Art Deco: Dead or Alive?

It is design era as brand, the rare historical aesthetic that is known and referenced by name. Art Deco celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Where’s the party?

One Hundred Years Later, Art Deco is Still a Beautiful Contradiction in Terms

And the movement just might be more influential than ever. By Adam Charlap Hyman

Lately, in my personal corner of the internet, I have been showered in imagery of pared-back wood-paneled rooms, and thick cast glass and black lacquer set against ecru rugs and elegant gray silks, jarringly entangled with posts about the most violent cultural and political moment I’ve lived through. The contradiction, however, may not be so random. Hearting Nelson Rockefeller’s 1938 apartment by Jean-Michel Frank (as I never endingly do whenever it pops up), I find it impossible not to see the links between the social conditions, creative impulses, and cultural zeitgeist of our time and those that formed Art Deco 100 years ago. Read More

The Armchair Expert
There are plenty of Art Deco pieces out there, but according to Benoist F. Drut of NYC’s Maison Gerard, savvy collectors covet works actually shown at the 1925 exhibition that gave the movement its name—like the pair of wrought iron sconces by Marcel Bergue currently available at Drut’s East Village emporium.

The Secret History of a Murder Inside an Art Deco Icon

A brutal crime at New York’s Waldorf Astoria in 1948 shocked the nation. By Joe Pompeo

In her syndicated newspaper column on November 14, 1948, Alice Hughes wrote about a double whammy at America’s most illustrious hotel. “Our swanky Waldorf Astoria,” Hughes said, “is distressed over breaking into lurid headlines twice in one week.” The Art Deco masterpiece had recently been the site of two crimes. Read More

The Armchair Expert
Real aficionados know that Art Deco pieces are supposed to deliver an aesthetic gut punch. “One comment that never sits quite right with me is ‘It’s pretty,’ ” says Laura Kugel of Paris’s Galerie Kugel. “Pretty feels unimpactful, almost dismissive. For me strong reactions matter. And pretty just doesn’t cut it.”

The Disappearing Chrysler Building

Can a a beloved work of architecture be an emblem of a city if nobody can see it? By David Netto

Every now and then, New York kind of loses its mind. For 95 years the Chrysler Building has stood uncontested (and unmolested) as the preeminent symbol of Art Deco architecture in the city. So prominent and beloved (and, let’s face it, zany) that it morphed from being a place to work into an emblem for the city itself. However, there is a catch: For a building to have all this cultural success, to accumulate the signifying power it takes to become New York’s Eiffel Tower, you have to be able to see it. It’s not just the object, it’s the power the object derives from being part of the skyline—queen of it, in fact. Context is king. Read More

Alive! Eros Theater, Mumbai

After a seven-year closure, the movie theater, which started screenings in 1938, reopened in 2024 with an IMAX screen and its original façade.

Dead! Maya Hotel, Kobe, Japan

The hotel, built in 1929 into the side of a mountain, was left to decay following a 1995 earthquake. The ruins still attract a special kind of tourist.

Alive! The Academy Museum, Los Angeles

Formerly the May Company Building and LACMA West, the 1939 stunner now known as the Saban Building reopened in 2021 as home to the Academy Museum.

Dead! Marks & Spencer Flagship, London

After much hand-wringing, M&S’s Marble Arch location, which opened in 1930, will be demolished this year and replaced with a swanky new development.

Alive! Clark Adams Building, Chicago

In 2025 developers submitted a proposal to convert the 1927 skyscraper, which has been in limbo since a 2023 bankruptcy filing, into apartments with affordable housing units.

Alive! Raleigh Hotel, Miami

The setting for The Birdcage closed after Hurricane Irma in 2017. Rosewood is currently working with Peter Marino to reimagine the hotel, first built in 1940, for a 2027 opening.

The Pearl Prophecy

Could this Van Cleef & Arpels pearl and diamond brooch, circa 1930, spill all of Art Deco’s secrets? By Stellene Volandes

Of all the words associated with the design period between the two World Wars—geometric, daring, industrial, glamorous—poignant is rarely employed. But it actually works the hardest to explain the enduring influence of, and interest in, Art Deco. “There is an innocence to this time,” says Inezita Gay-Eckel of Van Cleef & Arpels L’Ecole, “a wide-eyed optimism in modernity, and the belief that it was going to save us all.” Read More

Some People Love Art Deco. Others Actually Live With It

Inside a grand New York City apartment that doubles as a master class in the movement. By William Li

Great design transcends eras, and nobody knows that better than interior designer Dan Fink. In one of Fifth Avenue’s grandest buildings, Fink recently completed work on an apartment that stands as a master class in Art Deco, applying the movement’s core tenets of exceptional craftsmanship, luxurious materials, and refined simplicity—principles that are as valid today as they were a century ago. He also thoughtfully wove in items from other periods ranging from the Georgian era to the modern day. Read More

The Armchair Expert
The Chrysler Building is swell, but have you been to Playland Park in Rye, NY? “The great buildings of the 1920s made New York a world class city. It stole Paris’s thunder,” says Roberta Nusim, president of NYC’s Art Deco Society. Still, on a recent outing her group went to Playland, the only Art Deco amusement park in the country.

Straight Line Crazy

Before the First World War, Art Nouveau’s curved lines and florals reigned, but the subsequent machine age required a shinier, harsher aesthetic. Art Deco was the result. The full story, told through objets, will be on view beginning October 22 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Dorothy Scarborough

These stories appear in the October 2025 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

You Might Also Like