Art Deco

Art Deco was a movement in decorative arts that also affected architecture, deriving its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925. It was a major style in Europe from the early 1920s but did not catch on in the U.S. until about 1928, when it quickly modulated into the Moderne during the 1930s, the decade with which the concept of Art Deco is most strongly associated today. The term Art Deco was coined during the Exposition of 1925 but did not receive wider usage until it was re-evaluated in the 1960s. Its practitioners were not working as a coherent community. It is considered to be eclectic, being influenced by a variety of sources, to name a few:

early work from the Wiener Werkstätte; functional industrial design
"primitive" arts of Africa, Egypt, or Aztec Mexico
Leon Bakst's sets and costumes for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes
fractionated, crystalline, facetted form of decorative Cubism and Futurism
Fauve color palette
severe forms of Neoclassicism: Boullée, Schinkel
everything associated with Jazz, Jazz Age or "jazzy"
animal motifs and forms; tropical foliage; ziggurats; crystals; stylized fountain motifs
lithe athletic "modern" female forms; flappers' bobbed haircuts
"machine age" technology such as the radio and skyscraper.

Corresponding to these influences, the Art Deco is characterised by use of materials such as sharkskin and zebraskin, zigzag and stepped forms, bold and sweeping curves (unlike the sinuous curves of the Art nouveau), chevron patterns, sunburst motif, etc. Some of these motifs were ubiquitous- for example the sunburst motif was used in such varied contexts as a lady's shoe, a radiator grille, the spire of the Chrysler Building. Art Deco was an opulent style and this opulence is attributed as a reaction to the forced austerity during the years of World War I. Art Deco was a popular style for interiors of cinema theatres and ocean liners such as Normandie.

A parallel movement following close behind, the Streamline or Streamline Moderne, was influenced by manufacturing and streamlining techniques arising from science and mass production- shape of bullet, liners, etc., where aerodynamics are involved. Once the Chrysler Air-Flo design of 1933 (date) was successful, "streamlined" forms began to be used even for objects such as pencil sharpeners and refrigerators. In architecture, this style was characterised by rounded corners, used predominantly for buildings at road junctions.

Some historians see Art Deco as a type of or early form of Modernism

Though Art Deco slowly lost patronage in the West, and was cut short by the austerities of World War II, in colonial countries such as India, it became a gateway for Modernism, and continued to be used well after, even in the nineteen sixties.

Table of contents

1 Noted Art Deco artists and designers
2 Noted Art Deco architects
3 Noted Art Deco designs
4 External links

Noted Art Deco artists and designers

Noted Art Deco architects

Noted Art Deco designs

Empire State Building
Chrysler Building
Dallas Fair Park Hall of State
Golden Gate Bridge
Interior of ocean liner Normandie
Napier, New Zealand - In 1931 the city of Napier was levelled by the Napier earthquake and ensuing fires. The city was rebuilt in the Art Deco style.
Anzac Memorial, Sydney built 1929-34 designed C Bruce Dellit (1900-1942), Sculptor: Raynor Hoff.
Université de Montréal central building
Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa
Marine Building in Vancouver
The East and West Stands at Arsenal Stadium in London.