Publication

The Strange Case of the Reception of Art Deco: Reflections and Speculations

2025

Abstract

The Exposition International des arts d & eacute;coratifs et industriels in Paris in 1925 launched a style that spread worldwide, but when the Mus & eacute;e des Arts D & eacute;coratifs put on two exhibitions in 1966 and 1976 to commemorate the 1925 show, the curators were strangely apologetic. Rather than celebrate the innovation, quality, and humanity of Art Deco, the curators compared the style unfavorably to Modernism and talked of nostalgia and perversity. And yet the 1960s and 1970s was a period of revived interest in Art Deco in Paris and elsewhere, and the principles of Modernism were being criticized and seen as outdated. The comparison with modern architecture originated at the time of the 1925 exhibition, and in this paper, I try to understand why this was. I reflect also on whether the balance between Modernism and Art Deco needs to be more fully re-evaluated.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/31a814f1-0524-4dbe-95d4-2f26499d53b2

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Graph Chat

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

2025

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/31a814f1-0524-4dbe-95d4-2f26499d53b2

About this result

Related concepts (6)

Art Deco

Art Deco, short for the French Arts Décoratifs, and sometimes referred to simply as Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France 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 like radios and vacuum cleaners.

Modern architecture

Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form should follow function (functionalism); an embrace of minimalism; and a rejection of ornament. It emerged in the first half of the 20th century and became dominant after World War II until the 1980s, when it was gradually replaced as the principal style for institutional and corporate buildings by postmodern architecture.

International Style

The International Style or internationalism is a major architectural style that was developed in the 1920s and 1930s and was closely related to modernism and modernist architecture. It was first defined by Museum of Modern Art curators Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson in 1932, based on works of architecture from the 1920s. The terms rationalist architecture and modern movement are often used interchangeably with International Style, although the former is mostly used in the English-speaking world to specifically refer to the Italian rationalism, or even the International Style that developed in Europe as a whole.