Art Deco! - Page 3

CGII · #41 Posted **Sep 16, 2006, 11:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arriviste

The Barron building, although quite nice with some attractive and fascinating details hardly qualifies as Art Deco. It is more art Moderne if you want to get picky.Calgary's only example of Deco is The Bank of Nova Scotia on 8th Ave.
It doesn't even qualify in all fields.

If you want to get even pickier, Art Moderne is an offshoot of Art Deco architecture. If you want to get so literal as to disqualify the said building from the Art Deco style, I might as well bring up Art Deco in its original form, at the Paris World Fair of Arts Decoratifs, which is true and pure Art Deco. It featured awkwardly propotioned buildings that otherwise followed the vernacular of the time, with the exception of more unusual, streamlined elements of detail, which covered most of the buildings. Art Moderne was essentially America's spin on the earlier, more raw French original, exaggerating forms into more streamlined, refined masses and more proportioned detail and expression of structural elements, as well as more industrial forms (Art Deco is to Art Moderne as Daniel Burnham is to Louis Sullivan, if you will). If you're going to discount that one building as 'Moderne' and thus not Art Deco, you might as well remove virtually every building posted here in this thread as 'Moderne,' including the Chrysler Building.

Some Art Moderne, just for you:

A precursor to Art Moderne, though stylistically it is eerily fitting to the title of Art Moderne

i_am_hydrogen · #42 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 4:21 AM**

The cover of Floyd's "Animals"

Jeff_in_Dayton · #43 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 4:54 AM**

^
Oh yes, the excellent Battersea Power Station. Actually there has some interesting Deco buildings in London...Shell House is another.

For Ohio Deco, even smaller cities had their little Art Deco towers. You can see two on this old postcard from Mansfield, Ohio

And here is a "baby art deco skyscraper" from Middletown, Ohio

The tallest building in Dayton until the 1950s, the Hulman Building, is also Art Deco...

i_am_hydrogen · #44 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 5:25 AM**

Wisconsin Gas Building in Milwaukee (the flame on top glows according to the coming weather: gold=cold, red=warm, blue=no change, flashing=precipitation). It reminds me of the building in the movie Ghostbusters.

gpkdog · #45 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 6:17 AM**

I'm suprised no one has mentioned this one yet:

Buffalo City Hall, Buffalo NY

And the long abandoned Buffalo Central Terminal

Marcu · #46 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 7:05 AM**

Urbana, IL (home of U. of Illinois along with Champaign, IL)

Alibaba · #47 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 11:56 AM**

my local cinema RIVOLI - Melbourne

http://www.caths.org.au/rivoli.htm

SuperstarMark · #48 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 3:39 PM**

LMich - your Detroit photos - perfection.

Everyone - awesome job!

John R - the FW terminal, is it in use at all? In the exterior shot, it looks like it's not. I just love the detail in this photo:

Arriviste · #49 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 4:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CGII

If you want to get even pickier, Art Moderne is an offshoot of Art Deco architecture. If you want to get so literal as to disqualify the said building from the Art Deco style, I might as well bring up Art Deco in its original form, at the Paris World Fair of Arts Decoratifs, which is true and pure Art Deco. It featured awkwardly propotioned buildings that otherwise followed the vernacular of the time, with the exception of more unusual, streamlined elements of detail, which covered most of the buildings. Art Moderne was essentially America's spin on the earlier, more raw French original, exaggerating forms into more streamlined, refined masses and more proportioned detail and expression of structural elements, as well as more industrial forms (Art Deco is to Art Moderne as Daniel Burnham is to Louis Sullivan, if you will). If you're going to discount that one building as 'Moderne' and thus not Art Deco, you might as well remove virtually every building posted here in this thread as 'Moderne,' including the Chrysler Building.

Im glad you see it my way.

Don Pacho · #50 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 5:23 PM**

More Miami Beach Art Deco Buildings

(a solarized pic)

John R · #51 Posted **Sep 17, 2006, 7:04 PM**

I have sort of a long answer to your question SuperstarMark. There has been a lot of redevelopment in the area over the last few years, and when I took the photograph, the building was only being used as a commuter rail station. At that time, the upper floors were vacant. The office tenant had just vacated the building for better offices in downtown.

Since the 1950's an overhead freeway ran in front of the building, and over the last several years, the city worked in getting the overhead relocated at grade to the rear of the building. I took the photo shortly after the overhead freeway was demolished in 2004. It was a great opportunity for a photo because you didn't have a clear view of the building previously. That explains all of the destruction in front of it. In 2001, the depot portion of the building started being used as a commuter rail station for the Trinity Railway Express, so at the time I took the picture, only a small part of it was being used. As I mentioned earlier, the only tenant moved out earlier in 2004 and then the owner announced he was going to convert the building into apartments. A smaller apartment building was constructed to the east of the tower as a part of this redevelopment. The apartments actually opened as condominiums in July. You probably will ask why I haven't taken a new photo. The reason is that the area where the overhead freeway was removed is still under construction for conversion into a grand boulevard entrance into downtown. They ran into major delays due to utilities being in the wrong locations, but slowly they are rebuilding the street. I didn't want to take any more photos from that view until the street is completed. The lobby is used for special occasions, small antique shows, meetings, and other events.

DecoJim · #52 Posted **Sep 18, 2006, 12:33 AM**

It figures that I take a vacation from the computer for a few days and a thread on my favorite architectural style appears. Great thread. It is nice to see more than just the Chrysler and ESB; the Eastern Columbia Building is amazing.

I think I might still have a few items to contribute even though many Detroit buildings have already been shown including at least one picture I took of the Fort Street facade of the Penobscot (the following photos are all mine).

Architect Louis Kamper, after spending much of his career designing Beaux Arts classical style building such as the Book Tower shown on the left of the picture below, designed the Industrial Apartment Building (1928) on the right:

The Albert Kahn Building (1931, New Center area, near the Fisher Building):

Upper portion of Detroit Music Hall facade:

Four miles north of Eight Mile road in the suburb of Royal Oak stands a large Art Deco church:

The sunburst pattern, a common theme in Art Deco, is employed dramatically here as is the stepped Mayan "arch". If you look back at the Guardian Building in a prior post, you will notice the stepped arch used there as well.

Here are a couple of Fisher Building details (see prior posts for full shots of the building):

I noticed some Art Deco during a trip to Philadelphia last July:

This first building is the Residence Inn Philadelphia City Center (across street from the amazing City Hall):

spyguy · #53 Posted **Sep 18, 2006, 1:39 AM**

No mention of the Chicago Board of Trade?

brickell · #54 Posted **Sep 18, 2006, 2:33 PM**

It's hard for me to imagine deco in colors other than white, pink and yellow. Love the pics from other cities.

Any Deco lovers need to visit the Wolfsonian musuem while in Miami.

mdiederi · #55 Posted **Sep 18, 2006, 11:09 PM**

There wasn't much here during that period, but how about Hoover Dam?.

Don Pacho · #56 Posted **Sep 19, 2006, 12:09 AM**

oh yeah. thanks.
I've been there... let me find some of my files

Don Pacho · #57 Posted **Sep 19, 2006, 12:27 AM**

Hoover Dam

SuperstarMark · #58 Posted **Sep 20, 2006, 3:01 AM**

DecoJim - this one is amazing. The details are brilliant!

elsonic · #59 Posted **Sep 20, 2006, 6:09 PM**

some in Montréal

Botanic Garden Administration

Université de Montréal

Atwater Market

Eaton Store

inside Eaton's, Restaurant le 9e

Cormier (or Trudeau) House

Théatre Outremont

Drummond Medical Building

Dorchester Square Building

Snowdon Theatre

Cinéma Château

Quintal Bath

To the left, 640 Ste-Catherine W

Holt Renfrew Store

Aldred Building

Casa Italia

some fire stations

Barclay School

National Breweries

Montreal Star Building

former warehouse converted to condos in the old port

a few others...

LostInTheZone · #60 Posted **Sep 20, 2006, 6:46 PM**

I've always liked the Hoover Dam memorial angel- very dramatic.

We have one in Philly that's sort of similar- a very late example, from 1952, but it's definitely got deco sensibilities- The Angel of Resurrection, memorial to the men and women of the Pennsylvania Railraod who served and died in WWII:

Completed in the early 1930s, 30th Street Station itself is definitely neoclassical in concept, but deco in execution: