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181-621: The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City , at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan . At 1,046 ft (319 m), it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel framework. It was both the world's first supertall skyscraper and the world's tallest building for 11 months after its completion in 1930. As of 2019,

362-629: A 167-foot-long (51 m) frontage on 42nd Street; and a 205-foot-long (62 m) frontage on 43rd Street. The site bordered the old Boston Post Road , which predated, and ran aslant of, the Manhattan street grid established by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 . As a result, the east side of the building's base is similarly aslant. The building is assigned its own ZIP Code , 10174. It is one of 41 buildings in Manhattan that have their own ZIP Codes, as of 2019. The Grand Hyatt New York hotel and

543-842: A 20th-century adaptation of a classical subject. Other important works for Rockefeller Center were made by Lee Lawrie , including the sculptural façade and the Atlas statue . During the Great Depression in the United States, many sculptors were commissioned to make works for the decoration of federal government buildings, with funds provided by the WPA, or Works Progress Administration . They included sculptor Sidney Biehler Waugh, who created stylized and idealized images of workers and their tasks for federal government office buildings. In San Francisco, Ralph Stackpole provided sculpture for

724-416: A 67-year lease for the plot and finalized the details of his ambitious project. Van Alen's original design for the skyscraper called for a base with first-floor showroom windows that would be triple-height, and above would be 12 stories with glass-wrapped corners, to create the impression that the tower was floating in mid-air. Reynolds's main contribution to the building's design was his insistence that it have

905-407: A Latin root with the verb "gargle" and is likely imitative in origin. The Italian word for gargoyle is doccione or gronda sporgente, an architecturally precise phrase which means "protruding gutter". Italian also uses gargolla or garguglia , when it has a grotesque shape. When not constructed as a waterspout and only serving an ornamental or artistic function, the technical term for such

1086-474: A Renaissance-style marble and bronze staircase. The 67th floor had an open bar with dark-wood paneling and furniture. On the same floor, Walter Chrysler and Texaco both had private dining rooms. Chrysler's dining room had a black and frosted-blue glass frieze of automobile workers. Texaco's dining room contained a mural across two walls; one wall depicted a town in New England with a Texaco gas station, while

1267-618: A broadly applied stylistic label in 1968 when historian Bevis Hillier published the first major academic book on it, Art Deco of the 20s and 30s . He noted that the term was already being used by art dealers, and cites The Times (2 November 1966) and an essay named Les Arts Déco in Elle magazine (November 1967) as examples. In 1971, he organized an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts , which he details in his book The World of Art Deco . In its time, Art Deco

1448-523: A combination of fluorescent lights framing the crown's distinctive triangular windows and colored floodlights that face toward the building, allowing it to be lit in a variety of schemes for special occasions. The V-shaped fluorescent "tube lighting" – hundreds of 480V 40W bulbs framing 120 window openings – was added in 1981, although it had been part of the original design. Until 1998, the lights were turned off at 2 a.m., but The New York Observer columnist Ron Rosenbaum convinced Tishman Speyer to keep

1629-479: A common device used to shed rainwater from buildings until the early 18th century. From that time, more and more buildings used drainpipes to carry the water from the guttering roof to the ground and only very few buildings using gargoyles were constructed. This was because some people found them frightening, and sometimes heavy ones fell off, causing damage. In 1724, the London Building Act passed by

1810-516: A common optical illusion seen in tall buildings with horizontal bands, whose taller floors would normally look larger. The 31st floor also contains a gray and white frieze of hubcaps and fenders, which both symbolize the Chrysler Corporation and serves as a visual signature of the building's Art Deco design. The bonnet embellishments take the shape of Mercury's winged helmet and resemble hood ornaments installed on Chrysler vehicles at

1991-436: A dental clinic. In 2005, a report by The New York Times found that one of the dentists, Charles Weiss, had operated at the clinic's current rooftop location since 1969. The office still had the suite's original bathroom and gymnasium. Chrysler also had a unit on the 58th through 60th floors, which served as his residence. From the building's opening until 1945, it contained a 3,900 square feet (360 m) observation deck on

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2172-540: A departure from) the undulating Art Nouveau style of Hector Guimard , so popular in Paris a few years earlier. Grasset stressed the principle that various simple geometric shapes like triangles and squares are the basis of all compositional arrangements. The reinforced-concrete buildings of Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage, and particularly the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées , offered a new form of construction and decoration which

2353-482: A floral chair with a parrot design for the hunting lodge of art collector Jacques Doucet . The furniture designers Louis Süe and André Mare made their first appearance at the 1912 exhibit, under the name of the Atelier français , combining polychromatic fabrics with exotic and expensive materials, including ebony and ivory. After World War I, they became one of the most prominent French interior design firms, producing

2534-427: A frantic steelwork construction pace of about four floors per week, no workers died during the construction of the skyscraper's steelwork. Chrysler lauded this achievement, saying, "It is the first time that any structure in the world has reached such a height, yet the entire steel construction was accomplished without loss of life". In total, 391,881 rivets were used, and approximately 3,826,000 bricks were laid to create

2715-508: A metallic crown, despite Van Alen's initial opposition; the metal-and-crystal crown would have looked like "a jeweled sphere" at night. Originally, the skyscraper would have risen 808 feet (246 m), with 67 floors. These plans were approved in June 1928. Van Alen's drawings were unveiled in the following August and published in a magazine run by the  American Institute of Architects (AIA). Reynolds ultimately devised an alternate design for

2896-468: A modernist look. At its birth between 1910 and 1914, Art Deco was an explosion of colours, featuring bright and often clashing hues, frequently in floral designs, presented in furniture upholstery , carpets, screens, wallpaper and fabrics. Many colourful works, including chairs and a table by Maurice Dufrêne and a bright Gobelin carpet by Paul Follot were presented at the 1912 Salon des artistes décorateurs . In 1912–1913 designer Adrien Karbowsky made

3077-554: A needle-like termination was designed to surmount the dome. This is 185 feet high and 8 feet square at its base. It was made up of four corner angles, with light angle strut and diagonal members, all told weighing 27 tons. It was manifestly impossible to assemble this structure and hoist it as a unit from the ground, and equally impossible to hoist it in sections and place them as such in their final positions. Besides, it would be more spectacular, for publicity value, to have this cloud-piercing needle appear unexpectedly. The steel tip brought

3258-463: A painting by Jean Dupas . The interior design followed the same principles of symmetry and geometric forms which set it apart from Art Nouveau, and bright colours, fine craftsmanship rare and expensive materials which set it apart from the strict functionality of the Modernist style. While most of the pavilions were lavishly decorated and filled with hand-made luxury furniture, two pavilions, those of

3439-399: A part in the resurgence of decorative arts, as French designers felt challenged by the increasing exports of less expensive German furnishings. In 1911, SAD proposed a major new international exposition of decorative arts in 1912. No copies of old styles would be permitted, only modern works. The exhibit was postponed until 1914; and then, because of the war, until 1925, when it gave its name to

3620-562: A process similar to one Chrysler used to manufacture his cars, with precise "hand craftmanship". In his autobiography, Chrysler says he suggested that his building be taller than the Eiffel Tower . Meanwhile, excavation of the new building's 69-foot-deep (21 m) foundation began in mid-November 1928 and was completed in mid-January 1929, when bedrock was reached. A total of 105,000,000 pounds (48,000,000 kg) of rock and 36,000,000 pounds (16,000,000 kg) of soil were excavated for

3801-496: A sculpture is a grotesque , chimera, or boss . There are also regional variations, such as the hunky punk . Just as with bosses and chimeras , gargoyles are said to protect what they guard, such as a church, from any evil or harmful spirits. A French legend that sprang up around the name of St. Romanus ( French : Romain ; fl. c.  631–641 AD ), the former chancellor of the Merovingian king Chlothar II who

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3982-602: A style which flourished in Europe between 1895 and 1900, and coexisted with the Beaux-Arts and neoclassical that were predominant in European and American architecture. In 1905 Eugène Grasset wrote and published Méthode de Composition Ornementale, Éléments Rectilignes, in which he systematically explored the decorative (ornamental) aspects of geometric elements, forms, motifs and their variations, in contrast with (and as

4163-446: A three-story bronze-and-glass "observation dome" at the top. However, Chrysler wanted a more progressive design, and he worked with Van Alen to redesign the skyscraper to be 925 ft (282 m) tall. At the new height, Chrysler's building would be taller than the 792-foot (241 m) Woolworth Building , a building in lower Manhattan that was the world's tallest at the time. At one point, Chrysler had requested that Van Alen shorten

4344-494: A two-story apartment on the 69th and 70th floors with a fireplace and a private office. The office also contained a gymnasium and the loftiest bathrooms in the city. The office had a medieval ambience with leaded windows, elaborate wooden doors, and heavy plaster. Chrysler did not use his gym much, instead choosing to stay at the Chrysler Corporation's headquarters in Detroit. Subsequently, the 69th and 70th floors were converted into

4525-432: A unique combination of woods. Curcio stated that "if anything the building is based on patterned fabrics, [the elevators] certainly are. Three of the designs could be characterized as having 'geometric', 'Mexican' and vaguely 'art nouveau' motifs, which reflect the various influences on the design of the entire building." The roof of each elevator was covered with a metal plate whose design was unique to that cab, which in turn

4706-675: Is Tamara de Lempicka . Born in Poland, she emigrated to Paris after the Russian Revolution . She studied under Maurice Denis and André Lhote , and borrowed many elements from their styles. She painted portraits in a realistic, dynamic and colourful Art Deco style. In the 1930s, a dramatic new form of Art Deco painting appeared in the United States. During the Great Depression, the Federal Art Project of

4887-419: Is a quadruped with a serpent's head; there a fish with a quadruped's head; then again an animal: half horse, half goat... Surely, if we do not blush for such absurdities, we should at least regret what we have spent on them. While the theory that gargoyles were spiritual devices made to ward off devilish evil was very widely known and accepted, other schools of thoughts have developed over time. For example, in

5068-613: Is a style of visual arts, architecture , and product design , that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s (just before World War I ), and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s. Through styling and design of the exterior and interior of anything from large structures to small objects, including how people look (clothing, fashion, and jewelry), Art Deco has influenced bridges, buildings (from skyscrapers to cinemas), ships, ocean liners , trains, cars, trucks, buses, furniture, and everyday objects including radios and vacuum cleaners. Art Deco got its name after

5249-481: Is a wall panel dedicated to the work of clinchers, surveyors, masons, carpenters, plasterers, and builders. Fifty different figures were modeled after workers who participated in its construction. In 1999, the mural was returned to its original state after a restoration that removed the polyurethane coating and filled-in holes added in the 1970s. Originally, Van Alen's plans for the lobby included four large supporting columns, but they were removed after Chrysler objected on

5430-512: Is carried forward from the 61st floor, whose eagle gargoyles echo the treatment of the 31st, to the spire, which extends the concept of 'higher and narrower' forward to infinite height and infinitesimal width. This unique treatment emphasizes the building's height, giving it an other worldly atmosphere reminiscent of the fantastic architecture of Coney Island or the Far East." Television station WCBS-TV (Channel 2) originated its transmission from

5611-438: Is covered in polished black granite from Shastone, while the three floors above it are clad in white marble from Georgia. There are two main entrances, on Lexington Avenue and on 42nd Street, each three floors high with Shastone granite surrounding each proscenium -shaped entryway. At some distance into each main entryway, there are revolving doors "beneath intricately patterned metal and glass screens", designed so as to embody

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5792-558: Is manifested in characteristic triangles, sharp angles, slightly curved lines, chrome ornaments, and numerous patterns. The mural depicts several silver planes, including the Spirit of St. Louis , as well as furnaces of incandescent steel and the building itself. When the building opened, the first and second floors housed a public exhibition of Chrysler vehicles. The exhibition, known as the Chrysler Automobile Salon,

5973-505: Is open, the cab behind the doors resembles "an exquisite Art Deco room". These elements were influenced by ancient Egyptian designs , which significantly impacted the Art Deco style. According to Vincent Curcio, "these elevator interiors were perhaps the single most beautiful and, next to the dome, the most important feature of the entire building." Even though the woods in the elevator cabs were arranged in four basic patterns, each cab had

6154-408: Is renowned for, and recognized by its terraced crown, which is an extension of the main tower. Composed of seven radiating terraced arches, Van Alen's design of the crown is a cruciform groin vault of seven concentric members with transitioning setbacks. The entire crown is clad with Nirosta steel, ribbed and riveted in a radiating sunburst pattern with many triangular vaulted windows, reminiscent of

6335-755: Is the Christ the Redeemer by the French sculptor Paul Landowski , completed between 1922 and 1931, located on a mountain top overlooking Rio de Janeiro , Brazil. Many early Art Deco sculptures were small, designed to decorate salons. One genre of this sculpture was called the Chryselephantine statuette, named for a style of ancient Greek temple statues made of gold and ivory. They were sometimes made of bronze, or sometimes with much more lavish materials, such as ivory, onyx , alabaster, and gold leaf. One of

6516-647: The Empire State Building to become the world's tallest building. The Chrysler Building was designed and funded by Walter Chrysler personally as a real estate investment for his children, but it was not intended as the Chrysler Corporation's headquarters. An annex was completed in 1952, and the building was sold by the Chrysler family the next year, with numerous subsequent owners. When the Chrysler Building opened, there were mixed reviews of

6697-419: The Empire State Building , Chrysler Building , and other buildings from the 1920s and 1930s are monuments to the style. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression , Art Deco gradually became more subdued. A sleeker form of the style, called Streamline Moderne , appeared in the 1930s, featuring curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces. Art Deco was a truly international style, but its dominance ended with

6878-532: The French gargouille, which in English is likely to mean "throat" or is otherwise known as the "gullet"; cf. Latin gurgulio, gula, gargula ("gullet"or "throat") and similar words derived from the root gar, "to swallow", which represented the gurgling sound of water (e.g., Portuguese and Spanish garganta, "throat"; gárgola, "gargoyle"). It is also connected to the French verb gargariser, which shares

7059-677: The Graybar Building are across Lexington Avenue, while the Socony–Mobil Building is across 42nd Street. In addition, the Chanin Building is to the southwest, diagonally across Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street. The Chrysler Building was designed by William Van Alen in the Art Deco style and is named after one of its original tenants, automotive executive Walter Chrysler . With a height of 1,046 feet (319 m),

7240-528: The Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Parallel with these Art Deco sculptors, more avant-garde and abstract modernist sculptors were at work in Paris and New York City. The most prominent were Constantin Brâncuși , Joseph Csaky , Alexander Archipenko , Henri Laurens , Jacques Lipchitz , Gustave Miklos , Jean Lambert-Rucki , Jan et Joël Martel , Chana Orloff and Pablo Gargallo . The Art Deco style appeared early in

7421-487: The Parliament of Great Britain made the use of downpipes compulsory in all new construction. There are divided ideas as to the purpose of adding gargoyles to religious structures. Some state that gargoyles were meant to illustrate evil and sin, while others have posited that grotesques in architecture were apotropaic devices. In the 12th century, before the use of gargoyles as rain spouts, St. Bernard of Clairvaux

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7602-496: The Works Progress Administration was created to give work to unemployed artists. Many were given the task of decorating government buildings, hospitals and schools. There was no specific Art Deco style used in the murals; artists engaged to paint murals in government buildings came from many different schools, from American regionalism to social realism ; they included Reginald Marsh , Rockwell Kent and

7783-501: The marble or terracotta cymatium of the cornice . An excellent example of this are the 39 remaining lion-headed water spouts on the Temple of Zeus . Originally, it had 102 gargoyles or spouts, but due to the heavy weight (they were crafted from marble), many snapped off and had to be replaced. Many medieval cathedrals included gargoyles and chimeras. According to French architect and author Eugène Viollet-le-Duc , himself one of

7964-430: The École royale gratuite de dessin (Royal Free School of Design), founded in 1766 under King Louis XVI to train artists and artisans in crafts relating to the fine arts, was renamed the École nationale des arts décoratifs ( National School of Decorative Arts). It took its present name, ENSAD ( École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs ), in 1920.. The actual term art déco did not appear in print until 1966, in

8145-525: The 12th Century, when gargoyles appeared in Europe, the Roman Catholic Church was growing stronger and converting many new people. Most of the population at this time was illiterate, so images were very important to convey ideas. Many early gargoyles depicted some version of a dragon, especially in France. In addition to serving as spouts for water, the gaping mouths of these gargoyles evoked

8326-400: The 16th floor, the facade is clad with white brick, interrupted by white-marble bands in a manner similar to basket weaving . The inner faces of the brick walls are coated with a waterproof grout mixture measuring about 1 ⁄ 16 inch (1.6 mm) thick. The windows, arranged in grids, do not have window sills , the frames being flush with the facade. Between the 16th and 24th floors,

8507-901: The 1912 Salon d'Automne was entrusted to the department store Printemps , and that year it created its own workshop, Primavera . By 1920 Primavera employed more than 300 artists, whose styles ranged from updated versions of Louis XIV , Louis XVI , and especially Louis Philippe furniture made by Louis Süe and the Primavera workshop, to more modern forms from the workshop of the Au Louvre department store. Other designers, including Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Paul Follot, refused to use mass production, insisting that each piece be made individually. The early Art Deco style featured luxurious and exotic materials such as ebony , ivory and silk, very bright colours and stylized motifs , particularly baskets and bouquets of flowers of all colours, giving

8688-424: The 1920s, the look changed; the fashions stressed were more casual, sportive and daring, with the woman models usually smoking cigarettes. American fashion magazines such as Vogue , Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar quickly picked up the new style and popularized it in the United States. It also influenced the work of American book illustrators such as Rockwell Kent. In Germany, the most famous poster artist of

8869-503: The 1920s. The art movement known as Cubism appeared in France between 1907 and 1912, influencing the development of Art Deco. In Art Deco Complete: The Definitive Guide to the Decorative Arts of the 1920s and 1930s Alastair Duncan writes "Cubism, in some bastardized form or other, became the lingua franca of the era's decorative artists." The Cubists, themselves under the influence of Paul Cézanne , were interested in

9050-415: The 1920s. Art Deco's development of Cubism's selective geometry into a wider array of shapes carried Cubism as a pictorial taxonomy to a much broader audience and wider appeal. (Richard Harrison Martin, Metropolitan Museum of Art) Art Deco was not a single style, but a collection of different and sometimes contradictory styles. In architecture, Art Deco was the successor to (and reaction against) Art Nouveau,

9231-969: The 1925 Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes ( International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts ) held in Paris . Art Deco has its origins in bold geometric forms of the Vienna Secession and Cubism . From its outset, it was influenced by the bright colors of Fauvism and of the Ballets Russes , and the exoticized styles of art from China , Japan , India , Persia , ancient Egypt , and Maya . During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance and faith in social and technological progress. The movement featured rare and expensive materials, such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. It also introduced new materials such as chrome plating , stainless steel and plastic. In New York,

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9412-462: The 1929 Chrysler radiator caps , and the 61st-floor is adorned with eagles as a nod to America's national bird . The design of the Chrysler Building makes extensive use of bright " Nirosta " stainless steel, an austenitic alloy developed in Germany by Krupp . It was the first use of this "18-8 stainless steel" in an American project, composed of 18% chromium and 8% nickel . Nirosta was used in

9593-417: The 1960s. There are 32 elevators in the skyscraper, clustered into four banks. At the time of opening, 28 of the elevators were for passenger use. Each bank serves different floors within the building, with several "express" elevators going from the lobby to a few landings in between, while "local" elevators connect the landings with the floors above these intermediate landings. As per Walter Chrysler's wishes,

9774-528: The 19th century were considered simply artisans. The term arts décoratifs had been invented in 1875 , giving the designers of furniture, textiles, and other decoration official status. The Société des artistes décorateurs (Society of Decorative Artists), or SAD, was founded in 1901, and decorative artists were given the same rights of authorship as painters and sculptors. A similar movement developed in Italy. The first international exhibition devoted entirely to

9955-433: The 24th through 27th floors, the facade contains horizontal bands and zigzagged gray-and-black brick motifs. The section above the fourth setback, between the 27th and 31st floors, serves as a podium for the main shaft of the building. There are Nirosta-steel decorations above the setbacks. At each corner of the 31st floor, large car-hood ornaments were installed to make the base look larger. These corner extensions help counter

10136-486: The 31st floor, there are no more setbacks until the 60th floor, above which the structure is funneled into a Maltese cross shape that "blends the square shaft to the finial ", according to author and photographer Cervin Robinson . The floor plans of the first sixteen floors were made as large as possible to optimize the amount of rental space nearest ground level, which was seen as most desirable. The U-shaped cut above

10317-576: The 71st floor, called "Celestial". For fifty cents visitors could transit its circumference through a corridor with vaulted ceilings painted with celestial motifs and bedecked with small hanging glass planets. The center of the observatory contained the toolbox that Walter P. Chrysler used at the beginning of his career as a mechanic; it was later preserved at the Chrysler Technology Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan . An image of

10498-480: The 73rd floor houses the motors of the elevators and a 15,000-US-gallon (57,000 L) water tank, of which 3,500 US gallons (13,000 L) are reserved for extinguishing fires. In the mid-1920s, New York's metropolitan area surpassed  London's as the world's most populous metropolitan area and its population exceeded ten million by the early 1930s. The era was characterized by profound social and technological changes. Consumer goods such as radio, cinema, and

10679-597: The Art Deco aesthetic, when transposed from the canvas onto a textile material or wallpaper. Sonia Delaunay conceives her dress models in an abstract and geometric style, "as live paintings or sculptures of living forms". Cubist-like designs are created by Louis Barrilet in the stained-glass windows of the American bar at the Atrium Casino in Dax (1926), but also including names of fashionable cocktails. In architecture,

10860-414: The Art Deco tenet of amplifying the entrance's visual impact. A smaller side entrance on 43rd Street is one story high. There are storefronts consisting of large Nirosta-steel-framed windows at ground level. Office windows penetrate the second through fourth floors. The west and east elevations contain the air shafts above the fourth floor, while the north and south sides contain the receding setbacks. Below

11041-476: The Chrysler Building to a height of 1,046 feet (319 m), greatly exceeding 40 Wall Street's height. Contemporary news media did not write of the spire's erection, nor were there any press releases celebrating the spire's erection. Even the New York Herald Tribune , which had virtually continuous coverage of the tower's construction, did not report on the spire's installation until days after

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11222-599: The Chrysler Building to evaluate the durability of the product in architecture. In 1929, the American Society for Testing Materials created an inspection committee to study its performance, which regarded the Chrysler Building as the best location to do so; a subcommittee examined the building's panels every five years until 1960, when the inspections were canceled because the panels had shown minimal deterioration. The Chrysler Building's height and legally mandated setbacks influenced Van Alen in his design. The walls of

11403-458: The Chrysler is the 12th-tallest building in the city as of 2019, tied with The New York Times Building . The building is constructed of a steel frame infilled with masonry, with areas of decorative metal cladding. The structure contains 3,862 exterior windows. Approximately fifty metal ornaments protrude at the building's corners on five floors reminiscent of gargoyles on Gothic cathedrals . The 31st-floor contains gargoyles as well as replicas of

11584-492: The Chrysler is the 12th-tallest building in the city , tied with The New York Times Building . Originally a project of real estate developer and former New York State Senator William H. Reynolds , the building was commissioned by Walter Chrysler , the head of the Chrysler Corporation . The construction of the Chrysler Building, an early skyscraper , was characterized by a competition with 40 Wall Street and

11765-511: The Cooper Union to try to increase the assessed value of the property in 1924. The move, which would force Reynolds to pay more rent, was unusual because property owners usually sought to decrease their property assessments and pay fewer taxes. Reynolds hired the architect  William Van Alen to design a forty-story building there in 1927. Van Alen's original design featured many Modernist stylistic elements, with glazed, curved windows at

11946-523: The Crossroads (1933) for 30 Rockefeller Plaza featured an unauthorized portrait of Lenin . When Rivera refused to remove Lenin, the painting was destroyed and a new mural was painted by the Spanish artist Josep Maria Sert . Sculpture was a very common and integral feature of Art Deco architecture. In France, allegorical bas-reliefs representing dance and music by Antoine Bourdelle decorated

12127-539: The Empire State Building's co-developer, former governor Al Smith, announced the updated plans for that skyscraper, with an observation deck on the 86th-floor roof at a height of 1,050 feet (320 m), higher than the Chrysler's 71st-floor observation deck at 783 feet (239 m). Art Deco Art Deco , short for the French Arts décoratifs ( lit.   ' Decorative Arts ' ),

12308-508: The Goodwin Construction Company began demolition of what had been built. A contract was awarded on October 28, and demolition was completed on November 9. Chrysler's initial plans for the building were similar to Reynolds's, but with the 808-foot building having 68 floors instead of 67. The plans entailed a ground-floor pedestrian arcade ; a facade of stone below the fifth floor and brick -and- terracotta above; and

12489-573: The Lexington Avenue entrance is a security guard's desk topped by a digital clock. The panel behind the desk is made of marble, surrounded by Nirosta steel. The lobby connects to four elevator banks, each of a different design. To the north and south of the security desk are terrazzo staircases leading to the second floor and basement. The stairs contain marble walls and Nirosta-steel railings. The outer walls are flat but are clad with marble strips that are slightly angled to each other, which give

12670-523: The Mexican painter Diego Rivera . The murals were Art Deco because they were all decorative and related to the activities in the building or city where they were painted: Reginald Marsh and Rockwell Kent both decorated U.S. postal buildings, and showed postal employees at work while Diego Rivera depicted automobile factory workers for the Detroit Institute of Arts . Diego Rivera's mural Man at

12851-523: The Reynolds Building, which was published in August 1928. The new design was much more conservative, with an Italianate dome that a critic compared to Governor Al Smith 's bowler hat, and a brick arrangement on the upper floors that simulated windows in the corners, a detail that remains in the current Chrysler Building. This design almost exactly reflected the shape, setbacks, and the layout of

13032-572: The Soviet Union and Pavilion de L'Esprit Nouveau , built by the magazine of that name run by Le Corbusier, were built in an austere style with plain white walls and no decoration; they were among the earliest examples of modernist architecture . In 1925, two different competing schools coexisted within Art Deco: the traditionalists, who had founded the Society of Decorative Artists; included

13213-553: The Soviet Union, Konstantin Melnikov ; the Irish designer Eileen Gray; the French designer Sonia Delaunay; and the jewellers Georges Fouquet and Jean Puiforcat . They fiercely attacked the traditional Art Deco style, which they said was created only for the wealthy, and insisted that well-constructed buildings should be available to everyone, and that form should follow function. The beauty of an object or building resided in whether it

13394-490: The United States during the Great Depression. The Federal Art Project hired American artists to create posters to promote tourism and cultural events. The architectural style of Art Deco made its debut in Paris in 1903–04, with the construction of two apartment buildings in Paris, one by Auguste Perret on rue Benjamin Franklin and the other on rue Trétaigne by Henri Sauvage. The two young architects used reinforced concrete for

13575-518: The United States in 1929, and reached Europe shortly afterwards, greatly reduced the number of wealthy clients who could pay for the furnishings and art objects. In the Depression economic climate, few companies were ready to build new skyscrapers. Even the Ruhlmann firm resorted to producing pieces of furniture in series, rather than individual hand-made items. The last buildings built in Paris in

13756-459: The United States, where, during the World War, he designed posters to encourage war production. The designer Charles Gesmar became famous making posters for the singer Mistinguett and for Air France . Among the best-known French Art Deco poster designers was Cassandre , who made the celebrated poster of the ocean liner SS Normandie in 1935. In the 1930s a new genre of posters appeared in

13937-404: The amusement park was destroyed by a fire in 1911, Reynolds turned his attention to  Manhattan real estate, where he set out to build the tallest building in the world. In 1921, Reynolds rented a large plot of land at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street with the intention of building a tall building on the site. Reynolds did not develop the property for several years, prompting

14118-656: The automobile became widespread. In 1927, Walter Chrysler's automotive company, the Chrysler Corporation, became the third-largest car manufacturer in the United States, behind  Ford and  General Motors . The following year, Chrysler was named Time  magazine's " Person of the Year ". The economic boom of the 1920s and speculation in the real estate market fostered a wave of new skyscraper projects in New York City. The Chrysler Building

14299-621: The beginning of World War II and the rise of the strictly functional and unadorned styles of modern architecture and the International Style of architecture that followed. Art Deco took its name, short for Arts Décoratifs , from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925, though the diverse styles that characterised it had already appeared in Paris and Brussels before World War I . Arts décoratifs

14480-512: The best-known Art Deco salon sculptors was the Romanian-born Demétre Chiparus , who produced colourful small sculptures of dancers. Other notable salon sculptors included Ferdinand Preiss , Josef Lorenzl , Alexander Kelety, Dorothea Charol and Gustav Schmidtcassel. Another important American sculptor in the studio format was Harriet Whitney Frishmuth , who had studied with Auguste Rodin in Paris. Pierre Le Paguays

14661-413: The building or room. The themes were usually selected by the patrons, not the artist. Abstract sculpture for decoration was extremely rare. In the United States, the most prominent Art Deco sculptor for public art was Paul Manship , who updated classical and mythological subjects and themes in an Art Deco style. His most famous work was the statue of Prometheus at Rockefeller Center in New York City,

14842-421: The building resembling a rocket hung above it. According to a contemporary brochure, views of up to 100 miles (160 km) were possible on a clear day; but the small triangular windows of the observatory created strange angles that made viewing difficult, depressing traffic. When the Empire State Building opened in 1931 with two observatories at a higher elevation, the Chrysler observatory lost its clientele. After

15023-509: The building to the New York City Subway 's 4 , ​ 5 , ​ 6 , <6> ​, 7 , <7> ​​, and S trains at Grand Central–42nd Street station . It is part of the structure's original design. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company , which at the time was the operator of all the routes serving the 42nd Street station, originally sued to block construction of

15204-493: The building's design, some calling it inane and unoriginal, others hailing it as modernist and iconic. Reviewers in the late 20th and early 21st centuries regarded the building as a paragon of the Art Deco architectural style. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the American Institute of Architects ' list of America's Favorite Architecture . The facade and interior became New York City designated landmarks in 1978, and

15385-476: The building's tenants. The drinkable water would then be bottled and shipped to higher floors. The private Cloud Club formerly occupied the 66th through 68th floors. It opened in July 1930 with some three hundred members, all wealthy males who formed the city's elite. Its creation was spurred by Texaco 's wish for a proper restaurant for its executives prior to renting fourteen floors in the building. The Cloud Club

15566-471: The case of gargoyles unattributable to any one or two animals, some say that they were simply the product of pagan mythology passed down through generations in the medium of fireside tales. Akin to the leading catholic theory but slightly different, some suggest that gargoyles were meant not to intimidate evil spirits or demons, but humans. It is said that at the gateway of the city of Amiens, France, two gargoyles stood guard, and anyone with bad intentions toward

15747-443: The city and its people would be spewed with acid before being able to enter. On the contrary, the king of Amiens would be showered with coins with every return. Other gargoyles were meant to strike fear into the heart of the pious, specifically those that were anthropomorphized. Gargoyles that were mostly human but had animalistic attributes, like the harpy (half human half bird) or cynocephali (dog-headed human) were meant to represent

15928-459: The city skyline, giving it the romantic quality seen in films and plays. The Chrysler Building project was shaped by these circumstances. Originally, the Chrysler Building was to be the Reynolds Building, a project of real estate developer and former New York state senator William H. Reynolds . Prior to his involvement in planning the building, Reynolds was best known for developing Coney Island 's Dreamland amusement park . When

16109-493: The clear contrast between horizontal and vertical volumes, specific both to Russian Constructivism and the Frank Lloyd Wright - Willem Marinus Dudok line, becomes a common device in articulating Art Deco façades, from individual homes and tenement buildings to cinemas or oil stations. Art Deco also used the clashing colours and designs of Fauvism, notably in the work of Henri Matisse and André Derain , inspired

16290-508: The club or transform it into a disco or a gastronomic club, these plans have never materialized, as then-owner Cooke reportedly did not want a "conventional" restaurant operating within the old club. Tishman Speyer rented the top two floors of the old Cloud Club. The old staircase has been removed, as have many of the original decorations, which prompted objections from the Art Deco Society of New York. Originally, Walter Chrysler had

16471-566: The competition in 1929. The race was defined by at least five other proposals, although only the Empire State Building would survive the Wall Street Crash of 1929 . The "Race into the Sky", as popular media called it at the time, was representative of the country's optimism in the 1920s, which helped fuel the building boom in major cities. Van Alen expanded the Chrysler Building's height to 925 feet (282 m), prompting Severance to increase

16652-532: The corners. Van Alen was respected in his field for his work on the Albemarle Building at Broadway and 24th Street, designing it in collaboration with his partner  H. Craig Severance . Van Alen and Severance complemented each other, with Van Alen being an original, imaginative architect and Severance being a shrewd businessperson who handled the firm's finances. The relationship between them became tense over disagreements on how best to run

16833-462: The day that the reliquary of the saint was carried in procession (see details at Rouen ). The term gargoyle is most often applied to medieval work, but throughout all ages, some means of water diversion, when not conveyed in gutters, was adopted. In ancient Egyptian architecture, gargoyles showed little variation, typically in the form of a lion's head. Similar lion-mouthed water spouts were also seen on Greek temples , carved or modelled in

17014-652: The decorative arts, the Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna , was held in Turin in 1902. Several new magazines devoted to decorative arts were founded in Paris, including Arts et décoration and L'Art décoratif moderne . Decorative arts sections were introduced into the annual salons of the Sociéte des artistes français , and later in the Salon d'Automne . French nationalism also played

17195-413: The design by ten floors, but reneged on that decision after realizing that the increased height would also result in increased publicity. From late 1928 to early 1929, modifications to the design of the dome continued. In March 1929, the press published details of an "artistic dome" that had the shape of a giant thirty-pointed star, which would be crowned by a sculpture five meters high. The final design of

17376-646: The designs of Art Deco textiles, wallpaper, and painted ceramics. It took ideas from the high fashion vocabulary of the period, which featured geometric designs, chevrons, zigzags, and stylized bouquets of flowers. It was influenced by discoveries in Egyptology , and growing interest in the Orient and in African art. From 1925 onwards, it was often inspired by a passion for new machines, such as airships, automobiles and ocean liners, and by 1930 this influence resulted in

17557-464: The dome included several arches and triangular windows. Lower down, various architectural details were modeled after Chrysler automobile products, such as the hood ornaments of the Plymouth (see § Facade ). The building's gargoyles on the 31st floor and the eagles on the 61st floor, were created to represent flight, and to embody the machine age of the time. Even the topmost needle was built using

17738-551: The dominant architectural style became the International Style pioneered by Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe . A handful of Art Deco hotels were built in Miami Beach after World War II, but elsewhere the style largely vanished, except in industrial design, where it continued to be used in automobile styling and products such as jukeboxes. In the 1960s, it experienced a modest academic revival, thanks in part to

17919-447: The earliest Art Deco landmark in Paris, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées , in 1912. The 1925 Exposition had major sculptural works placed around the site, pavilions were decorated with sculptural friezes, and several pavilions devoted to smaller studio sculpture. In the 1930s, a large group of prominent sculptors made works for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne at Chaillot. Alfred Janniot made

18100-417: The elevators were designed to run at a rate of 900 feet per minute (270 m/min), despite the 700-foot-per-minute (210 m/min) speed restriction enforced in all city elevators at the time. This restriction was loosened soon after the Empire State Building opened in 1931, as that building had also been equipped with high-speed elevators. The Chrysler Building also had three of the longest elevator shafts in

18281-400: The exterior exhibits vertical white brick columns that are separated by windows on each floor. This visual effect is made possible by the presence of aluminum spandrels between the columns of windows on each floor. There are abstract reliefs on the 20th through 22nd-floor spandrels, while the 24th floor contains 9-foot (2.7 m) decorative pineapples. Above the third setback, consisting of

18462-415: The exterior ornaments, the window frames, the crown, and the needle. The steel was an integral part of Van Alen's design, as E.E. Thum explains: "The use of permanently bright metal was of greatest aid in the carrying of rising lines and the diminishing circular forms in the roof treatment, so as to accentuate the gradual upward swing until it literally dissolves into the sky...." Stainless steel producers used

18643-625: The façade of the new San Francisco Stock Exchange building. In Washington D.C., Michael Lantz made works for the Federal Trade Commission building. In Britain, Deco public statuary was made by Eric Gill for the BBC Broadcasting House , while Ronald Atkinson decorated the lobby of the former Daily Express Building in London (1932). One of the best known and certainly the largest public Art Deco sculpture

18824-509: The fearsome destructiveness of these legendary beasts, reminding the laity of the need for the church's protection. Human qualities were sometimes ascribed to specific animals—that is, the animals were anthropomorphized . This was especially common for pagans, and using these ideas helped conversion to Catholicism. Humans were often depicted in bawdy positions, some leaning over the ledge they're perched on to vomit or defecate off of. The orifice that rainwater would come out of would imply that it

19005-456: The fireplace in the Maison du Collectionneur exhibit at the 1925 Exposition, which featured furniture by Ruhlmann and other prominent Art Deco designers. His murals were also prominent in the décor of the French ocean liner SS Normandie . His work was purely decorative, designed as a background or accompaniment to other elements of the décor. The other painter closely associated with the style

19186-548: The firm. A 1924 article in the  Architectural Review , praising the Albemarle Building's design, had mentioned Van Alen as the designer in the firm and ignored Severance's role. The architects' partnership dissolved acrimoniously several months later, with lawsuits over the firm's clients and assets lasting over a year. The rivalry influenced the design of the future Chrysler Building, since Severance's more traditional architectural style would otherwise have restrained Van Alen's more modern outlook. By February 2, 1928,

19367-493: The first modern reinforced-concrete apartment building in Paris on rue Benjamin Franklin in 1903–04. Henri Sauvage , another important future Art Deco architect, built another in 1904 at 7, rue Trétaigne (1904). From 1908 to 1910, the 21-year-old Le Corbusier worked as a draftsman in Perret's office, learning the techniques of concrete construction. Perret's building had clean rectangular form, geometric decoration and straight lines,

19548-555: The first time in Paris residential buildings; the new buildings had clean lines, rectangular forms, and no decoration on the façades; they marked a clean break with the art nouveau style. Between 1910 and 1913, Perret used his experience in concrete apartment buildings to construct the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, 15 avenue Montaigne . Between 1925 and 1928 Sauvage constructed the new Art Deco façade of La Samaritaine department store in Paris. Gargoyle The term originates from

19729-416: The foundation, equal to 63% of the future building's weight. Construction of the building proper began on January 21, 1929. The Carnegie Steel Company provided the steel beams, the first of which was installed on March 27; and by April 9, the first upright beams had been set into place. The steel structure was "a few floors" high by June 1929, 35 floors high by early August, and completed by September. Despite

19910-425: The fourth floor served as a shaft for air flow and illumination. The area between floors 28 and 31 added "visual interest to the middle of the building, preventing it from being dominated by the heavy detail of the lower floors and the eye-catching design of the finial. They provide a base to the column of the tower, effecting a transition between the blocky lower stories and the lofty shaft." The ground floor exterior

20091-622: The furniture designer Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand , the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, and designer Paul Poiret; they combined modern forms with traditional craftsmanship and expensive materials. On the other side were the modernists, who increasingly rejected the past and wanted a style based upon advances in new technologies, simplicity, a lack of decoration, inexpensive materials, and mass production. The modernists founded their own organisation, The French Union of Modern Artists , in 1929. Its members included architects Pierre Chareau , Francis Jourdain , Robert Mallet-Stevens , Corbusier, and, in

20272-502: The furniture for the first-class salons and cabins of the French transatlantic ocean liners . The vivid hues of Art Deco came from many sources, including the exotic set designs by Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes , which caused a sensation in Paris just before World War I. Some of the colours were inspired by the earlier Fauvism movement led by Henri Matisse ; others by the Orphism of painters such as Sonia Delaunay ; others by

20453-423: The future trademarks of Art Deco. The décor of the theatre was also revolutionary; the façade was decorated with high reliefs by Antoine Bourdelle , a dome by Maurice Denis , paintings by Édouard Vuillard , and an Art Deco curtain by Ker-Xavier Roussel . The theatre became the venue for many of the first performances of the Ballets Russes . Perret and Sauvage became the leading Art Deco architects in Paris in

20634-466: The graphic arts, in the years just before World War I. It appeared in Paris in the posters and the costume designs of Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes, and in the catalogues of the fashion designers Paul Poiret. The illustrations of Georges Barbier , and Georges Lepape and the images in the fashion magazine La Gazette du bon ton perfectly captured the elegance and sensuality of the style. In

20815-685: The great producers of gargoyles in the 19th century, the earliest known medieval gargoyles appear on Laon Cathedral (c. 1200–1220). One of the more famous examples is the gargoyles of Notre-Dame de Paris . Although most have grotesque features, the term gargoyle has come to include all types of images. Some gargoyles were depicted as monks, or combinations of real animals and people, many of which were humorous. Unusual animal mixtures, or chimeras, did not act as rainspouts and are more properly called grotesques. They serve as ornamentation but are now popularly called gargoyles. Both ornamented and unornamented waterspouts projecting from roofs at parapet level were

20996-403: The grounds that the columns made the lobby appear "cramped". The lobby has dim lighting which combined with the appliqués of the lamps, create an intimate atmosphere and highlight the space. Vertical bars of fluorescent light are covered with Belgian blue marble and Mexican amber onyx bands, which soften and diffuse the light. The marble and onyx bands are designed as inverted chevrons . Opposite

21177-464: The height of 40 Wall Street to 927 feet (283 m) in April 1929. Construction of 40 Wall Street began that May and was completed twelve months later. In response, Van Alen obtained permission for a 125-foot-long (38 m) spire. He had it secretly constructed inside the frame of the Chrysler Building, ensuring that Severance did not know the Chrysler Building's ultimate height until the end. The spire

21358-469: The help of the only volunteer, a condemned man. In each, the monster is led back to Rouen and burned, but its head and neck would not burn due to being tempered by its own fire breath. The head was then mounted on the walls of the newly built church to scare off evil spirits, and used for protection. In commemoration of St. Romain, the Archbishops of Rouen were granted the right to set a prisoner free on

21539-555: The idea of strengthening the concrete with a mesh of iron rods in a grill pattern. In 1893, Auguste Perret built the first concrete garage in Paris, then an apartment building, house, then, in 1913, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées . The theatre was denounced by one critic as the "Zeppelin of Avenue Montaigne", an alleged Germanic influence, copied from the Vienna Secession . Thereafter, the majority of Art Deco buildings were made of reinforced concrete, which gave greater freedom of form and less need for reinforcing pillars and columns. Perret

21720-429: The impression of being curved. The inner railings of each stair are designed with zigzagging Art Deco motifs, ending at red-marble newel posts on the ground story. Above each stair are aluminum-leaf ceilings with etched-glass chandeliers. The ceiling contains a 110-by-67-foot (34 by 20 m) mural, Transport and Human Endeavor , designed by Edward Trumbull . The mural's theme is "energy and man's application of it to

21901-505: The layout of any could be changed quickly and comfortably. Pipes under the floors carry both telephone and electricity cables. The lobby is triangular in plan, connecting with entrances on Lexington Avenue, 42nd Street, and 43rd Street. The lobby was the only publicly accessible part of the Chrysler Building by the 2000s. The three entrances contain Nirosta steel doors, above which are etched-glass panels that allow natural light to illuminate

22082-548: The left bank, and along the banks of the Seine. The Grand Palais, the largest hall in the city, was filled with exhibits of decorative arts from the participating countries. There were 15,000 exhibitors from twenty different countries, including Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the new Soviet Union . Germany was not invited because of tensions after

22263-483: The lights on until 6 a.m. Since 2015, the Chrysler Building and other city skyscrapers have been part of the Audubon Society 's Lights Out program, turning off their lights during bird migration seasons. The interior of the building has several elements that were innovative when the structure was constructed. The partitions between the offices are soundproofed and divided into interchangeable sections, so

22444-399: The lobby, there are ziggurat-shaped Mexican onyx panels above the elevator doors. The doors are designed in a lotus pattern and are clad with steel and wood. When the doors are closed, they resemble "tall fans set off by metallic palm fronds rising through a series of silver parabolas, whose edges were set off by curved lilies" from the outside, as noted by Curcio. However, when a set of doors

22625-406: The lowermost sixteen floors rise directly from the sidewalk property lines, except for a recess on one side that gives the building a U-shaped floor plan above the fourth floor. There are setbacks on floors 16, 18, 23, 28, and 31, making the building compliant with the 1916 Zoning Resolution. This gives the building the appearance of a ziggurat on one side and a U-shaped palazzo on the other. Above

22806-410: The middle and slopes down on either side. The decoration of the cabs' interiors was also a nod to the Chrysler Corporation's vehicles: cars built during the building's early years had dashboards with wooden moldings. Both the doors and cab interiors were considered to be works of extraordinary marquetry . On the 42nd Street side of the Chrysler Building, a staircase from the street leads directly under

22987-530: The movement known as Les Nabis , and in the work of symbolist painter Odilon Redon, who designed fireplace screens and other decorative objects. Bright shades were a feature of the work of fashion designer Paul Poiret , whose work influenced both Art Deco fashion and interior design. The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1910–1913), by Auguste Perret , was the first landmark Art Deco building completed in Paris. Previously, reinforced concrete had been used only for industrial and apartment buildings, Perret had built

23168-550: The new entrance because it would cause crowding, but the New York City Board of Transportation pushed to allow the corridor anyway. Chrysler eventually built and paid for the building's subway entrance. Work on the new entrance started in March 1930 and it opened along with the Chrysler Building two months later. The basement also had a "hydrozone water bottling unit" that would filter tap water into drinkable water for

23349-652: The new style were the Museum of Public Works by Auguste Perret (now the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council ), the Palais de Chaillot by Louis-Hippolyte Boileau , Jacques Carlu and Léon Azéma , and the Palais de Tokyo of the 1937 Paris International Exposition ; they looked out at the grandiose pavilion of Nazi Germany, designed by Albert Speer , which faced the equally grandiose socialist-realist pavilion of Stalin's Soviet Union. After World War II,

23530-630: The non-loadbearing walls of the skyscraper. Walter Chrysler personally financed the construction with his income from his car company. The Chrysler Building's height officially surpassed the Woolworth's on October 16, 1929, thereby becoming the world's tallest structure. The same year that the Chrysler Building's construction started, banker George L. Ohrstrom proposed the construction of a 47-story office building at 40 Wall Street downtown, designed by Van Alen's former partner Severance. Shortly thereafter, Ohrstrom expanded his project to 60 floors, but it

23711-660: The objective of the viewer to pin one purpose to the entirety of gargoyles. According to Lester Burbank Bridaham, writing in Gargoyles, Chimeres and the Grotesque in French Gothic Sculpture , "There is much symbolism in the sculpture of the Gothic period; but we must be wary of reading in too much meaning." The ancient Egyptians , Greeks , Etruscans , and Romans all used animal-shaped waterspouts. During

23892-526: The observatory closed, it was used to house radio and television broadcasting equipment. Since 1986, the old observatory has housed the office of architects Harvey Morse and Cowperwood Interests. The stories above the 71st floor are designed mostly for exterior appearance, functioning mainly as landings for the stairway to the spire and do not contain office space. They are very narrow, have low and sloping roofs, and are only used to house radio transmitters and other mechanical and electrical equipment. For example,

24073-475: The other depicted an oil refinery and Texaco truck. The south side of the 67th floor also contained a library with wood-paneled walls and fluted pilasters. The 68th floor mainly contained service spaces. In the 1950s and 1960s, members left the Cloud Club for other clubs. Texaco moved to Westchester County in 1977, and the club closed two years later. Although there have been several projects to rehabilitate

24254-519: The period was Ludwig Hohlwein , who created colourful and dramatic posters for music festivals, beers, and, late in his career, for the Nazi Party. During the Art Nouveau period, posters usually advertised theatrical products or cabarets. In the 1920s, travel posters, made for steamship lines and airlines, became extremely popular. The style changed notably in the 1920s, to focus attention on

24435-423: The product being advertised. The images became simpler, precise, more linear, more dynamic, and were often placed against a single-color background. In France, popular Art Deco designers included Charles Loupot and Paul Colin , who became famous for his posters of American singer and dancer Josephine Baker . Jean Carlu designed posters for Charlie Chaplin movies, soaps, and theatres; in the late 1930s he emigrated to

24616-527: The products, all the major Paris department stores, and major designers had their own pavilions. The Exposition had a secondary purpose in promoting products from French colonies in Africa and Asia, including ivory and exotic woods. The Hôtel du Collectionneur was a popular attraction at the Exposition; it displayed the new furniture designs of Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, as well as Art Deco fabrics, carpets, and

24797-480: The proposed building's height had been increased to 54 stories, which would have made it the tallest building in Midtown. The proposal was changed again two weeks later, with official plans for a 63-story building. A little more than a week after that, the plan was changed for the third time, with two additional stories added. By this time, 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue were both hubs for construction activity, due to

24978-515: The relief sculptures on the façade of the Palais de Tokyo. The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris , and the esplanade in front of the Palais de Chaillot, facing the Eiffel Tower, was crowded with new statuary by Charles Malfray , Henry Arnold, and many others. Public Art Deco sculpture was almost always representational, usually of heroic or allegorical figures related to the purpose of

25159-597: The removal of the Third Avenue Elevated's 42nd Street spur, which was seen as a blight on the area. The adjacent 56-story Chanin Building was also under construction. Because of the elevated spur's removal, real estate speculators believed that Lexington Avenue would become the "Broadway of the East Side", causing a ripple effect that would spur developments farther east. In April 1928, Reynolds signed

25340-479: The rest of the spire's pieces were raised and riveted in sequence, raising the tower to 1,046 feet. Van Alen, who witnessed the process from the street along with its engineers and Walter Chrysler, compared the experience to watching a butterfly leaving its cocoon. In the October 1930 edition of Architectural Forum , Van Alen explained the design and construction of the crown and needle: A high spire structure with

25521-450: The salon passed through the full-scale model. The façade of the house, designed by Duchamp-Villon, was not very radical by modern standards; the lintels and pediments had prismatic shapes, but otherwise the façade resembled an ordinary house of the period. For the two rooms, Mare designed the wallpaper, which featured stylized roses and floral patterns, along with upholstery, furniture and carpets, all with flamboyant and colourful motifs. It

25702-557: The simplification of forms to their geometric essentials: the cylinder, the sphere, the cone. In 1912, the artists of the Section d'Or exhibited works considerably more accessible to the general public than the analytical Cubism of Picasso and Braque. The Cubist vocabulary was poised to attract fashion, furniture and interior designers. In the Art Décoratif section of the 1912 Salon d'Automne, an architectural installation

25883-530: The solution of his problems", and it pays homage to the Golden Age of Aviation and the Machine Age . The mural is painted in the shape of a "Y" with ocher and golden tones. The central image of the mural is a "muscled giant whose brain directs his boundless energy to the attainment of the triumphs of this mechanical era", according to a 1930 pamphlet that advertised the building. The mural's Art Deco style

26064-553: The space. The floors contain bands of yellow travertine from Siena , which mark the path between the entrances and elevator banks. The writer Eric Nash described the lobby as a paragon of the Art Deco style, with clear influences of German Expressionism . Chrysler wanted the design to impress other architects and automobile magnates, so he imported various materials regardless of the extra costs incurred. The walls are covered with huge slabs of African red granite . The walls also contain storefronts and doors made of Nirosta steel. There

26245-564: The spire had been raised. Chrysler realized that his tower's height would exceed the Empire State Building's as well, having ordered Van Alen to change the Chrysler's original roof from a stubby Romanesque dome to the narrow steel spire. However, the Empire State's developer John J. Raskob reviewed the plans and realized that he could add five more floors and a spire of his own to his 80-story building and acquired additional plots to support that building's height extension. Two days later,

26426-403: The spokes of a wheel. The windows are repeated, in smaller form, on the terraced crown's seven narrow setbacks. Due to the curved shape of the dome, the Nirosta sheets had to be measured on site, so most of the work was carried out in workshops on the building's 67th and 75th floors. According to Robinson, the terraced crown "continue[s] the wedding-cake layering of the building itself. This concept

26607-416: The street. This led to the construction of Art Deco structures in New York City with significant setbacks, large volumes, and striking silhouettes that were often elaborately decorated. Art Deco buildings were constructed for only a short period of time; but because that period was during the city's late-1920s real estate boom, the numerous skyscrapers built in the Art Deco style predominated in

26788-571: The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The Chrysler Building is on the eastern side of Lexington Avenue between 42nd and 43rd streets in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The land was donated to The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1902. The site is roughly a trapezoid with a 201-foot-long (61 m) frontage on Lexington Avenue;

26969-470: The style called Streamline Moderne . The event that marked the zenith of the style and gave it its name was the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts which took place in Paris from April to October in 1925. This was officially sponsored by the French government, and covered a site in Paris of 55 acres, running from the Grand Palais on the right bank to Les Invalides on

27150-440: The time. The shaft of the tower was designed to emphasize both the horizontal and vertical: each of the tower's four sides contains three columns of windows, each framed by bricks and an unbroken marble pillar that rises along the entirety of each side. The spandrels separating the windows contain "alternating vertical stripes in gray and white brick", while each corner contains horizontal rows of black brick. The Chrysler Building

27331-477: The title of the first modern exhibition on the subject, held by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, Les Années 25 : Art déco, Bauhaus, Stijl, Esprit nouveau , which covered a variety of major styles in the 1920s and 1930s. The term was then used in a 1966 newspaper article by Hillary Gelson in The Times (London, 12 November), describing the different styles at the exhibit. Art Deco gained currency as

27512-423: The top of the Chrysler Building in 1938. WCBS-TV transmissions were shifted to the Empire State Building in 1960 in response to competition from RCA 's transmitter on that building. For many years WPAT-FM and WTFM (now WKTU) also transmitted from the Chrysler Building, but their move to the Empire State Building by the 1970s ended commercial broadcasting from the structure. The crown and spire are illuminated by

27693-469: The torturous fate of sinners. Some gargoyles were purely decoration, like the monkey in the courtyard of the palace of Jacques Coeur in Bourges, France. This stylistic choice was supposedly a nod to Cours exotic and adventurous lifestyle, as monkeys are a species not native to france. It is most likely that gargoyles meant all of these things depending on where and when they were made, and it shouldn't be

27874-507: The war; the United States, misunderstanding the purpose of the exhibit, declined to participate. The event was visited by sixteen million people during its seven-month run. The rules of the exhibition required that all work be modern; no historical styles were allowed. The main purpose of the Exhibit was to promote the French manufacturers of luxury furniture, porcelain, glass, metalwork, textiles, and other decorative products. To further promote

28055-457: The whole family of styles known as "Déco". Parisian department stores and fashion designers also played an important part in the rise of Art Deco. Prominent businesses such as silverware firm Christofle , glass designer René Lalique , and the jewellers Louis Cartier and Boucheron began designing products in more modern styles. Beginning in 1900, department stores recruited decorative artists to work in their design studios. The decoration of

28236-447: The windows of the current building, but with a different dome. With the design complete, groundbreaking for the Reynolds Building took place on September 19, 1928, but by late 1928, Reynolds did not have the means to carry on construction. Walter Chrysler offered to buy the building in early October 1928, and Reynolds sold the plot, lease, plans, and architect's services to Chrysler on October 15, 1928, for more than $ 2.5 million. That day,

28417-563: The world at the time of completion. Over the course of a year, Van Alen painstakingly designed these elevators with the assistance of L.T.M. Ralston, who was in charge of developing the elevator cabs' mechanical parts. The cabs were manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company , while the doors were made by the Tyler Company. The dimensions of each elevator were 5.5 feet (1.7 m) deep by 8 feet (2.4 m) wide. Within

28598-471: The writings of architectural historians such as Bevis Hillier. In the 1970s efforts were made in the United States and Europe to preserve the best examples of Art Deco architecture, and many buildings were restored and repurposed. Postmodern architecture , which first appeared in the 1980s, like Art Deco, often includes purely decorative features. Deco continues to inspire designers, and is often used in contemporary fashion, jewellery, and toiletries. There

28779-464: Was a Tudor-style foyer on the 66th floor with oak paneling, as well as an old English-style grill room with wooden floors, wooden beams, wrought-iron chandeliers, and glass and lead doors. The main dining room had a futuristic appearance, with polished granite columns and etched glass appliqués in Art Deco style. There was a mural of a cloud on the ceiling and a mural of Manhattan on the dining room's north side. The 66th and 67th floors were connected by

28960-483: Was a brilliant publicist for modernist architecture; he stated that a house was simply "a machine to live in", and tirelessly promoted the idea that Art Deco was the past and modernism was the future. Le Corbusier's ideas were gradually adopted by architecture schools, and the aesthetics of Art Deco were abandoned. The same features that made Art Deco popular in the beginning, its craftsmanship, rich materials and ornament, led to its decline. The Great Depression that began in

29141-571: Was a compromise between William Van Alen's modern style and Walter Chrysler's stately and traditional tastes. A member had to be elected and, if accepted, paid an initial fee of $ 200, plus a $ 150 to $ 300 annual fee. Texaco executives comprised most of the Cloud Club's membership. The club and its dining room may have inspired the Rainbow Room and the Rockefeller Center Luncheon Club at 30 Rockefeller Plaza . There

29322-499: Was a distinct break from traditional décor. The critic Emile Sedeyn described Mare's work in the magazine Art et Décoration : "He does not embarrass himself with simplicity, for he multiplies flowers wherever they can be put. The effect he seeks is obviously one of picturesqueness and gaiety. He achieves it." The Cubist element was provided by the paintings. The installation was attacked by some critics as extremely radical, which helped make for its success. This architectural installation

29503-486: Was a prominent Art Deco studio sculptor, whose work was shown at the 1925 Exposition. He worked with bronze, marble, ivory, onyx, gold, alabaster and other precious materials. François Pompon was a pioneer of modern stylised animalier sculpture. He was not fully recognised for his artistic accomplishments until the age of 67 at the Salon d'Automne of 1922 with the work Ours blanc , also known as The White Bear , now in

29684-566: Was also a founder of the Wiener Werkstätte (1903–1932), an association of craftsmen and interior designers working in the new style. This became the model for the Compagnie des arts français , created in 1919, which brought together André Mare , and Louis Süe , the first leading French Art Deco designers and decorators. The emergence of Art Deco was closely connected with the rise in status of decorative artists, who until late in

29865-435: Was also a pioneer in covering the concrete with ceramic tiles , both for protection and decoration. The architect Le Corbusier first learned the uses of reinforced concrete working as a draftsman in Perret's studio. Other new technologies that were important to Art Deco were new methods in producing plate glass , which was less expensive and allowed much larger and stronger windows, and for mass-producing aluminium , which

30046-496: Was built as part of an ongoing building boom that resulted in the city having the world's tallest building from 1908 to 1974. Following the end of World War I , European and American architects came to see simplified design as the epitome of the modern era and Art Deco skyscrapers as symbolizing progress, innovation, and modernity. The 1916 Zoning Resolution restricted the height that street-side exterior walls of New York City buildings could rise before needing to be setback from

30227-730: Was copied worldwide. In decoration, many different styles were borrowed and used by Art Deco. They included pre-modern art from around the world and observable at the Musée du Louvre , Musée de l'Homme and the Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie . There was also popular interest in archaeology due to excavations at Pompeii , Troy , and the tomb of the 18th dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun . Artists and designers integrated motifs from ancient Egypt , Africa , Mesopotamia , Greece , Rome , Asia, Mesoamerica and Oceania with Machine Age elements. Other styles borrowed included Futurism , Orphism, Functionalism , and Modernism in general. Cubism discovers its decorative potential within

30408-468: Was delivered to the site in four sections. On October 23, 1929, one week after the Chrysler Building surpassed the Woolworth Building's height and one day before the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , the spire was assembled. According to one account, "the bottom section of the spire was hoisted to the top of the building's dome and lowered into the 66th floor of the building." Then, within 90 minutes

30589-535: Was exhibited known as La Maison Cubiste . The façade was designed by Raymond Duchamp-Villon . The décor of the house was by André Mare . La Maison Cubiste was a furnished installation with a façade, a staircase, wrought iron banisters, a bedroom, a living room—the Salon Bourgeois , where paintings by Albert Gleizes , Jean Metzinger , Marie Laurencin , Marcel Duchamp , Fernand Léger and Roger de La Fresnaye were hung. Thousands of spectators at

30770-456: Was famous for speaking out against gargoyles carved on the walls of his monastery's cloister: What are these fantastic monsters doing in the cloisters before the eyes of the brothers as they read? What is the meaning of these unclean monkeys, these strange, savage lions and monsters? To what purpose are here placed these creatures, half beast, half man or these spotted tigers? I see several bodies with one head and several heads with one body. Here

30951-572: Was first used in France in 1858 in the Bulletin de la Société française de photographie . In 1868, the Le Figaro newspaper used the term objets d'art décoratifs for objects for stage scenery created for the Théâtre de l'Opéra . In 1875, furniture designers, textile, jewellers, glass-workers, and other craftsmen were officially given the status of artists by the French government. In response,

31132-400: Was made bishop of Rouen , relates how he delivered the country around Rouen from a monster called Gargouille or Goji . La Gargouille is said to have been the typical dragon with bat-like wings, a long neck, and the ability to breathe fire from its mouth. Multiple versions of the story are given, either that St. Romanus subdued the creature with a crucifix, or he captured the creature with

31313-435: Was near the corner of Lexington Avenue and 42nd Streets, and opened in 1936. The ground floor featured "invisible glass" display windows , a 51-foot (16 m) diameter turntable upon which automobiles were displayed, and a ceiling with lights arranged in concentric circles. Escalators led to the showroom's second floor where Plymouths , Dodges , and DeSotos were sold. The Chrysler Salon remained operational through at least

31494-478: Was no section set aside for painting at the 1925 Exposition. Art deco painting was by definition decorative, designed to decorate a room or work of architecture, so few painters worked exclusively in the style, but two painters are closely associated with Art Deco. Jean Dupas painted Art Deco murals for the Bordeaux Pavilion at the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition in Paris, and also painted the picture over

31675-417: Was perfectly fit to fulfil its function. Modern industrial methods meant that furniture and buildings could be mass-produced, not made by hand. The Art Deco interior designer Paul Follot defended Art Deco in this way: "We know that man is never content with the indispensable and that the superfluous is always needed...If not, we would have to get rid of music, flowers, and perfumes..!" However, Le Corbusier

31856-488: Was placed on a polished wooden pattern that was also customized to the cab. Hidden behind these plates were ceiling fans. Curcio wrote that these elevators "are among the most beautiful small enclosed spaces in New York, and it is fair to say that no one who has seen or been in them has forgotten them". Curcio compared the elevators to the curtains of a Ziegfeld production, noting that each lobby contains lighting that peaks in

32037-426: Was still shorter than the Woolworth and Chrysler buildings. That April, Severance increased 40 Wall's height to 840 feet (260 m) with 62 floors, exceeding the Woolworth's height by 48 feet (15 m) and the Chrysler's by 32 feet (9.8 m). 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building started competing for the title of " world's tallest building ". The Empire State Building , on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, entered

32218-409: Was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show , New York City, Chicago and Boston. Thanks largely to the exhibition, the term "Cubist" began to be applied to anything modern, from women's haircuts to clothing to theater performances." The Cubist influence continued within Art Deco, even as Deco branched out in many other directions. Cubism's adumbrated geometry became coin of the realm in

32399-404: Was tagged with other names, like style moderne , Moderne , modernistic or style contemporain , and was not recognized as a distinct and homogenous style. New materials and technologies, especially reinforced concrete , were key to the development and appearance of Art Deco. The first concrete house was built in 1853 in the Paris suburbs by François Coignet. In 1877 Joseph Monier introduced

32580-582: Was used for building and window frames and later, by Corbusier, Warren McArthur , and others, for lightweight furniture. The architects of the Vienna Secession (formed 1897), especially Josef Hoffmann , had a notable influence on Art Deco. His Stoclet Palace , in Brussels (1905–1911), was a prototype of the Art Deco style, featuring geometric volumes, symmetry, straight lines, concrete covered with marble plaques, finely-sculpted ornament, and lavish interiors, including mosaic friezes by Gustav Klimt . Hoffmann

32761-583: Was vomit or fecal matter. Some animals (such as the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus ) were unknown in western Europe during the Middle Ages, so gargoyles of these species (such as the ones at Laon Cathedral ) are modern gargoyles and therefore did not have symbolic meaning in Medieval times. The Lion was the most prominent figure for animal gargoyles, likely due to their frequent appearances in other medieval art and even art in antiquity. Lions became

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