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136-583: The former Maryland National Bank , once the largest banking chain in Maryland, originated as the Baltimore Trust Company in the early 1900s. It later was challenged by the expenses and problems from the building of its landmark red brick, masonry, and limestone art deco -style skyscraper in downtown Baltimore at 10 Light Street between East Redwood (known as German Street before World War I ) and East Baltimore Streets. Construction began on

272-431: A local board of health was established for the town. The local board district covered part of the parish of Watford and part of the neighbouring parish of Bushey . The Watford Local Board District came into effect on 15 August 1850, and the first board was elected the following month. The local board was responsible for building the town's waterworks and sewers. For a time the board held its meetings at an upper room of

408-842: 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

544-618: 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

680-540: A community centre, cricket squares, football pitches and Woodside Leisure Centre. Woodside Stadium is home to Watford Harriers Athletics Club and hosts national level events such as the British Milers Club Grand Prix. There are 92 nationally listed buildings in Watford. These include St Mary's Church , which dates to the 12th century, and Holy Rood Church which dates to 1890. St Mary's

816-400: A day or two late. MBNA has been found to be one of the leading implementors of rate-jacking. For further information and links, see credit card . In Ireland, MBNA was accused of calling consumers up to eight times a day who were behind in making payments, which prompted the state debt advisory service to publicly state that harassment is outlawed. Affected people were advised to complain to

952-540: 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

1088-482: 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

1224-540: A larger Muslim and Hindu population than the average. Watford has two tiers of local government, at district (borough) and county level: Watford Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council . Watford is one of only 15 authorities in England and Wales headed by a directly elected mayor . Dorothy Thornhill was the first directly elected mayor of Watford , elected in May 2002 and re-elected in May 2006 and May 2010. She

1360-561: A major investor and chairman of Maryland National since 1989, was the new MBNA's largest stockholder and chairman. Lerner became a multi-billionaire and purchased the Cleveland Browns franchise of the National Football League in 1998. He served as chairman of MBNA until his death in 2002. Maryland National was acquired by NationsBank in 1993. As MBNA grew, it became one of the most profitable companies in

1496-468: 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

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1632-463: 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

1768-399: 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

1904-478: A short branch line via Watford High Street to Rickmansworth (Church Street) , and another branch was added to Croxley Green in 1912. The original plan was to extend the Rickmansworth line south connecting Watford to Uxbridge ; this scheme failed and both the Rickmansworth and Croxley branches closed. Watford's population had risen to 17,063 by 1891 to become very cramped. Local landowners sold land for

2040-456: A single parish called Watford. Watford became a municipal borough on 18 October 1922 when it was granted a charter of incorporation. The council was granted a coat of arms on 16 October 1922, two days before it became a borough. Upton House at 14 High Street continued to serve as the meeting place and offices for Watford Urban District Council and then Watford Borough Council until 1940. In 1938 work began on building Watford Town Hall at

2176-602: 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

2312-477: A wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America. On June 10, 2006, MBNA changed its name to FIA Card Services , National Association (FIA), which is not an acronym . On October 20, 2006, Bank of America, National Association (USA), a subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation, merged with and into FIA. This purchase was a reunion of sorts. In 1993, NationsBank (formerly NCNB, and originally North Carolina National Bank ) bought MNC Financial (whose credit card division

2448-675: 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

2584-421: Is a Grade-II-listed building, now in the middle of a high density housing development, it and was for many years a second-hand car dealership. Watford Junction railway station is situated to the north east of the town centre. These developments gave the town excellent communications and stimulated its industrial growth during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Grand Union Canal, allowed coal to be brought into

2720-530: Is a Sparrows Herne Trust plaque. In 1778, Daniel Defoe described Watford as a "genteel market town, very long, having but one street." Watford remained an agricultural community with some cottage industry for many centuries. The Industrial Revolution brought the Grand Junction Canal (now Grand Union Canal ) from 1798 and the London and Birmingham Railway from 1837, both located here for

2856-554: Is a town and borough in Hertfordshire , England, 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Central London , on the banks of the River Colne . Initially a small market town , the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, and breweries . While industry has declined in Watford, its location near London and transport links have attracted several companies to site their headquarters in

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2992-523: Is believed to be the combination of 'caeg', a person's name, and 'hoe', meaning a spur of land. When the land was granted to Sir Richard Morrison in the 16th century, it was called 'Cayshobury', with 'bury' indicating a manor. Cassiobury Park was formed from the grounds of Cassiobury House and consists of 190 acres (0.77 km ) of open space. The house was demolished in 1927 and the Cassiobury Gates in 1970, for road widening. In July 2007,

3128-406: Is evidence of some limited prehistoric occupation around the Watford area, with a few Celtic and Roman finds, though there is no evidence of a settlement until much later. Watford stands where the River Colne could be crossed on an ancient trackway from the southeast to the northwest. Watford's High Street follows the line of part of this route. The town was located on the first dry ground above

3264-663: Is noted for its interior which was renovated in 1850 by the architect George Gilbert Scott and includes fine oak pews decorated in the Gothic Revival style. It also contains the Essex Chapel, which served at the burial place of the nobility of the Cassiobury Estate, including the Earls of Essex . The chapel contains a number of large, ornate marble tombs and memorials dating from the 16th century and later, and

3400-559: Is one of the places marking the boundary of "Oxanhaege". It is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, when this area was part of St Albans Abbey's manor of Cashio. In the 12th century the Abbey was granted a charter allowing it to hold a market here, and the building of St Mary's Church began. The settlement's location helped it to grow, since as well as trade along this north–south through route it possessed good communications into

3536-755: 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

3672-491: 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

3808-597: The FBI . On June 30, 2005, MBNA announced that it was being acquired by Bank of America for stock and cash totaling more than $ 35 billion, and the deal was closed on January 1, 2006. The acquisition resulted in MBNA being renamed to "Bank of America Card Services" while still based in Delaware. For the first part of 2006, MBNA still issued credit cards under its own name associated with Mastercard, VISA, and American Express, but by

3944-582: The Local Government Act 1894 and a municipal borough by grant of a charter in 1922. The borough, which had 102,246 inhabitants in the 2021 census (up from 90,301 inhabitants at the 2011 census, an increase of 13.23%), is separated from Greater London to the south by Three Rivers District . Watford Borough Council is the local authority with the Mayor of Watford as its head – one of only 18 directly elected mayors in England and Wales . There

4080-528: 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

4216-531: The Toronto-Dominion Bank would be purchasing MBNA's Canadian MasterCard portfolio. The acquisition of MBNA Canada by TD, which was completed on December 1, 2011, saw TD become a dual credit issuer (both Visa and MasterCard), become Canada's largest MasterCard issuer, and one of Canada's largest credit issuing banks. In January 2013, Virgin Money agreed to buy £1 billion of assets from MBNA, namely

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4352-568: The Virgin Credit Card assets which MBNA had serviced and managed in partnership with Virgin Money since 2002. The former Vice Chairman of MBNA Corporation, Lance Weaver, became Virgin Money's President of Virgin Money Cards. On December 20, 2016, Lloyds Banking Group announced that it would purchase MBNA's UK portfolio from Bank of America for £1.9 billion, its first acquisition after the financial crisis of 2007–2008 . The deal

4488-496: 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

4624-511: The modernist architect Ernő Goldfinger , the designer Robin Day conceived the polypropylene stacking chair , now recognised as a classic of modern design. Although Hille left the area in 1983, the listed Goldfinger building still stands on St Albans Road. Mod culture found expression through clubs such as the Ace of Herts in the 1960s. The de Havilland factory at Leavesden was responsible for

4760-430: 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

4896-901: 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

5032-424: 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

5168-556: 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

5304-415: 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,

5440-969: 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,

5576-584: The 1990s, opened officially in June 1992. The owners of the shopping centre, Capital Shopping Centres, changed their name to Intu , resulting in The Harlequin changing name to "intu Watford" from May 2013. Carrying forward £4.5 billion of debt into 2020, the company was not able to survive the retail downturn due to the COVID-19 crisis , and went into administration in June 2020. The council owns part of

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5712-528: 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

5848-538: The 2006 World Golf Championship and the 2013 Bilderberg Conference , took place at The Grove hotel . The town was home to the Scammell Lorries factory from 1922 until 1988. The site is now a residential area. Tandon Motorcycles , founded by Devdutt Tandon, were manufactured in Colne Way from 1947 until 1959. The name Cassiobury has had various spellings over time. It is derived from 'Caegshoe', which

5984-653: 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,

6120-523: 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

6256-752: 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

6392-523: 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

6528-572: 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

6664-553: 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

6800-490: 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

6936-518: 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

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7072-494: The United States, the world's largest independent credit card issuer, and the largest private-sector employer in Delaware. In 1995, MBNA moved its headquarters from a suburban location to Rodney Square in downtown Wilmington, Delaware . This investment was credited with helping to revive Wilmington's downtown real estate market. In 2003, MBNA partnered with Bluefish entrepreneur Steve Sims to launch its own credit card. Historically, many MBNA executives were former employees of

7208-459: 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

7344-457: The area was part of the three seat constituency of Hertfordshire . The council have made twinning links with five towns. The first was Mainz , Germany, in 1956, and the most recent is Pesaro , Italy, in 1988; the others are Nanterre , Novgorod , and Wilmington, Delaware . The council award an honorary status of Freedom of the Borough to certain individuals "who have in the opinion of

7480-613: The bank was reorganized as the Maryland National Bank. Maryland National's parent, bank holding company MNC Financial, began offering credit cards in the 1960s. In the early 1980s, Maryland banks lobbied the Maryland General Assembly for legislation to permit higher interest rates on credit-card charges, but lawmakers refused. The neighboring state of Delaware, by contrast, had removed interest-rate restrictions in 1981. When Maryland failed to do

7616-621: 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

7752-512: 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

7888-476: 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,

8024-493: 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

8160-532: The close relationship between Biden and MBNA, Byron York called Biden the "Senator from MBNA" in a 1998 article for conservative magazine The American Spectator . MBNA was one of the companies mentioned on a 2004 Frontline WGBH Boston PBS special about unfair business practices by credit card companies. Some practices that Frontline claimed MBNA has engaged in included doubling or tripling of interest rates, shifting billing due dates/payment cycles monthly and raising rates for customers whose payments were

8296-399: The council, rendered eminent services to the borough"; as of 2020 there are three freemen: Elton John , and two local councillors involved in the twinning process. The ancient parish of Watford was included in the hundred of Cashio . In 1835, Watford became the centre of a poor law union , and a workhouse was built in 1836–1837 at 60 Vicarage Road (then called Hagden Lane). In 1850

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8432-530: The cramped and unsanitary houses in the yards and alley-ways opening off the High Street. Some of these people were among those who rioted in 1902 when the celebration for King Edward VII 's coronation was postponed. The council had a programme of slum clearance which stopped with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Building council houses resumed after the war and in the 1920s the Harebreaks estate

8568-652: 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

8704-480: 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

8840-512: The development of the town and it was bought up by commercial interests. Various factories and other works sprung up in Watford, mostly breweries and prints, but also engineering works, a steam laundry, a cold storage company and a cocoa processing plant. The town expanded rapidly, most of the new inhabitants moving in from London. At the start of the 20th century the town was growing fast. New roads were laid out in Callowland, North Watford, and in West Watford on farmland. Many continued to live in

8976-451: The district and paved the way for industrial development. The Watford Gas and Coke Company was formed in 1834 and gas works built. The canal allowed paper-making mills to be sited at Croxley. The John Dickinson and Co. mill beside the canal manufactured the Croxley brand of fine quality paper. There had been brewing in Watford from the 17th century and, by the 19th century, two industrial scale brewers Benskins and Sedgwicks were located in

9112-421: 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

9248-447: 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

9384-438: The fast growth of the company. It allowed for increasing the amount loaned without having to acquire matching assets to offset the loans. In Canada and Europe, the MBNA name was retained. MBNA Europe headquarters is in Chester , England, United Kingdom. MBNA Canada's headquarters is located in Ottawa , Ontario. In 2007, the Canadian division was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers . On August 15, 2011, MBNA announced that

9520-422: 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

9656-403: 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

9792-493: 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,

9928-611: 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. Watford Holy Rood Church , Watford ( / ˈ w ɒ t f ər d / )

10064-491: The following centuries. Cassiobury became the family seat of the Earls of Essex , and The Grove the seat of the Earls of Clarendon . In 1762, Sparrows Herne Turnpike Road was established across the Chilterns. The toll road approximately followed the route of the original A41 road . The location of a toll house can be seen at the bottom of Chalk Hill on the Watford side of Bushey Arches; set in an old flint stone wall

10200-564: The freehold the site, and feels that as the shopping centre is very popular (it was one of top 20 places to shop in the UK in 2019), it will remain open and viable. The town contains the head offices of a number of national companies such as J D Wetherspoon , Camelot Group , Bathstore , and Caversham Finance (BrightHouse). Watford is also the UK base of various multi-nationals including Hilton Worldwide , TotalEnergies , TK Maxx , Costco , JJ Kavanagh and Sons , Vinci , Beko and TeleAdapt . Both

10336-622: 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

10472-502: 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

10608-423: 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

10744-466: 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

10880-555: 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

11016-406: The junction of Rickmansworth Road and Hempstead Road, and the building officially opened on 5 January 1940. Upton House was subsequently demolished in 1961 and Gade House built on the site. Under the Local Government Act 1972 Watford kept the same boundaries, but changed from being a municipal borough to a non-metropolitan district with borough status . Watford is a major regional centre in

11152-548: 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

11288-609: The manufacture of the aircraft engines and later became Leavesden Aerodrome, to the north of Watford. No longer operational, it was converted into Leavesden Film Studios , now famously the home of the Harry Potter films . Watford developed on the River Colne in southern Hertfordshire, England, 16 miles (26 km) northwest of central London . Ethnicity is 61.9% white British, 2.3% Irish, 0.1% Gypsy or Irish traveller, 7.7% other white, 17.9% Asian/Asian British, 5.8% black or black British. The borough had 102,246 inhabitants at

11424-594: The marshy edges of the River Colne. The name Watford may have arisen from the Old English for "waet" (full of water – the area was marshy), or "wath" (hunting), and ford . St Albans Abbey claimed rights to the manor of Casio (then called "Albanestou"), which included Watford, dating from a grant by King Offa in AD 793. The name Watford is first mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 1007, where "Watforda"

11560-530: 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

11696-654: The new BTC Building in 1924. Upon completion in 1929, it became the tallest building in Baltimore (and Maryland), surpassing the neighboring Citizens National Bank to the south. It opened just before the avalanche of economic disaster and unemployment following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 . After a series of reorganizations during the " New Deal " administration of 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt (and his bank holiday shortly after taking office in March 1933),

11832-652: 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,

11968-550: The northern home counties . Hertfordshire County Council designates Watford and Stevenage to be its major sub-regional centres, heading its list of preferred sites for retail development. The High Street is the main focus of activity at night having a high concentration of the town's bars, clubs and restaurants. The primary shopping area is the Harlequin Shopping Centre , a large purpose-built indoor mall with over 140 shops, restaurants and cafes built during

12104-460: The park won a Green Flag Award , which recognises the best green spaces in the country. There is a children's play area, which includes a paddling pool, play equipment, a bouncy castle, an ice cream van, a kiosk where one may buy food, and 10.25" gauge miniature railway. The Grand Union Canal passes through the park. Cassiobury Park is host to the weekly 5k community event parkrun . Awarded Green Flag status since 2009, Cheslyn has been open to

12240-519: 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

12376-423: 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

12512-527: 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

12648-403: The public since 1965 as a formal gardens and house. The 3.5 acre gardens comprise a formal open area to the front and a semi-natural woodland area to the rear. Henry and Daisy Colbeck originally owned the house and gardens. Mr Colbeck was a renowned local architect, and designed Cheslyn House; he and his wife created the original gardens. The Colbecks travelled extensively, and this is reflected in

12784-427: The railway company was forced to build an expensive tunnel under Leavesden to the north of the town. Watford's original railway station opened in 1837 on the west side of St Albans Road, a small, single-storey red-brick building. It closed in 1858 when it was replaced by a new, larger station at Watford Junction approximately 200 metres (220 yd) further south-east. The old station house still stands today; it

12920-491: The range of unusual and exotic plants in the gardens. Since the space has been open to the public it has been further developed, with new features added such as the pond, rock garden, large herbaceous borders and aviary. Awarded Green Flag status since 2011, Woodside Playing Fields cover approximately 59 acres of playing fields, sports facilities and woodland. The site comprises a range of sports facilities including an eight lane synthetic track and stadium, an indoor bowls green,

13056-530: The relevant authorities. The company in December 2009 admitted overcharging 500,000 Irish consumers up to €18 million. In the UK, circa September 2010, MBNA came under fire for its interpretation of new UK legislation, under which credit card providers must allocate payments to the debt with the highest interest rate first: one consumer site called MBNA's interpretation of these rules a "disingenuous money-making tactic". Art deco Art Deco , short for

13192-515: 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

13328-450: 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

13464-524: The same reasons the road had followed centuries before, seeking an easy gradient over the Chiltern Hills. The land-owning interests permitted the canal to follow closely by the river Gade, but the prospect of smoke-emitting steam trains drove them to ensure the railway gave a wide berth to the Cassiobury and Grove estates. Consequently, although the road and canal follow the easier valley route,

13600-566: The same, MNC Financial moved its credit-card business across the state line. MBNA was founded in 1982 as Maryland Bank, N.A. Led by Charles Cawley , MBNA opened its first office in a converted A&P (Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company) food supermarket in Ogletown, Delaware . An early driver of MBNA's growth was the creation of "affinity cards" in 1983. Cawley convinced the alumni association at his alma mater , Georgetown University , to allow MBNA to issue credit cards branded with

13736-719: The second half of 2006, all credit card products were re-branded as Bank of America rather than MBNA. At the same time in June 2005, MBNA bought Loans.co.uk (LCUK), then the United Kingdom's leading finance broker. Although figures were never released, various media outlets including newspapers in Watford , where Loans.co.uk was based, reported the deal made founders David Cowham and Steve Hayes worth £100m. MBNA/Bank of America later decided to close Loans.co.uk. On January 1, 2006, MBNA merged with and into Bank of America. MBNA America Bank, National Association, (MBNA) then became

13872-557: 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

14008-470: 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

14144-683: The time of the 2021 census. The borough is separated from Greater London to the south by the urbanised parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District . The Watford subdivision of the Greater London Urban Area , which includes much of the neighbouring districts, had a total population of 120,960 in the 2001 census. Religion in Watford(2021 census) As of the 2021 census, Watford's religious profile roughly reflected that of England and Wales, with

14280-477: 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

14416-449: The town until their closure in the late 20th century. Hertfordshire County Council designates Watford to be a major sub-regional centre. Several head offices are based in Watford. International conferences and sporting events have also taken place in Watford, including the 2006 World Golf Championship , the 2013 Bilderberg Conference and the 2019 NATO summit which all took place at The Grove . Watford became an urban district under

14552-414: The town. Cassiobury Park is a public park that was once the manor estate of the Earls of Essex . The town developed next to the River Colne on land belonging to St Albans Abbey . In the 12th century, a charter was granted allowing a market, and the building of St Mary's Church began. The town grew partly due to travellers going to Berkhamsted Castle and the royal palace at Kings Langley . A mansion

14688-442: The town. The parish church of St Mary's was extensively restored in 1871. The town expanded slightly during this time. In 1851 a new street off the High Street was opened, King Street, followed by Queens Road and Clarendon Road in the early 1860s. During this time, Watford had a population of around 6,500 The railways also continued to expand from Watford during this period; the Watford and Rickmansworth Railway opened in 1862 as

14824-423: The university's name. This proved to be a successful business, and other affinity affiliations with universities, organizations, and sports teams followed; by 2004, MBNA had more than 5,400 partnerships, making up about 85% of the affinity-card market. In 1989, Maryland Bank was renamed MBNA America Bank. In 1991, MBNA Corp. spun off from Maryland National and became an independent company. Businessman Al Lerner ,

14960-520: The vale of St Albans to the east and into the Chiltern Hills along the valley of the River Chess to the west. The town grew modestly, assisted by travellers passing through to Berkhamsted Castle and the royal palace at Kings Langley . A big house was built at Cassiobury in the 16th century. This was partly rebuilt in the 17th century and another substantial house was built nearby at The Grove . The houses were expanded and developed throughout

15096-507: 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

15232-577: The waterworks on Local Board Road. In 1891 the board purchased Upton House at 14 High Street for £2,650, converting it to become their offices and meeting place, holding its first meeting in the building on 1 October 1891. Under the Local Government Act 1894 , the Watford Local Board was reconstituted as Watford Urban District Council with effect from 31 December 1894. The act also stipulated that parishes could not be partly in an urban district and partly outside it. The old parish of Watford

15368-457: 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

15504-404: The world at the time of the merger with Bank of America, MBNA owned or managed more than $ 122.5 billion in outstanding consumer credit loans. Most of this loan debt was held in securitized portfolios that had been sold to other entities such as insurance companies and pension funds. MBNA virtually invented the process for securitizing credit card debt and this process contributed significantly to

15640-471: 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

15776-483: 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

15912-499: 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

16048-486: 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

16184-566: 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

16320-435: 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

16456-450: Was built at Cassiobury in the 16th century. This was partly rebuilt in the 17th century and another country house was built at The Grove . The Grand Junction Canal in 1798 and the London and Birmingham Railway in 1837 resulted in Watford's rapid growth, with paper-making mills such as John Dickinson at Croxley, influencing the development of printing in the town. Two brewers, Benskins and Sedgwicks , amalgamated and flourished in

16592-628: Was common in Watford and advances in technology meant much of the industry became obsolete. Odhams Press closed down in 1978 and The Sun moved out of Watford during the 1980s after market reforms allowed it to do so. In 1925, the Metropolitan Railway Company built a branch to Watford, opening a station close to Cassiobury Park . In the 1950s and 1960s, Watford was the home of the British designer furniture manufacturer Hille . At their premises on St Albans Road, designed by

16728-520: Was completed on June 1, 2017 and since that time, in the United Kingdom, MBNA is a trading style of Lloyds Bank plc and is regulated in the United Kingdom by the FCA . MBNA hired Hunter Biden (then 26 years old and a recent law school graduate) during the years when his father, then-Senator Joe Biden , was pushing for bankruptcy reform legislation supported by the company, which became law and makes it more difficult to acquire bankruptcy protection. Because of

16864-730: 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

17000-478: Was described by Pevsner as "the chief glory of Watford Church". The Roman Catholic Church, Holy Rood, is a much later structure. Built in 1890 by John Francis Bentley , the architect responsible for Westminster Cathedral in London, it is noted as a particularity fine example of Gothic Revival architecture . The ornate interior contains stained glass by the designer Nathaniel Westlake . Bushey Arches Viaduct

17136-444: Was developed. By the 1920s, printing had become the biggest industry in Watford. The biggest printers in the town were Sun Printers Ltd and Odhams Press . Watford was the biggest printing centre in the world and many advances in printing were made in Watford. During World War II the prints were taken over by the government who used them to print propaganda. After the war, the printing industry began going into decline. Union activity

17272-535: 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

17408-572: 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,

17544-478: 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

17680-417: 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

17816-665: Was spun off years earlier to become MBNA). Five years later, the Bank of America that exists today was the result of the merger between the San Francisco-based Bank of America and the Charlotte-based NationsBank. When Bank of America bought MBNA, it was in effect reuniting MNC Financial's credit card portfolio to its original banking assets and combining the Bank of America credit card portfolio with MBNA's. Employing more than 25,800 people around

17952-409: 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

18088-404: 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

18224-490: Was the first female directly elected mayor in England and the Liberal Democrats ' first directly elected mayor. Since 1999 Watford has been divided into 12 wards . Each ward has three councillors who are elected for a four-year term. Watford elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election, for the Watford constituency . Prior to the establishment of this constituency in 1885

18360-667: Was therefore split, with the part of the parish outside the urban district becoming the parish of Watford Rural with effect from the first parish meeting on 4 December 1894. At the same time, the parish of Bushey was split, with the part within the Watford Urban District becoming a parish called Bushey Urban, which was later renamed Oxhey in 1906. Watford Urban and Bushey Urban / Oxhey were both classed as urban parishes and so did not have parish councils of their own, but were directly administered by Watford Urban District Council. The two urban parishes merged in 1935 to form

18496-582: 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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