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Art Deco needs to make a comeback

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daqq:
Hi,

For a project I've been looking into various art styles and I found out that I love Art Deco stuff! It's really aesthetically pleasing, elegant, not gaudy as far as I'm concerned and, well, it works for me.

What's more - it's actually practical and applicable onto today's devices - Steampunk is all well and good, but it's kinda artificial and not really usable in most designs for actual devices. Art Deco on the other hand looks great and I could easily imagine it working with any number of current day devices or furniture without affecting functionality.

And some of the buildings and pieces of furniture done in the style are just beautiful.

Obviously, I'm not saying that everything done it that style is awesome, but a lot of it is. edit: As with all, there's a way to over do it, to make it gaudy or simply bad, but when done properly it seems really nice.

So, if you do your own graphics, designs and what not and are looking for inspiration, search for art deco imagery, designs, posters and so on. You may find it to your liking. I'm going to play around with it.

David

AlbertL:
I agree - I'm a huge fan of that style, especially in architecture.  In the US, the largest concentration of Art Deco buildings is in New York City.  There's a great book on the topic, "Skyscraper Style: Art Deco New York" by Cervin Robinson and Rosemarie Haag Bletter (1975, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-501873-7).   

In terms of electronic equipment, Art Deco styling would mostly be found in consumer products like radios made during the height of its popularity (1920s-30s).

TimNJ:
I really like art deco (architecture), though contrary to your point, do find it a bit gaudy...Well, maybe it's not quite gaudy, but it does strike me as almost "extraterrestrial" in a way. Not sure if anyone else ever has this feeling, but often when I see a building (or object) from a time before I was born, I  imagine what it must have been like when it was new, when the world was so much different than it is now. Gives me the chills sometimes. (Maybe I need to chill?) But anyway, art deco has that effect on me...For someone born in the 1990's (me), the 1920's and 1930's is an almost inconceivable time. It feels distinctly "old", yet there are so many structures that still exist with us today, even though life has changed so much since then.

To my point about it feeling "gaudy", I just think that the buildings look "heavy"...almost too sturdy? (Maybe that's why there are so many still around today.)  On the other hand, I think the bold usage of lines and geometric structures makes it very interesting, definitely way cooler than the ultra minimalist styling of the millions of "luxury" apartments popping up these days. (Luxury in quotes because these places are made almost totally out of particle board and PVC.

Thanks for topic. I enjoyed thinking about this...It may have inspired me to start a photo project to document some art deco architecture in my area.

Attached: Photo of Boston skyline with some art deco elements and photo of WWII memorial in Washington DC, built in 2003, but with seemingly lots of art deco influence

james_s:
I'm a big fan of that too, especially the light fixtures. I also love 1950s-60s lighting, especially the space age stuff. I came across this old catalog from 1958 the other day, I'd love to outfit my whole house with stuff from there. I find most modern styling to be absolutely bland and boring, everything looks so cheap. A lot of lighting is especially bad, cheap awful looking pucks and recessed LEDs, in most cases I prefer the fixture itself to be a decorative item, not just a hidden light source. I really like large glass fixtures with low surface brightness.

https://archive.org/details/ThomasIndustiresMoeLighitng/mode/2up

Kerlin:
Agree very muchly.
Those 30s and 40s valve radios look great.
But don't have any ideas, maybe some artistic poster could show some design images of Art Deco electronics.
Lets say an Art Deco flash memory stick to start with would be interesting.

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