Quote:
Originally Posted by muppet
You know a fact doesn't become reality because you just decide it is. What are your sources?
|
Hard to come up with concrete numbers. Only the Mumbais and Shanghais of the world are going around counting every single (questionably) art deco building in the city for tourism bragging rights. Ain't nobody got time for that out here. That would be a completely pointless exercise in a place like LA as they are so commonplace and spread out all over instead of being neatly confined to a colonial section of the center city like in Shanghai.
But we could use some logic and common sense to come up with some estimates. LA MSA went from 1m to 3m from 1920 to 1940 and up to 4.3m by 1950. I would conservatively estimate about 1 million prewar buildings in total, with the majority built in the early art deco era. If just 1% of them are art deco, you could do the math. And unlike in Shanghai or Mumbai, that's a completely realistic and conservative estimate because we're not talking about some niche colonial buildings here, in America art deco is commonplace and completely at home in its natural environment.
People don't appreciate just how much art deco is a part of the American visual vernacular. You see it in big cities and you see it in small towns in the middle of nowhere. Art deco is quintessential classic Americana. Think
Route 66 and Radiator Springs.
Besides raw numbers there is also the qualitative argument. Dare I say that of all the examples of art deco posted in this thread, the American specimens consistently feature more inspired and distinctive designs? While the "colonial" versions tend to be either a bit more subdued and derivative, or overly loud? Is that too biased? or is it accurate? or completely subjective? imo it's really not that complicated and it's really not that subjective.
State of the art opulence and luxury in 1930 America:
This ain't no Mumbai or Rio, my friend.
https://losangelestheatres.blogspot....ium-views.html