the rapid growth of international air travel, the passenger cabins of the aeroplanes began to develop their own characteristic style. A number of prominent industrial designers played a key role in this development, including Norman Bel Geddes, Henry Dreyfuss, Walter Dorwin Teague, and Raymond Loewy.

The exhibits document their work for aeroplane manufacturers and airlines with more than a dozen models of the most important aeroplanes, hundreds of archival photographs and historical film material, spanning from Norman Bel Geddes’ visionary Airliner N° 4 (1929) – a gigantic aeroplane with its own concert hall, tennis fields, and a solarium – through the Junkers Ju-52, the Douglas DC3, the Boeing B377 Stratocruiser, the Jumbo Jet and the Concorde, up to a current study of a so-called Blended Wing Body (2003), which is intended to seat almost 1000 passengers.