Art Deco
In a strict sense the term Art Deco should
only apply to the French decorative arts between the first decade
of the century and the late 1920's. It's highpoint coincided
with the staging of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs
et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris between April and October
1925. It is generally regarded as an extension of the sinuous
Art Nouveau of the late nineteenth century and has been described
as the last truly sumptuous style. Despite its French origins
French, and indeed European Art Deco was not extensive.
However the exhibition made a considerable
impact on the many American architects who visited it. This was
particularly so because of the strong links between architectural
education in the U. S. A. and the French Beaux Arts model of
architectural education. A demonstrable Fench pedigree enhanced
the legitimacy of the decorative motifs which the American architects
took up with alacrity.
The American Art Deco went through two
phases. The first, in the 1920's , was a geometrical and angular
phase [see for example the decorative motifs of the Chrysler
building by William Van Alen (1928-30) The second in the
1930's was somewhat more curvilinear and streamlined.
By the late 1920's
the style had been almost universally embraced by commercially
successful American architects. In the rich and diverse commercial
architecture of the time could be found traces of the contemporary
German and Dutch Expressionist architecture,
the Viennese Sezession and even the avant-garde movies of the
time.
By ther mid 1930's the angular decorative
style of the 1920's had been almost completely replaced by the
streamlined Deco of the 1930's. This reflected an increasing
acceptance of European modernism with its fetishization of the
machine, and the assumptions of speed precision and efficiency
which accompanied it. The drawings of the successful German architect
Erich Mendelsohn
widely reproduced and admired in America were thought to have
exerted an influence as was the rise of the professional Industrial
designer in the United States with figures such as Norman
Bel Geddes and Raymond
Loewy rising to prominence. In architecture the famous housing
block by the Dutch architect J. J. P. Oud
(1924) at the Hoek van Holland and the Johnson
Wax Building at Racine Wisconsin (1936 - 39) by the master
Frank Lloyd Wright bore testimony to the power of the idea. The
streamlined styling of all means of transportation became the
dominant metaphor for progress in both Europe and America and
it readily spilled over into static works of architecture and
industrial design so that everything from buildings to toasters,
slide projectors and anonymous pieces of electrical equipment
seemed ready to speed off down the freeways or airways at the
drop of a checkered flag. 1