111-637: Alan Hess (born 1952) is an American architect, author, lecturer and advocate for twentieth-century architectural preservation. "Alan Hess [is] a prominent California architecture critic who has written extensively on roadside strips," writes the New York Times (March 6, 1994). Through 2012, Alan has written and/or co-authored twenty books, published numerous articles on the architecture of Googie , Las Vegas, Frank Lloyd Wright, Oscar Niemeyer, John Lautner, Ranch Houses, Palm Springs, Organic architecture , Mid-century Modern design, and suburbia. He has been
222-529: A carnival atmosphere along multi-lane highways , in motel architecture and above all in commercial signage . The influence of Googie was prominently seen in the architecture and signage of Los Angeles and Las Vegas circa 1945–1970, where many of the same architects who designed Googie coffee shops in Los Angeles went on to design some of the seminal hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. Private clients were
333-470: A "Doo Wop Preservation League" works with local business and property owners, city planning and zoning officials, and the state's historic preservation office, to help ensure that the remaining historic structures will be preserved. Wildwood's high-rise hotel district has been the first in the US to enforce "Doo Wop" design guidelines for new construction. The architect Michael Hsu designed multiple restaurants for
444-842: 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
555-618: 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
666-418: A central downtown but could spread out to the suburbs , where business hubs could be interspersed with residential areas. The suburbs offered less congestion by offering the same businesses, but accessible by car. Instead of one main store downtown, businesses now had multiple stores in suburban areas. This new trend required owners and architects to develop a visual imagery so customers would recognize it from
777-540: 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
888-563: A family nickname of Lillian K. Burton, the wife of the restaurant's original owner, Mortimer C. Burton, and aunt of musician Peter Matz . Googies was located at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights in Los Angeles but was demolished in 1989. The name Googie became a rubric for the architectural style when editor Douglas Haskell of House and Home magazine and architectural photographer Julius Shulman were driving through Los Angeles one day. Haskell insisted on stopping
999-482: 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
1110-468: 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
1221-899: A neglected and popular Modern form. Following books continued to explore overlooked chapters in twentieth-century architecture and urbanism. He is responsible for qualifying several landmark buildings for the National Register of Historic Places, including the oldest operating McDonald's in Downey, Stuart Company Plant and Office Building and Bullock's Pasadena in Pasadena, and the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale, Arizona. Through his writing, lectures, and educational outreach, Hess has shed light on many forgotten and neglected styles of postwar American architecture - especially in
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#17327808348741332-512: A new appreciation for the style. Despite the humble origins of Googie, Hess writes that, "Googie architecture is an important part of the history of suburbia." Googie was a symbol of the early days of car culture . One of the earliest organizations in the US that advocated for the preservation of Googie architecture was the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee, which was formed in 1984 in response to
1443-463: 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
1554-399: 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
1665-483: A series of Streamline Moderne drive-ins during the 1930s; though he did not have formal training as an architect, he had been offered a scholarship at the architecture school at the University of Pennsylvania because of his skill. McAllister developed a brand for coffee shop chains by developing a style for each client – which also allowed customers to easily recognize a store from the road. Along with McAllister,
1776-602: 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
1887-675: 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
1998-707: Is a type of futurist architecture influenced by car culture , jets , the Atomic Age and the Space Age . It originated in Southern California from the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s, and was popular in the United States from roughly 1945 to the early 1970s. Googie-themed architecture was popular among roadside businesses, including motels , coffee houses and gas stations . The style later became widely known as part of
2109-755: 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
2220-491: 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
2331-528: 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
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#17327808348742442-496: 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
2553-566: The mid-century modern style, elements of which represent the populuxe aesthetic, as in Eero Saarinen 's TWA Terminal . The term Googie comes from the now-defunct Googies Coffee Shop in Hollywood designed by John Lautner . Similar architectural styles are also referred to as Populuxe or Doo Wop . Features of Googie include upswept roofs, curvilinear, geometric shapes, and bold use of glass , steel and neon . Googie
2664-429: The post-Modern period at the end of the 20th century. The common elements that generally distinguish Googie from other forms of architecture are: The boomerang shape was another design element that captured movement. It was used structurally in place of a pillar or aesthetically as a stylized arrow. Hess writes that the boomerang was a stylistic rendering of a directional energy field. Editor Douglas Haskell described
2775-430: 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
2886-556: The 1910s–1930s, Googie became less valued as time passed, and many buildings in this style have been destroyed. Some examples have been preserved, though, such as the oldest McDonald's stand (located in Downey, California ). The origin of the name Googie dates to 1949, when architect John Lautner designed the Googies Coffee Shop in Hollywood , which had distinct architectural characteristics. The name "Googie" had been
2997-901: 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
3108-424: 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
3219-556: 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
3330-415: 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,
3441-969: 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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3552-425: The 1930s, Streamline Moderne became popular because of the high energy silhouettes its sleek designs created. These buildings featured rounded edges, large pylons and neon lights, all symbolizing, according to Hess, "invisible forces of speed and energy", that reflect the influx of mobility that cars , locomotives and zeppelins brought. Streamline Moderne, much like Googie, was styled to look futuristic to signal
3663-644: The 1960s, following the Apollo 11 Moon landing , the rise of ecology movements against nuclear power , and the de-escalations of the Space Race and the Atomic Age , Googie began to fall out of style. The architectural community rarely appreciated or accepted Googie, considering it too flashy and vernacular for academic praise, and so the architecture of the 1970s, especially the International Style , shunned Googie. As Hess notes, beginning during
3774-426: The 1970s, commercial buildings were meant to blend into the urban environment and not attract attention. By the mid 1960s, the novelty of Googie was starting to wane and there was a backlash against the flashy style. Since Googie buildings were usually part of the service industry , most developers did not think they were worth preserving as cultural artifacts. The publication of Googie by Alan Hess in 1986 inspired
3885-528: 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
3996-653: 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,
4107-539: The Austin-based restaurant P. Terry's in the Googie style. Each location is uniquely designed, featuring oblique shapes, color, and large geometric roofs. Googie architecture developed from the futuristic architecture of Streamline Moderne , extending and reinterpreting technological themes for the new conditions of the 1950s. While 1930s architecture was relatively simple, Googie embraced opulence. Hess argues that
4218-523: 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
4329-752: The French Arts décoratifs ( lit. ' Decorative Arts ' ), 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
4440-523: 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
4551-572: 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
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4662-553: 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
4773-577: The State of New Jersey. The term "doo-wop" was used by New Jersey's Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts during the early 1990s to describe the unique, space-age architectural style. Many of Wildwood's Doo-Wop motels were built by Lou Morey, who specialized in such designs. His Ebb Tide Motel, built during 1957 and demolished during 2003, is credited as the first Doo-Wop motel in Wildwood Crest. After
4884-490: 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
4995-518: 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
5106-459: 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
5217-420: The abstract Googie style, saying that "If it looks like a bird, this must be a geometric bird." Also, the buildings must appear to defy gravity, as Haskell noted: "whenever possible, the building must hang from the sky". Haskell's third tenet for Googie was that it have more than one theme—more than one structural system. Because of its need to be noticed from moving automobiles along the commercial strip, Googie
5328-709: The architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News since 1986. Born in California in 1952, Hess received his BA at Principia College , a master's degree in architecture from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture , and is a licensed architect. After working with architects William Coburn, and Callister Payne and Bischoff, Hess started his own firm specializing in residential work and historic preservation. His first book, Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture (Chronicle Books 1985) focused on
5439-560: The attention of motorists since the invention of the car, but during the 1950s the style became more widespread. The identity of the first architect to practice in the style is often disputed, though Wayne McAllister was one early and influential architect in starting the style with his 1949 Bob's Big Boy restaurant in Burbank . McAllister got his start designing fashionable restaurants in Southern California, which led to
5550-551: 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
5661-489: The beginning of a new era – that of the automobile and other technologies. Drive-in services such as diners , movie theaters and filling stations built with the same principles developed to serve the new American city. Drive-ins had advanced car-oriented architectural design, as they were built with an expressive utilitarian style, circular and surrounded by a parking lot, allowing all customers equal access from their cars. These developments in consumer-oriented design set
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#17327808348745772-512: 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
5883-476: 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,
5994-399: The car upon seeing Googies and proclaimed "This is Googie architecture." He popularized the name after an article he wrote appeared in a 1952 edition of House and Home magazine. Though Haskell coined the term Googie and was an advocate of modernism, he did not appreciate the Googie aesthetic. In his article he used the fictional Professor Thrugg's overly effusive praise to mock Googie, at
6105-493: 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
6216-652: 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
6327-690: The demolition of Ship's coffee shop in Westwood and Tiny Naylor's Drive-In in Hollywood. Despite the loss of these and the original Googie's in Hollywood, other Googie coffee shops including Norms Restaurants , Johnie's Coffee Shop , and the Wich Stand have received historic designations. The world's oldest McDonald's in Downey and the earliest remaining Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, have also been preserved and restored. In Wildwood, New Jersey ,
6438-646: 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
6549-551: 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
6660-447: 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
6771-608: The efforts of citizens, the city of Downey, and historic preservationists, the structure was rebuilt and reopened in 2009 as a Bob's Big Boy restaurant. Another remaining example of Googie architecture still in operation is the main terminal at Washington Dulles International Airport , designed by Eero Saarinen in 1958. This terminal exemplifies the dramatic roof slope, large windows, and generous use of concrete, somewhat similar to Saarinen's TWA Flight Center . Classic locations for Googie style buildings are Miami Beach, Florida , where secondary commercial structures were adapted from
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#17327808348746882-422: 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
6993-403: 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
7104-420: The first Norms Restaurant , and the Holiday Bowl on Crenshaw Boulevard. America's interest in spaceflight had a significant influence on the unique style of Googie architecture. During the 1950s, space travel became a reality for the first time in history. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I , the first human-made satellite to achieve Earth orbit. The Soviet Union then launched Vostok 1 carrying
7215-409: The first human, Yuri Gagarin , into Earth orbit in 1961. The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations made competing with the Soviets for dominance in space a national priority of considerable urgency and importance. This marked the beginning of the so-called " Space Race ". Googie-style signs usually boast sharp and bold angles, intended to suggest the aerodynamic features of a rocket ship. Also, at
7326-440: 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,
7437-622: 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
7548-448: 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
7659-423: 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
7770-402: 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
7881-555: 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
7992-548: 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
8103-465: The main patrons of Googie. Ultimately, the style became unfashionable and, over time, numerous examples of the Googie style have either fallen into disrepair or been destroyed completely. The exaggerated, once-futuristic Googie style exemplified in The Jetsons cartoons and the original Disneyland (which featured a Googie Tomorrowland ) gave birth several decades later to retrofuturism . Googie
8214-530: 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
8325-652: 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,
8436-519: 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
8547-423: 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
8658-527: 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
8769-491: The prolific Googie architects included John Lautner , Douglas Honnold, and the team of Louis Armet and Eldon Davis of Armet & Davis firm, which they founded in 1947. Also instrumental in developing the style was designer Helen Liu Fong , a member of the firm of Armet and Davis . Joining the firm during 1951, she created such Googie interiors as those of the Johnie's Coffee Shop on Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue,
8880-485: The public's imagination of the future. Googie architecture exploited this trend by incorporating energy into its design with elements such as the boomerang , diagonals, atomic bursts and bright colors. According to Hess, commercial architecture was influenced by the desires of the mass audience. The public was captivated by rocket ships and nuclear energy , so, in order to draw their attention, architects used these as motifs in their work. Buildings had been used to catch
8991-410: The realm of commercial modern architecture. Googie coffee shops, he said, "brought modern architecture to ordinary people in their everyday lives." The Los Angeles Conservancy has named him "The preeminent authority on Southern California Modernism." He won the group's "President's Award" in 2015. Googie architecture Googie architecture ( / ˈ ɡ uː ɡ i / GOO -ghee )
9102-489: The reason for this was that the vision of the future of the 1930s was obsolete by 1950 and thus the architecture evolved along with it. During the 1930s, Streamlined trains and Lincoln-Zephyrs had been advanced technology, and Streamline Moderne paralleled their smooth simplified aerodynamic exteriors. That simplicity may have represented the Depression era's forced frugality. The eye-catching Googie style flourished in
9213-515: 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
9324-520: The resort style of Morris Lapidus and other hotel designers; the first phase of Las Vegas, Nevada ; and their birthplace of Southern California . The beachfront resort town of Wildwood, New Jersey , features an array of motel designs, colorfully described by such sub-styles as Vroom, Pu-Pu Platter, Phony Colonee and more. The district is known collectively as the Wildwoods Shore Resort Historic District by
9435-426: The road. This modern consumer architecture was based on communication. The new smaller suburban drive-in restaurants were essentially architectural signboards advertising the business to vehicles on the road. This was achieved by using bold style choices, including large pylons with elevated signs, bold neon letters and circular pavilions. Hess writes that because of the increase in mass production and travel during
9546-450: 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
9657-613: The same time lampooning Hollywood, which he felt informed the aesthetic. Googie's beginnings are with the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s. Alan Hess , one of the most knowledgeable writers on the subject, writes in Googie: Ultra Modern Road Side Architecture that mobility in Los Angeles during the 1930s was characterized by the initial influx of the automobile and the service industry that evolved to cater to it. With car ownership increasing, cities no longer had to be centered on
9768-557: 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
9879-409: The stage for Googie during the 1950s, since during the 1940s World War II and rationing caused a pause of development because of the imposed frugality on the American public. With the increasing prosperity of the United States during the 1950s, however, American designers celebrated this new affluence with optimistic designs. The development of nuclear power and the reality of spaceflight captivated
9990-470: 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
10101-433: The time, the unique architecture was a form of architectural expressionism, as space rockets were technological novelties at the time. Cantilevered structures, acute angles, illuminated plastic paneling, freeform boomerang and artist's palette shapes and cutouts, and tailfins on buildings marked Googie architecture, which was contemptible to some architects of then-current High Art Modernism , but had defenders during
10212-477: 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
10323-507: 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
10434-457: 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
10545-471: 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
10656-483: 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
10767-499: 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
10878-486: 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
10989-566: 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
11100-488: 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
11211-454: Was also characterized by Space Age designs symbolic of motion, such as boomerangs , flying saucers , diagrammatic atoms and parabolas , and free-form designs such as "soft" parallelograms and an artist's palette motif. These stylistic conventions represented American society's fascination with Space Age themes and marketing emphasis on futuristic designs. As with the Art Deco style of
11322-580: Was also the inspiration for the background art style of animated television series and movies such as Dexter's Laboratory , Johnny Bravo , The Powerpuff Girls , Futurama , George Shrinks , The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius , My Life as a Teenage Robot , and The Incredibles , as well as the cover of the faux-memoir Based on a True Story by comedian Norm Macdonald . Books are arranged in chronological order by year of publication: Preservation groups working to save Googie architecture include Art Deco Art Deco , short for
11433-730: 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
11544-535: 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
11655-572: 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,
11766-478: 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
11877-508: Was not a style noted for its subtlety. One of the more famous Googie buildings is the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), designed by James Langenheim of William Pereira and Charles Luckman and built during 1961. One of the remaining Googie-styled drive-in restaurants, Harvey's Broiler (Paul Clayton, 1958), later Johnie's Broiler in Downey, California , was partially demolished in 2006. However, through
11988-417: 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
12099-409: 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
12210-404: 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
12321-582: 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
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