Art Deco in New York City - Daniel Turkel - FAH 008 - Intro to Architecture Prof. Abramson
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Art Deco in New York City
Daniel Turkel
Chrysler Building with detail from the Chanin Building in front.
FAH 008 - Intro to Architecture
Prof. Abramson
Fall 2011
1
Preface
& The focus of this paper is to examine Art Deco style and its implementation in New
York City. The goal is to answer several essential questions regarding Art Deco and the
paper is organized with these questions in mind. The questions are as follows:
& How did the Art Deco style come about?
& What does Art Deco mean in mediums other than architecture and how does that
philosophy transfer to architecture?
& What did it mean to build in the Art Deco style?
& Why did New York City prove to be such a popular site for Art Deco buildings?
& What does it mean to reference Art Deco in buildings today?
& Thus the paper aims to address the origins of Art Deco but also its interaction with
New York City and how the two fed off of each other.
& I consulted a number of while researching for this paper. Richard Striner’s “Art Deco:
Polemics and Synthesis” focuses mainly on art critics’ responses to Deco as well as the idea
that Deco synthesized visions of the future with memories of the past. The article was
helpful in its information on the context of Deco’s philosophy and especially how that
philosophy was a result of the interwar period.
& David Gebhard’s Art Deco in America was especially helpful for information on
individual buildings while Robinson and Bletter’s Skyscraper Style gave some more in-depth
information on a few buildings as well as copious photographs and writing on the
movement’s origins and progression.
2
& The articles “Art Deco Sculpture” and “Art Déco: The Last Hurrah” were both useful
in looking at Art Deco style outside of the context of architecture. They showed just how
the Deco aesthetic was applied to visual art, especially crafts, fixtures and furniture.
& A quote from Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Tyranny of the Skyscraper” is used as an
epilogue for the paper. Additionally, a French website called L’art Nouveau was used for an
image of the Paris Exposition.
& Lastly, I used a quote from Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York as an epigraph for the
paper as I felt it embodied the era’s sense of urgency to build and expand both literally as
well as figuratively expanding toward a future that, I think, has become a reality today.
Any photographs not otherwise attributed were taken by me in New York City in November, 2011.
3
Art Deco in New York City
“Manhattan has no choice but the skyward extrusion of the
Grid itself; only the Skyscraper offers business the wide-open
spaces of a man-made Wild West, a frontier in the sky.”
-Rem Koolhaas (Koolhaas 72)
Definition and Origins
& Art Deco is, as defined by Buildings Across Time, “...a slippery term describing a diverse
design idiom that encompassed everything from graphics to ceramics, furniture and
architecture,” (Moffett, Fazio, Wodehouse 472). The style came about during the period
between the World Wars where social, international, economic and political tensions
seemed to threaten human history completely. Some schools of artistic philosophy wanted
to break with the past entirely and embrace the modern age. This was the modernist view
which saw a better future starting now in the technology and industry of the modern age.
There were also those who sought to harken back to days before all the tensions of the war.
These were traditionalists and classicists who sought out various idealized points in history
and tried to emulate them in an effort to bring back the corresponding stability and
philosophy of the referenced period. Art Deco was a style where “classical composition,
modernist simplification of form, streamlining, and Parisian-inspired ornamentation were
combined,”—a middle ground between the clashing ideals of the “New Pioneers” and the
traditionalists (Striner 24).
& The style emerged out of the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et
Industriels Modernes, which was also the style’s namesake (Robinson, Bletter 6, 39). The
4
La Maîtrise Pavillon des Galeries Lafayette features typography and metalwork that would become
part of the Art Deco style, however the building itself is still highly classical (L’art Nouveau).
exposition was supposed to close the “design gap” that France saw between themselves and
the Germans and after World War I delayed the original exposition, there was political
tension behind it as well (44). Germany ended up unable to participate in the exposition but
France managed to show their innovation in design nonetheless, especially since the rules
for submission to the exposition dictated that designs be entirely modern and devoid of
emulation of any ancient works (45). Ultimately the exposition failed, almost by design, to
display much avant-garde or shocking—the Parisians seemed to be focused more on
catching up and emulating modernism than advancing it, and as a result, Art Deco as it was
conceived is not a profoundly revolutionary style. In fact, only Art Deco’s ornamental style
came about in the exposition and, as far as the buildings, it was simply placed on top of
classical buildings despite warnings against classical influence (46-47). A number of
Americans had been sent to attend and report on the exhibition and furniture in the “zig-
5
zag” style of the exhibition started making its way back to America and the influence
quickly took hold of American designers (48). New York wanted to emulate paris, then
other American cities wanted to try it too, and the style quickly became a hit in the US
(Gebhard 8).
Philosophical Considerations
& The Parisian exposition was by no means the only source of influence for the Art
Deco style. Art Deco combined a number of burgeoning art movements in its attempt to
signal its novelty: cubism, constructivism, futurism, and even Art Nouveau, which in many
ways it rejected (Moffett, Fazio, Wodehouse 472). More important, however, was the
philosophical influence for Art Deco. David Gebhard wrote in National Trust Guide to Art
Deco in America that Art Deco (and its close sibling, streamline moderne) “expressed the
prevailing attitude toward change,” (1). Art Deco was about change and modernity, just as
the Paris Exposition was. The period between World War I and II was full of confusion and
an attempt to order the seemingly chaotic world. Modernism meant a break from the past
that had brought about this chaos. But traditionalism simultaneously meant returning to
peace and order before the chaos. And thus a schism formed with the traditionalists and
neoclassicists on one side and the modernists and avant-garde on the other.
& Art Deco may, on the surface, seem like it stayed on the modern side of the ever-
widening gap of design philosophy, considering the ban on referencing antiquity at the Paris
Exposition, but the truth is that Art Deco fell squarely in between. As Striner wrote in “Art
Deco: Polemics and Synthesis,” “...art deco in the 1920s and 1930s proved to be a middle
range between antagonistic ideologies...an important channel between radical and
traditionalist design responses to twentieth-century challenges” (21). Striner goes on to
6
write that Deco sought to capture the spirit of the times—rhythmic, lively, and even
bombastic—but he proposes that Art Deco also captures the tremendous tension and
anxiety of the period (21). The period was filled with both visions of a brilliant future as well
as visions of a dismal one. So when radicals looked to an ordered future and the
traditionalists sought to bring back the ordered past, “art deco designers sought to blend
ancient imagery—from classicism to the symbolic repertoire of ancient Egyptian and Aztec
art—with the futurist imagery of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon” (22).
& In addition to aesthetic and philosophical inspiration, there were practical
motivations behind the rise to popularity of the Art Deco style. Zoning laws introduced in
1916 to New York City aimed at preserving sunlight would have massive effects on the way
people designed skyscrapers—setbacks would be
needed at certain heights and one could only build
indefinitely up on part of the site (Robinson, Bletter 8).
Eliel Saarinen’s design entry for the Chicago Tribune
Building fit with new zoning laws and became a model
(7-8). The design was perfect for New York. It fit with
the necessar y setbacks of the zoning laws, the
decreasing width as it rises makes it appear taller so as
to make the building even more monumental, the
towering structure is a symbol of modernity and yet the
zig-step staircase shape seems to reference ancient
ziggurats so as not to lose historical frame of reference.
Saarinen’s Chicago Tribune Building
& Art Deco ornamentation with Saarinen’s Design (Robinson, Bletter 7).
7
building style replacing the overly classical base architecture of the Paris Exposition would
become the perfect style for New York. The ornamentation style perfectly fit US architects’
need for a new way to decorate skyscrapers that could be expressed in any number of various
materials (Moffett, Fazio, Wodehouse 472). Bletter writes in Skyscraper Style that “The
strength of the Beaux-Arts tradition in New York, still alive in the early twenties, would lead
one to suspect that most architects, from the outset, were not interested in an overtly
revolutionary style or a total break with the past, but more in a rephrasing of given
modes” (35). New York did not need any innovation in building or a totally new way of
designing but rather a blend of traditional and ancient forms with the skyscraper form
which serves as the archetype of American commercial progress. The message that Art
Deco sends is one of being economically progressive, efficient, and modern—with whatever
meanings come attached to the at-the-time buzzword—and yet cultured and by no means
ignorant of precedent. New York could perfectly fit the bill of the futuristic metropolis—
not a cold and inhuman future but one that seems to carefully curate past beauty.
& It certainly did not hurt that the economy set the perfect conditions for the style to
flourish. Robinson writes that “...the occasion for Art Deco in New York City was a building
boom that started in 1925 and lasted until 1931” and goes on to say that “The buildings
they designed were marked by European decorative influences but were also affected by
certain ideas from Chicago, by the theater and by an image of a future New York that had
long had popular currency” (4). It would make sense that any city might want to be the one
to embrace the new style and thrust itself into the future with Art Deco but New York’s
economic conditions and position as a cultural center gave it the helping hand in filling that
8roll, (though it was not the only one—
numerous Art Deco works would spring up all
over the country as well as overseas).
Art Deco Crafts in the Home
& Before looking at specific buildings, it is
worth looking into Art Deco crafts and their
relation to the architecture. Since the style is in
many ways ornamental in origin, it should was
no great stretch to see Art Deco furniture,
sculpture, and other fixtures—and indeed items
Snake Dancer by Dimetre Chiparus (“Art Deco
Sculpture” 132).
decorated in the Art Deco style became
extremely popular for order through catalogs perhaps because of the way they embodied the
Jazz Age zeitgeist, often featuring flappers, flowers and other spirited images that idealized
life at the time. Unfortunately, such images became “elaborate fantasies” when the Great
Depression and World War II arrived and the pieces would go out of fashion (“Art Deco
Sculpture” 133). But while they were still in vogue, they were considered “the perfect
decorative accoutrement for any room” (133). Art Deco was the antithesis of Le Corbusier’s
function over form or Bauhaus’ practical approach to design—instead, furniture doubled as
art and the aesthetics were as important, if not more, than function (Hunter 259-261). Art
Deco furniture and fixtures, then, perhaps miss some of the philosophy that would be part
of the architecture. The architecture blends modern efficiency with ancient ornamentation
and yet the Deco pieces for the home seemed only to embrace the eclectic blend of
aesthetics spanning distant periods and places.
9& In a way, Deco did not make sense in the home or as design for a home itself—the
style was rarely if ever used to build houses and never gave off the feeling of home. The style
symbolized function and economy, technology and progress and so it made perfect sense to
use it for a commercial building, but it was simply irrelevant for a home. Gebhard writes
that “In a fundamental sense, most Americans perceived the Art Deco and Streamline
Moderne as fashions of the moment. The American Middle class would never abandon its
belief that permanency or at least the illusion of permanency, was preferable to a world of
continual change” (2). So Americans wanted permanency in their homes, a sort of
psychological constant and stability, and yet flux, progress, and change elsewhere. There was
a sort of cognitive dissonance in the way people desired to keep things as they were in the
domestic realm and yet have the urban environment shoot towards the future.
Art Deco Buildings in New York City
& Perhaps one of the best ways to discuss New York’s growing Art Deco building
collection is to examine a few examples. The number of Deco skyscrapers in New York City
speaks volumes to just how well suited the city was to be Art Deco’s guinea pig. The first
major New York City Art Deco building was the Barclay-Vesey Building (now the Verizon
Building) which was completed in 1926 (Gebhard 42). Its architect, Ralph T. Walker, wrote
that “In sharp contrast with the vertical rigidity of the buff brick piers...the ornamental
stonework is carved with a free and flowing ornament so designed to be an integral part of
the wall it decorates” (qtd. in Gebhard 43). The building’s emphasis seems to be in
verticality and monumentality as the main tower comes off of two smaller ones which sit in
front of it. The building was designed with a number of economic and practical constraints
in mind and yet still elaborately ornamented on the interior, though its exterior is relatively
10bare compared to what would soon become typical. But the building manages to show the
essential philosophy of an eye to the future with its towering scale and economical planning
and yet the past kept in mind with its eclectically inspired interiors.
& One of the most iconic Deco skyscrapers is the Chrysler Building. William Van Alen
designed the Chrysler Building which was completed in 1930 and immediately, though not
for long, gained the title of the world’s tallest building. The fact that it was the tallest
building shows Deco’s attempts to grab for the future and the magnificence that would
come with it. Showing progress and an idealized beautiful form of industrialization were key
ideas. One design feature of the building is abstracted car wheels and radiator-caps (Moffett,
Fazio, Wodehouse 473). The automobile was often abstracted and used as a motif as an
allegory for technological progress. In addition, the building features murals in the ground-
Furnishings and ornamentation of the Chrysler Building.
level lobby with images of blimps and planes to further epitomize the technological
advances of the day. But as is required, the building it not all about the future. The exterior
features gargoyles, “near-cubist patterns,” and ornamentations inspired by numerous
different times and places (Gebhard 43). The zig-zag pyramidal form of the building, which
is equally referential to Saarinen as to ancient ziggurats, is constantly echoed on the interior
with even more zig-zag forms. It also served as the centerpiece of the growing New York
11City skyline with its iconic crown which features stacked arches with sunbursts on them in a
highly geometric fashion typical of Deco’s ornamentation style.
Views of the Empire State Building.
& Equally iconic if not more is the Empire State Building. Taller even than the Chrysler
Building, William Lamb’s skyscraper was completed in 1931 (44). It features Deco-finishing
above the columns of vertically stacked windows and the now-typical ziggurat pyramidal
shape. Its crown was at first meant to be a airship mooring station but this idea was
scrapped due to a number of logistical problems, but the famous spire was still included and
ended up symbolizing the love of the airship’s futuristic ideal (45). Though it may not be as
heavily ornamented as other Deco skyscrapers, it still features a number of typical motifs
while simultaneously reaching towards a futuristic vision of Manhattan with ultra-tall towers
and common air-travel.
& A close neighbor to the Chrysler Building (and thus testament to the building boom
which permitted these ornamented skyscrapers) is the Chanin Building. Its lobby decorator,
René Chamebellan, said that the ornamentation shows “the story of a city in which it is
possible for a man to rise from humble station to wealth and influence by the sheer power of
12his mind and hands” (qtd. in Robinson, Bletter 21). Exterior ornaments seem to focus
equally on natural scenes of leaves and animals and images of the industrial—machines and
energy.
Detail from the Chanin Building (left) and the American Standard Building (right).
& The American Standard Building (formerly the American Radiator Building) is also
worth noting. Perhaps a pre-cursor to pure Art Deco, Raymond Hood’s 1924 tower takes
ample inspiration from Gothic architecture and yet uses Saarinen’s Tribune structure for the
building itself (Gebhard 42). Additionally, the building features dramatic night-lighting—
perhaps a reference to the growing theater scene which would become a favorite source of
Deco ornament inspiration. Gold terra-cotta against black brick create a dramatic contrast
and give the building its instantly recognizable look. &
& Another Raymond Hood building (this time with John Mead Howells), The Daily
News Building, was built in 1930 (44). The building still has setbacks at higher heights but
comes to form more of a solid tower than the ziggurat-inspired towers discussed earlier and
stood out with great mass as a result (Robinson, Bletter 26; Gebhard 44). The lobby of the
building features an enormous globe that seems to celebrate the planet and what society has
13Interior and exterior of the Daily News Building.
done with it. The facade of the building is covered with vertical stripes which “hide the
windows” (Robinson, Bletter 26). The building does not feature any sort of crown so that, as
Howells put it, “the verticals can terminate naturally against the sky...in the same way that a
growth of pines or a palisade or cliff ends up against the sky” (qtd. in Gebhard 44).
Rendering natural inspiration in such a futuristic and modern building fits in with the Deco
ideal of the blend of the old and the new. The entrance also features stonework depicting a
group of all sorts of “modern”-type people in front of a skyscraper-skyline with a piece of
Abraham Lincoln’s quote, “God must love the common man, he made so many of them.”
Similar to Chambellan’s idea of the embodiment of an “American Dream” type of message,
there was to be a developing theme of a successful future society where man can prosper
(and of course there was the idea that this man would be represented by the Daily News).
& The General Electric Building (not to be confused the with the GE Building in
Rockefeller Center), formerly known as the RCA Victor Building, is a particularly ornate
and interesting example of Deco architecture. Electricity is a theme in its various zig-zagged
and pointed ornaments, especially at its crown. The crown of the building simultaneously
14The General Electric Building.
references electricity as well as a sort of verticality and sharpness that might be seen in the
spires of a Gothic church. The various references to electricity mark GE as a company of
the future and yet the Gothic inspired crown seems to give the building a subtle religious
feel as if it is a church of electricity or a shrine to technological advances of tomorrow.
Conclusion
& These are certainly not the only Art Deco buildings in New York City. The Brill
Building, McGraw Hill Building, Rockefeller Center stand out among others not examined
in this report. Some generalizations can be made based off of the large number of Deco
buildings in New York. Art Deco buildings in New York City stood out from the numerous
modern International Style or traditionalist buildings with which they coinhabit the city.
Deco buildings attempt to evoke a drama and liveliness that embodied the period but they
are also symbolic of the historic tension. This paradox, that a building can be simultaneously
celebrate what it is like to live in its time and yet grapple with the historical tensions and
crisis occurring, is what makes Art Deco so profoundly expressive.
15& New York experienced this paradox as well as any place in the United States could.
The growing economic and cultural metropolis was the perfect spot to experience the joy of
living that one thinks of with the “roaring twenties.” And yet images of Depression Era New
York and an awareness of the events leading up to World War II (after World War I’s
intensity that Americans thought would not be matched any time nearly so soon)
simultaneously recall that New Yorkers were just as aware of the fact that this was an era of
confusion and angst. And so they built for their lives. New York grew vertically in a
desperate attempt to dream up an advanced future of progress and industry, dream of the
peace and order of antiquity, and dream away the real tension of the present and what lurked
on the horizon.
Epilogue
# What was to happen to the Art Deco style? Foremost, World War II put a halt to the
building boom that had been its lifeline. Even more importantly, it put an end to the end to
the need to avoid the problems of the present and the historical catastrophe they
represented because those problems had come to a head and could no longer be avoided.
After World War II, art, and society (as life tends to imitate art), stopped trying to order the
chaos—any attempt would be an overly optimistic exercise in delusion. There was no need
to look to a productive future or try to rebuild the order of the past. Post-modernists came
about and were content to accept the chaos and stop looking for some idealized truth or
solution. The past was abstracted when it was referenced and buildings allowed for a sense
of fun and drama on occasion—both ideas borrowed from Art Deco (Gebhard 15). Of
course, when post-modernists referenced past architectures, Art Deco was included. Today,
16Art Deco is seen as the sudden creative burst of excitement and drama that came about
thanks to the cultural renaissance of the roaring twenties (with some creative help from
Paris’ Exposition) and a bit of fear of what the future held. Needless to say, Art Deco will
not soon be forgotten but rather live on as an emblem and symbol of the spirits and
emotions, good and bad, of its time.
“Therefore the public of this Republic will, more than ever now,
find its love of commonplace elegance gratified either by the
sentimentality of the ‘ornamental’ or the sterility of
ornaphobia. The Machine Age, it seems, is either to be damned
by senseless sentimentality or to be sterilized by a factory
aesthetic. Nevertheless, I believe that Romance—this quality of
the heart, the essential joy we have in living—by human
imagination of the right sort can be brought to life again in
Modern Industry. Creative Imagination may yet convert our
prosaic problems to poetry while modern Rome howls and
eyebrows of the Pharisees rise.”
-Frank Lloyd Wright (Wright 40)
17Works Cited
"Art Deco Sculpture." Bu%etin (St. Louis Art Museum) 14.4 (1978): 132-33. JSTOR. Web. 17 Dec.
2011.
Gebhard, David. The National Trust Guide to Art Deco in America. New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1996. Print.
Hunter, Penelope. "Art Déco: The Last Hurrah." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bu%etin 30.6
(1972): 257-67. JSTOR. Web. 17 Dec. 2011.
Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. New York:
Moacelli, 1994. Print.
"L'Exposition Des Arts Décoratifs à Paris En 1925." L'art Nouveau. 01 May 2001. Web. 13
Dec. 2011. .
Moffett, Marian, Michael Fazio, and Lawrence Wodehouse. Buildings Across Time: An
Introduction to World Architecture. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
Robinson, Cervin, and Rosemarie H. Bletter. Skyscraper Style: Art Deco, New York. New York:
Oxford UP, 1975. Print.
Striner, Richard. "Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis." Winterthur Portfolio 25.1 (1990): 21-34.
JSTOR. Web. 2 Dec. 2011.
Wright, Frank L., and Neil Levine. "The Tyranny of the Skyscraper." Modern Architecture:
Being the Kahn Lectures for 1930. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2008. Google Books.
Web. 11 Dec. 2011.
18You can also read
