Art Deco Essay

Art deco was a decorative arts and architecture movement that originated in the 1910s in Europe and migrated to America during the 1920s and 1930s (Wolf, 2014). With the crash of Wall Street in October 1929 there was a great divide between the1920s and 1930s in America, which dramatically affected the mood of the two decades and American modernist designs produced in each (Ryan, 2014).

A mix of two styles characterized the 1920s in America. The exotic materials and luxurious interiors found in skyscrapers, and the functional geometry of ZigZag Moderne, which was influenced by art movements such as Dutch de stijl, French Cubism, Italian Futurism Russian Constructivism and German Bauhaus. Both styles conceived the style that characterized the 1930s, where sleek finishes, aerodynamic forms, synthetic materials and an infatuation with speed and futuristic aspects was prominent, resulting in the birth of Streamline Moderne (Ryan, 2014).

Examples of how this decorative arts and architecture movement migrated from Europe to America can be noted in design and architecture such as the as the Chrysler Airflow (figure 1) and the Chrysler Building (figure 2) as well as the French Ocean Liner, The SS Normandie (figure 3), and the Puerto Rican Normandie Hotel (figure 4) of the same name.

Art deco was derived from a variety of Avant-Garde influences including Art Nouveau, the Bauhaus and Cubism (Fullerton Heritage, 2014). While Art Nouveau’s functionalism aspects developed into modernism the more decorative, whimsical and stylistic aspects developed into what we know as Art Deco. Influences came from the Indian, Egyptian, Mayan and Aztec cultures (Wolf, 2014). The style symbolized complicated modernism designed for a new age where design a...

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...mbraced forward-thinking modernism and the machine age by self-indulging themselves in the most flamboyant exquisite of styles they could come across as every to anything was accepted and the more flamboyant the better. ZigZag Moderne style was primarily used for large public commercial buildings such as hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, skyscrapers, and department stores; where gatherings could take place and people could socialize, although a small amount of dwellings were also designed in ZigZag Moderne Style. ZigZag Moderne required expensive and exotic materials that were artistically designed; it was largely a system of ornamentation applied to smooth building surfaces. The decoration of facades was often completed in a luxurious assortment of materials which including exotic wood veneers, marble, painted terracotta, and metals (Fullerton Heritage, 2014).