From the Chrysler to the Weston: 100 years of Art Deco

Picture the scene: the 1920s, jazz and sequins are stealing onto the dance floor. On the gallery wall, new techno-infused modernist forms are weaving their way into post-war aesthetics. In France, Paris breathes a sigh of relief in the aftermath of German occupation. In this atmosphere of Parisian liberty, Gertrude Stein penned: “it is not what Paris gives you, it is what she does not take away.” Yet behind this, anxieties were bubbling about what France had to give modern global culture. “Even the Americans themselves reacted, and sought to create for themselves – for better or worse – an original art” wrote Minister of Commerce Lucien Dior: “during this what did we do…? Nothing, except copy our own old-fashioned styles.” Out of this insecurity, not without an air of competition, the 1925 International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts was unveiled in Paris. This was the birth of Art Deco, a gift that would redesign the world.

The exposition’s fundamental stipulation was that everything be exclusively modern. It was expected, though, that this modernity should embrace the extravagant optimism of the period. Beyond the thirteen opulently designed entrances, the exposition was organised by pavilions, each competitively garnished to display the artistic creations of different French products, regions, and territories, as well as each of the international pavilions. These were accompanied by merry go rounds, fireworks, 300 ballerinas, and—to illuminate the Eiffel Tower—two hundred thousand light bulbs in six colours. So when Le Corbusier revealed his Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau (ascetic, grey, and furnished only by mass-produced furniture and his designs for Plan Voisin), organisers of the exposition, horrified, attempted to conceal the shameful offering behind fences.

Both a development of and opposition to the Art Nouveau style, Art Deco is distinct for its incorporation of cubist elements which instill an angular, geometric quality. Art Deco is found in the visual arts, architecture, and commercial product design from furniture to fashion—parker pens and streamlined locomotives. Its influence looming large in cities across the globe: construction for the Chrysler Building, an iconic feature of New York’s skyline, began in 1929. Three years later, Christ the Redeemer was completed in Brazil, and has gazed down at Rio de Janeiro ever since. When thinking of Art Deco, Oxford is far from the first city that springs to mind. However, at the heart of the University, the Weston Library offers a local example of Art Deco architecture, designed in 1934 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott—and that’s without mentioning the books within Oxford’s libraries. Iconic covers including the Celestial Eyes dust jacket of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby or (love it or loathe it) the cover art of multiple editions of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged exemplify Art Deco from Oxford’s bookshelves.

Return to war in 1939 would bring a sharp end to the lavish tastes and garish embellishments of Art Deco, but even before this, modernism was creeping in. Despite Art Deco interior designer Paul Follet’s claims that “the superfluous is always needed”, architectural decadence could not be justified in the face of the Great Depression of the 1930s and material wartime need of the following decade. Against this backdrop, Le Corbusier’s modernist counterclaim that the house was merely “a machine to live in” aligned more concretely with the modern world, while Art Deco’s geometric extravagances left the style more fragmented from reality than ever. “Decorative art,” Le Corbusier wrote, “as opposed to the machine phenomenon, is the final twitch of the old manual mode, and is a dying thing.”
This year, 100 years after the revolutionary advent of Art Deco, Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs will launch an exhibition reflecting on the 1925 International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts. One cannot help but wonder whether such a return to the past is the best way to mark the spirit of modernity that precipitated the Art Deco style. Will 2025 begin an era of retrospection, and not growth? In answer to this, it is important to consider the cycle of progress, and how vital the past is in the influence of the future. As Frantz Jourdain, member of the Society of Decorative Artists, said of his 1925 inspiration: “we consequently resolved to return Decorative Art, inconsiderately treated as a Cinderella or poor relation allowed to eat with the servants, to the important… place it occupied in the past.” This month, the first of 2025, marks both a centenary of the past and the beginning of a new year; perhaps modernity allows for both.