Art Deco

Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called 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 and 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.

It got its name after the 1925 Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris.

Art Deco combined modern styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials. During its heyday, it represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress.

From its outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bold geometric forms of Cubism and the Vienna Secession; the bright colours of Fauvism and of the Ballets Russes; the updated craftsmanship of the furniture of the eras of Louis Philippe I and Louis XVI; and the exoticized styles of China, Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt and Maya art. It featured rare and expensive materials, such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. The Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and other skyscrapers of New York City built during the 1920s and 1930s are monuments to the style.

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, Art Deco became more subdued. New materials arrived, including chrome plating, stainless steel and plastic. A sleeker form of the style, called Streamline Moderne, appeared in the 1930s, featuring curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces. Art Deco is one of the first truly international styles, but its dominance ended with the beginning of World War II and the rise of the strictly functional and unadorned styles of modern architecture and the International Style of architecture that followed.

Etymology

Art Deco took its name, short for ''arts décoratifs'', from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925, though the diverse styles that characterised it had already appeared in Paris and Brussels before World War I.

''Arts décoratifs'' was first used in France in 1858 in the ''Bulletin de la Société française de photographie''. In 1868, the '' Le Figaro'' newspaper used the term ''objets d'art décoratifs'' for objects for stage scenery created for the Théâtre de l'Opéra. In 1875, furniture designers, textile, jewellers, glass-workers, and other craftsmen were officially given the status of artists by the French government. In response, the ''École royale gratuite de dessin'' (Royal Free School of Design), founded in 1766 under King Louis XVI to train artists and artisans in crafts relating to the fine arts, was renamed the '' École nationale des arts décoratifs (''National School of Decorative Arts). It took its present name, ENSAD (''École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs''), in 1927.

At the 1925 Exposition, architect Le Corbusier wrote a series of articles about the exhibition for his magazine ''L'Esprit Nouveau'', under the title "1925 EXPO. ARTS. DÉCO.", which were combined into a book, ''L'art décoratif d'aujourd'hui'' (Decorative Art Today). The book was a spirited attack on the excesses of the colourful, lavish objects at the Exposition, and on the idea that practical objects such as furniture should not have any decoration at all; his conclusion was that "Modern decoration has no decoration".

The actual term ''art déco'' did not appear in print until 1966, in the title of the first modern exhibition on the subject, held by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, ''Les Années 25 : Art déco, Bauhaus, Stijl, Esprit nouveau'', which covered the variety of major styles in the 1920s and 1930s. The term was then used in a 1966 newspaper article by Hillary Gelson in '' The Times'' (London, 12 November), describing the different styles at the exhibit.

Art Deco gained currency as a broadly applied stylistic label in 1968 when historian Bevis Hillier published the first major academic book on it, ''Art Deco of the 20s and 30s''. He noted that the term was already being used by art dealers, and cites ''The Times'' (2 November 1966) and an essay named ''Les Arts Déco'' in '' Elle'' magazine (November 1967) as examples. In 1971, he organized an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which he details in his book ''The World of Art Deco''.

Origins

Society of Decorative Artists (1901–1945)

The emergence of Art Deco was closely connected with the rise in status of decorative artists, who until late in the 19th century were considered simply as artisans. The term ''arts décoratifs'' had been invented in 1875, giving the designers of furniture, textiles, and other decoration official status. The ''Société des artistes décorateurs'' (Society of Decorative Artists), or SAD, was founded in 1901, and decorative artists were given the same rights of authorship as painters and sculptors. A similar movement developed in Italy. The first international exhibition devoted entirely to the decorative arts, the '' Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna'', was held in Turin in 1902. Several new magazines devoted to decorative arts were founded in Paris, including ''Arts et décoration'' and ''L'Art décoratif moderne''. Decorative arts sections were introduced into the annual salons of the ''Sociéte des artistes français'', and later in the'' Salon d'Automne''. French nationalism also played a part in the resurgence of decorative arts, as French designers felt challenged by the increasing exports of less expensive German furnishings. In 1911, SAD proposed a major new international exposition of decorative arts in 1912. No copies of old styles would be permitted, only modern works. The exhibit was postponed until 1914; and then, because of the war, until 1925, when it gave its name to the whole family of styles known as "Déco".

File:Art Deco table, chairs, carpet.jpg, Table and chairs by Maurice Dufrêne and carpet by Paul Follot at the 1912 Salon des artistes décorateurs
File:‘Lady with Panther’ by George Barbier for Cartier, 1914.jpg, ''Lady with Panther'' by George Barbier for Louis Cartier, 1914. Display card commissioned by Cartier shows a woman in a Paul Poiret gown (1914)
File:Jacques-émile ruhlmann, poltrona 'oreille cassée', parigi 1914, 01.JPG, Armchair by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1914) (Musée d'Orsay)

Parisian department stores and fashion designers also played an important part in the rise of Art Deco. Prominent businesses such as silverware firm Christofle, glass designer René Lalique, and the jewellers Louis Cartier and Boucheron began designing products in more modern styles.Campbell, Gordon, ''The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts'', Oxford University Press, USA, 9 Nov 2006
, pp. 42 (Vera), 43 (Cartier), 243 (Christofle), 15, 515, 527 (Lalique), 13, 134 (Boucheron), Beginning in 1900, department stores recruited decorative artists to work in their design studios. The decoration of the 1912 ''Salon d'Automne'' was entrusted to the department store '' Printemps'',Campbell, Gordon, ''The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts'', Oxford University Press, USA, 9 Nov 2006
, pp. 42-43 and that year it created its own workshop, ''Primavera''. By 1920 ''Primavera'' employed more than 300 artists, whose styles ranged from updated versions of Louis XIV, Louis XVI, and especially Louis Philippe furniture made by Louis Süe and the ''Primavera'' workshop, to more modern forms from the workshop of the ''Au Louvre'' department store. Other designers, including Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Paul Follot, refused to use mass production, insisting that each piece be made individually. The early Art Deco style featured luxurious and exotic materials such as ebony, ivory and silk, very bright colours and stylized motifs, particularly baskets and bouquets of flowers of all colours, giving a modernist look.Laurent, Stephane, "L'artiste décorateur", in ''Art Deco, 1910–1939'' by Charlotte Benton, Tim Benton and Ghislain Wood (2002), Renaissance du Livre, pages 165–171

Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstätte (1897–1912)

The architects of the Vienna Secession (formed 1897), especially Josef Hoffmann, had a notable influence on Art Deco. His Stoclet Palace, in Brussels (1905–1911), was a prototype of the Art Deco style, featuring geometric volumes, symmetry, straight lines, concrete covered with marble plaques, finely-sculpted ornament, and lavish interiors, including mosaic friezes by Gustav Klimt. Hoffmann was also a founder of the Wiener Werkstätte (1903–1932), an association of craftsmen and interior designers working in the new style. This became the model for the ''Compagnie des arts français'', created in 1919, which brought together André Mare, and Louis Süe, the first leading French Art Deco designers and decorators.

File:Secession 2016, Vienna.jpg, Secession Building by Joseph Maria Olbrich, Vienna (1897–98)
File:20120923 Brussels PalaisStoclet Hoffmann DSC06725 PtrQs.jpg, Stoclet Palace by Josef Hoffmann, Brussels (1905–1911)
File:Bruxelles - Palais Stoclet (6).jpg, Detail of the Stoclet Palace's façade, made of reinforced concrete covered with marble plaques
File:Wien - Österreichische Postsparkasse, Georg-Coch-Platz.JPG, Austrian Postal Savings Bank by Otto Wagner, Vienna (1904–1912)

New materials and technologies

New materials and technologies, especially reinforced concrete, were key to the development and appearance of Art Deco. The first concrete house was built in 1853 in the Paris suburbs by François Coignet. In 1877 Joseph Monier introduced the idea of strengthening the concrete with a mesh of iron rods in a grill pattern. In 1893 Auguste Perret built the first concrete garage in Paris, then an apartment building, house, then, in 1913, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The theatre was denounced by one critic as the "Zeppelin of Avenue Montaigne", an alleged Germanic influence, copied from the Vienna Secession. Thereafter, the majority of Art Deco buildings were made of reinforced concrete, which gave greater freedom of form and less need for reinforcing pillars and columns. Perret was also a pioneer in covering the concrete with ceramic tiles, both for protection and decoration. The architect Le Corbusier first learned the uses of reinforced concrete working as a draftsman in Perret's studio.

Other new technologies that were important to Art Deco were new methods in producing plate glass, which was less expensive and allowed much larger and stronger windows, and for mass-producing aluminium, which was used for building and window frames and later, by Corbusier, Warren McArthur, and others, for lightweight furniture.

Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1910–1913)

File:Théâtre des Champs-Élysées DSC09330.jpg, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, by Auguste Perret, 15 avenue Montaigne, Paris (1910–13). Reinforced concrete gave architects the ability to create new forms and bigger spaces
File:"La Danse", bas-relief d'Antoine Bourdelle (Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris).jpg, Antoine Bourdelle, ''La Danse'', on the façade of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1912)
File:Theatre Champs Elysees 35.jpg, Interior of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, with Bourdelle's bas-reliefs over the stage
File:Plafond du Théâtre des Champs-Élysées à Paris.JPG, Dome of the Theater, with Art Deco rose design by Maurice Denis

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1910–1913), by Auguste Perret, was the first landmark Art Deco building completed in Paris. Previously, reinforced concrete had been used only for industrial and apartment buildings, Perret had built the first modern reinforced-concrete apartment building in Paris on rue Benjamin Franklin in 1903–04. Henri Sauvage, another important future Art Deco architect, built another in 1904 at 7, rue Trétaigne (1904). From 1908 to 1910, the 21-year-old Le Corbusier worked as a draftsman in Perret's office, learning the techniques of concrete construction. Perret's building had clean rectangular form, geometric decoration and straight lines, the future trademarks of Art Deco. The décor of the theatre was also revolutionary; the façade was decorated with high reliefs by Antoine Bourdelle, a dome by Maurice Denis, paintings by Édouard Vuillard, and an Art Deco curtain by Ker-Xavier Roussel. The theatre became famous as the venue for many of the first performances of the Ballets Russes. Perret and Sauvage became the leading Art Deco architects in Paris in the 1920s.

Salon d'Automne (1903–1914)

File:Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov) 02 by L. Bakst 2.jpg, Set for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's ballet '' Sheherazade'' by Léon Bakst (1910)
File:Art Deco Armchair.jpg, Art Deco armchair made for art collector Jacques Doucet (1912–13)
File:Display at Salon D'Automne (1913).jpg, Display of early Art Deco furnishings by the Atelier français at the 1913 Salon d'Automne from ''Art et décoration'' magazine (1914)

At its birth between 1910 and 1914, Art Deco was an explosion of colours, featuring bright and often clashing hues, frequently in floral designs, presented in furniture upholstery, carpets, screens, wallpaper and fabrics. Many colourful works, including chairs and a table by Maurice Dufrêne and a bright Gobelin carpet by Paul Follot were presented at the 1912 Salon des artistes décorateurs. In 1912–1913 designer Adrien Karbowsky made a floral chair with a parrot design for the hunting lodge of art collector Jacques Doucet. The furniture designers Louis Süe and André Mare made their first appearance at the 1912 exhibit, under the name of the ''Atelier français'', combining polychromatic fabrics with exotic and expensive materials, including ebony and ivory. After World War I, they became one of the most prominent French interior design firms, producing the furniture for the first-class salons and cabins of the French transatlantic ocean liners.

The vivid hues of Art Deco came from many sources, including the exotic set designs by Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes, which caused a sensation in Paris just before World War I. Some of the colours were inspired by the earlier Fauvism movement led by Henri Matisse; others by the Orphism of painters such as Sonia Delaunay; others by the movement known as Les Nabis, and in the work of symbolist painter Odilon Redon, who designed fireplace screens and other decorative objects. Bright shades were a feature of the work of fashion designer Paul Poiret, whose work influenced both Art Deco fashion and interior design.

Cubism

File:Raymond Duchamp-Villon, 1912, Projet d'hôtel, Maquette de la façade de la Maison Cubiste, published in Les Peintres Cubistes, 1913.jpg, Design for the facade of '' La Maison Cubiste'' (''Cubist House'') by Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1912)
File:Raymond Duchamp-Villon, 1912, La Maison Cubiste (Cubist House) at the Salon d'Automne, 1912, detail of the entrance. Photograph by Duchamp-Villon.jpg, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, 1912, ''La Maison Cubiste'' (''Cubist House'') at the Salon d'Automne, 1912, detail of the entrance
File:La Maison Cubiste, Le Salon Bourgeois, Salon d'Automne, 1912, Paris.jpg, ''Le Salon Bourgeois'', designed by André Mare inside ''La Maison Cubiste'', in the decorative arts section of the Salon d'Automne, 1912, Paris. Metzinger's ''Femme à l'Éventail'' on the left wall
File:Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier stairs, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929 photograph by Pierre Legrain.jpg, Stairway in the hôtel particulier of fashion designer-art collector Jacques Doucet (1927). Design by Joseph Csaky. The geometric forms of Cubism had an important influence on Art Deco
File:Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 33 rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1929 photograph Pierre Legrain.jpg, Jacques Doucet's hôtel particulier, 1927. Picasso's '' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'' can be seen hanging in the background

The art movement known as Cubism appeared in France between 1907 and 1912, influencing the development of Art Deco. In ''Art Deco Complete: The Definitive Guide to the Decorative Arts of the 1920s and 1930s'' Alastair Duncan writes "Cubism, in some bastardized form or other, became the lingua franca of the era's decorative artists." The Cubists, themselves under the influence of Paul Cézanne, were interested in the simplification of forms to their geometric essentials: the cylinder, the sphere, the cone.

In 1912, the artists of the Section d'Or exhibited works considerably more accessible to the general public than the analytical Cubism of Picasso and Braque. The Cubist vocabulary was poised to attract fashion, furniture and interior designers.

The 1912 writings of André Vera, ''Le Nouveau style'', published in the journal ''L'Art décoratif'', expressed the rejection of Art Nouveau forms (asymmetric, polychrome and picturesque) and called for ''simplicité volontaire, symétrie manifeste, l'ordre et l'harmonie'', themes that would eventually become common within Art Deco; though the Deco style was often extremely colourful and often complex.

In the ''Art Décoratif'' section of the 1912 Salon d'Automne, an architectural installation was exhibited known as '' La Maison Cubiste''. The facade was designed by Raymond Duchamp-Villon. The décor of the house was by André Mare. ''La Maison Cubiste'' was a furnished installation with a façade, a staircase, wrought iron banisters, a bedroom, a living room—the ''Salon Bourgeois'', where paintings by Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Marie Laurencin, Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger and Roger de La Fresnaye were hung. Thousands of spectators at the salon passed through the full-scale model.

The façade of the house, designed by Duchamp-Villon, was not very radical by modern standards; the lintels and pediments had prismatic shapes, but otherwise the façade resembled an ordinary house of the period. For the two rooms, Mare designed the wallpaper, which featured stylized roses and floral patterns, along with upholstery, furniture and carpets, all with flamboyant and colourful motifs. It was a distinct break from traditional décor. The critic Emile Sedeyn described Mare's work in the magazine ''Art et Décoration'': "He does not embarrass himself with simplicity, for he multiplies flowers wherever they can be put. The effect he seeks is obviously one of picturesqueness and gaiety. He achieves it." The Cubist element was provided by the paintings. The installation was attacked by some critics as extremely radical, which helped make for its success. This architectural installation was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show, New York City, Chicago and Boston. Thanks largely to the exhibition, the term "Cubist" began to be applied to anything modern, from women's haircuts to clothing to theater performances."

The Cubist influence continued within Art Deco, even as Deco branched out in many other directions. In 1927, Cubists Joseph Csaky, Jacques Lipchitz, Louis Marcoussis, Henri Laurens, the sculptor Gustave Miklos, and others collaborated in the decoration of a Studio House, rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, designed by the architect Paul Ruaud and owned by the French fashion designer Jacques Doucet, also a collector of Post-Impressionist art by Henri Matisse and Cubist paintings (including '' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'', which he bought directly from Picasso's studio). Laurens designed the fountain, Csaky designed Doucet's staircase, Lipchitz made the fireplace mantel, and Marcoussis made a Cubist rug.

Besides the Cubist artists, Doucet brought in other Deco interior designers to help in decorating the house, including Pierre Legrain, who was in charge of organizing the decoration, and Paul Iribe, Marcel Coard, André Groult, Eileen Gray and Rose Adler to provide furniture. The décor included massive pieces made of macassar ebony, inspired by African art, and furniture covered with Morocco leather, crocodile skin and snakeskin, and patterns taken from African designs.

Cubism's adumbrated geometry became coin of the realm in the 1920s. Art Deco's development of Cubism's selective geometry into a wider array of shapes carried Cubism as a pictorial taxonomy to a much broader audience and wider appeal. (Richard Harrison Martin, Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Influences

File:George Barbier (1882-1932), Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950), 1913 1.jpg, The exoticism of the Ballets Russes had a strong influence on early Deco. A drawing of the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky by Paris fashion artist Georges Barbier (1913)
File:Paquin3.jpg, Illustration by Georges Barbier of a gown by Paquin (1914). Stylised floral designs and bright colours were a feature of early Art Deco.
File:450 Sutter St. lobby lights 2.JPG, Lobby of 450 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California, by Timothy Pflueger (1929), inspired by ancient Maya art
File:Rockefeller Center MAM.JPG, The gilded bronze '' Prometheus'' at Rockefeller Center, New York City, N.Y., by Paul Manship (1934), a stylised Art Deco update of classical sculpture (1936)
File:Art Deco vase Emile Lenoble.jpg, A ceramic vase inspired by motifs of traditional African carved wood sculpture, by Emile Lenoble (1937), Museum of Decorative Arts, Paris

Art Deco was not a single style, but a collection of different and sometimes contradictory styles. In architecture, Art Deco was the successor to and reaction against Art Nouveau, a style which flourished in Europe between 1895 and 1900, and also gradually replaced the Beaux-Arts and neoclassical that were predominant in European and American architecture. In 1905 Eugène Grasset wrote and published ''Méthode de Composition Ornementale, Éléments Rectilignes,'' in which he systematically explored the decorative (ornamental) aspects of geometric elements, forms, motifs and their variations, in contrast with (and as a departure from) the undulating Art Nouveau style of Hector Guimard, so popular in Paris a few years earlier. Grasset stressed the principle that various simple geometric shapes like triangles and squares are the basis of all compositional arrangements. The reinforced-concrete buildings of Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage, and particularly the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, offered a new form of construction and decoration which was copied worldwide.

In decoration, many different styles were borrowed and used by Art Deco. They included pre-modern art from around the world and observable at the Musée du Louvre, Musée de l'Homme and the Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie. There was also popular interest in archaeology due to excavations at Pompeii, Troy, and the tomb of the 18th dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Artists and designers integrated motifs from ancient Egypt, Africa, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Asia, Mesoamerica and Oceania with Machine Age elements.

Other styles borrowed included Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism, as well as Orphism, Functionalism, and Modernism in general. Art Deco also used the clashing colours and designs of Fauvism, notably in the work of Henri Matisse and André Derain, inspired the designs of art deco textiles, wallpaper, and painted ceramics. It took ideas from the high fashion vocabulary of the period, which featured geometric designs, chevrons, zigzags, and stylized bouquets of flowers. It was influenced by discoveries in Egyptology, and growing interest in the Orient and in African art. From 1925 onwards, it was often inspired by a passion for new machines, such as airships, automobiles and ocean liners, and by 1930 this influence resulted in the style called Streamline Moderne.

Style of luxury and modernity

File:The boudoir of fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin, now in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris.png, The boudoir of fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin (1922–25) now in the Museum of Decorative Arts, Paris, France
File:Bath of Jeanne Lanvin, of Sienna marble, with decoration of carved stucco and bronze, now in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris.jpg, Bath of Jeanne Lanvin, of Sienna marble, with decoration of carved stucco and bronze (1922–25)
File:Alavoine, Weil-Worgelt Study, ca. 1928-1930..jpg, An Art Deco study by the Paris design firm of Alavoine, now in the Brooklyn Museum, New York City, N.Y. (1928–30)
File:Le salon de verre, designed by Paul Ruaud, furniture by Eileen Gray, for Madame Mathieu-Levy (boutique J. Suzanne Talbot), Paris, 1922.jpg, Glass Salon (Le salon de verre) designed by Paul Ruaud with furniture by Eileen Gray, for Madame Mathieu-Levy (milliner of the boutique J. Suzanne Talbot), 9, rue de Lota, Paris, 1922 (published in L'Illustration, 27 May 1933)

Art Deco was associated with both luxury and modernity; it combined very expensive materials and exquisite craftsmanship put into modernistic forms. Nothing was cheap about Art Deco: pieces of furniture included ivory and silver inlays, and pieces of Art Deco jewellery combined diamonds with platinum, jade, coral and other precious materials. The style was used to decorate the first-class salons of ocean liners, deluxe trains, and skyscrapers. It was used around the world to decorate the great movie palaces of the late 1920s and 1930s. Later, after the Great Depression, the style changed and became more sober.

A good example of the luxury style of Art Deco is the boudoir of the fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin, designed by Armand-Albert Rateau (1882–1938) made between 1922 and 1925. It was located in her house at 16 rue Barbet de Jouy, in Paris, which was demolished in 1965. The room was reconstructed in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. The walls are covered with moulded ''lambris'' below sculpted bas-reliefs in stucco. The alcove is framed with columns of marble on bases and a plinth of sculpted wood. The floor is of white and black marble, and in the cabinets decorative objects are displayed against a background of blue silk. Her bathroom had a tub and washstand made of sienna marble, with a wall of carved stucco and bronze fittings.

By 1928 the style had become more comfortable, with deep leather club chairs. The study designed by the Paris firm of Alavoine for an American businessman in 1928–30, is now in the Brooklyn Museum.

By the 1930s, the style had been somewhat simplified, but it was still extravagant. In 1932 the decorator Paul Ruaud made the Glass Salon for Suzanne Talbot. It featured a serpentine armchair and two tubular armchairs by Eileen Gray, a floor of mat silvered glass slabs, a panel of abstract patterns in silver and black lacquer, and an assortment of animal skins.

International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (1925)

File:Postcard of Exposition des Art Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes.jpg, Postcard of the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, France (1925)
File:Paris-FR-75-Expo 1925 Arts décoratifs-entrée Place de la Concorde.jpg, Entrance to the 1925 Exposition from Place de la Concorde by Pierre Patout
File:Paris 1925 59878912.jpg, Polish pavilion (1925)
File:Paris-FR-75-Expo 1925 Arts décoratifs-pavillon des Galeries Lafayette.jpg, Pavilion of the Galeries Lafayette Department Store at the 1925 Exposition
File:Hotel du Collectionneur , Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes (1925).jpg, The Hotel du Collectionneur, pavilion of the furniture manufacturer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, designed by Pierre Patout.
File:Salon of the Hotel du Collectionneur (1925).jpg, Salon of the Hôtel du Collectionneur from the 1925 International Exposition of Decorative Arts, furnished by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, painting by Jean Dupas, design by Pierre Patout

The event that marked the zenith of the style and gave it its name was the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts which took place in Paris from April to October in 1925. This was officially sponsored by the French government, and covered a site in Paris of 55 acres, running from the Grand Palais on the right bank to Les Invalides on the left bank, and along the banks of the Seine. The Grand Palais, the largest hall in the city, was filled with exhibits of decorative arts from the participating countries. There were 15,000 exhibitors from twenty different countries, including Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the new Soviet Union. Germany was not invited because of tensions after the war; The United States, misunderstanding the purpose of the exhibit, declined to participate. The event was visited by sixteen million people during its seven-month run. The rules of the exhibition required that all work be modern; no historical styles were allowed. The main purpose of the Exhibit was to promote the French manufacturers of luxury furniture, porcelain, glass, metalwork, textiles, and other decorative products. To further promote the products, all the major Paris department stores, and major designers had their own pavilions. The Exposition had a secondary purpose in promoting products from French colonies in Africa and Asia, including ivory and exotic woods.

The Hôtel du Collectionneur was a popular attraction at the Exposition; it displayed the new furniture designs of Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, as well as Art Deco fabrics, carpets, and a painting by Jean Dupas. The interior design followed the same principles of symmetry and geometric forms which set it apart from Art Nouveau, and bright colours, fine craftsmanship rare and expensive materials which set it apart from the strict functionality of the Modernist style. While most of the pavilions were lavishly decorated and filled with hand-made luxury furniture, two pavilions, those of the Soviet Union and Pavilion de L'Esprit Nouveau, built by the magazine of that name run by Le Corbusier, were built in an austere style with plain white walls and no decoration; they were among the earliest examples of modernist architecture.

Skyscrapers

File:NYC - American Radiator Building.jpg, The American Radiator Building, New York City, N.Y., by Raymond Hood (1924)
File:Chrysler Building by David Shankbone Retouched.jpg, Chrysler Building, New York City, by William Van Alen (1930)
File:USS Akron (ZRS-4) in flight over Manhattan, circa 1931-1933.jpg, New York City's skyline ()
File:570 Lexington Avenue2.JPG, Crown of the General Electric Building (also known as 570 Lexington Avenue), New York City, by Cross & Cross (1933)
File:30RockConstruction1933.jpg, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, by Raymond Hood (1933)
File:Empire State Building (aerial view).jpg, Empire State Building, New York City, by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon (1931)

American skyscrapers marked the summit of the Art Deco style; they became the tallest and most recognizable modern buildings in the world. They were designed to show the prestige of their builders through their height, their shape, their color, and their dramatic illumination at night. The American Radiator Building by Raymond Hood (1924) combined Gothic and Deco modern elements in the design of the building. Black brick on the frontage of the building (symbolizing coal) was selected to give an idea of solidity and to give the building a solid mass. Other parts of the façade were covered in gold bricks (symbolizing fire), and the entry was decorated with marble and black mirrors. Another early Art Deco skyscraper was Detroit's Guardian Building, which opened in 1929. Designed by modernist Wirt C. Rowland, the building was the first to employ stainless steel as a decorative element, and the extensive use of colored designs in place of traditional ornaments.

New York City's skyline was radically changed by the Chrysler Building in Manhattan (completed in 1930), designed by William Van Alen. It was a giant seventy-seven-floor tall advertisement for Chrysler automobiles. The top was crowned by a stainless steel spire, and was ornamented by deco "gargoyles" in the form of stainless steel radiator cap decorations. The base of the tower, thirty-three stories above the street, was decorated with colorful art deco friezes, and the lobby was decorated with art deco symbols and images expressing modernity.

The Chrysler Building was soon surpassed in height by the Empire State Building by William F. Lamb (1931), in a slightly less lavish Deco style and the RCA Building (now 30 Rockefeller Plaza) by Raymond Hood (1933) which together completely changed New York City's skyline. The tops of the buildings were decorated with Art Deco crowns and spires covered with stainless steel, and, in the case of the Chrysler building, with Art Deco gargoyles modeled after radiator ornaments, while the entrances and lobbies were lavishly decorated with Art Deco sculpture, ceramics, and design. Similar buildings, though not quite as tall, soon appeared in Chicago and other large American cities. Rockefeller Center added a new design element: several tall buildings grouped around an open plaza, with a fountain in the middle.

Late Art Deco

Old photo of the Scala Cinema in Bucharest, Romania.jpg, Scala Cinema on Bulevardul Gheorghe Magheru, Bucharest, Romania, by Rudolf Fränkel (1935)

File:Miami Beach FL Lincoln Mall Lincoln Theatre01.jpg, Lincoln Theater in Miami Beach, Florida, by Thomas W. Lamb (1936)
File:Paris 75016 Fontaines du Trocadéro 20090815.jpg, The Palais de Chaillot by Louis-Hippolyte Boileau, Jacques Carlu and Léon Azéma from the 1937 Paris International Exposition
File:L'exposition Auguste Perret (Conseil économique, social et environnemental, Paris) (11872278295).jpg, Stairway of the Economic and Social Council in Paris, originally the Museum of Public Works, built for the 1937 Paris International Exposition, by Auguste Perret (1937)
File:KingCityHS-RobertStantonTheater.jpg, High School in King City, California, built by Robert Stanton for the Works Progress Administration (1939)

In 1925, two different competing schools coexisted within Art Deco: the traditionalists, who had founded the Society of Decorative Artists; included the furniture designer Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand, the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, and designer Paul Poiret; they combined modern forms with traditional craftsmanship and expensive materials. On the other side were the modernists, who increasingly rejected the past and wanted a style based upon advances in new technologies, simplicity, a lack of decoration, inexpensive materials, and mass production. The modernists founded their own organisation, The French Union of Modern Artists, in 1929. Its members included architects Pierre Chareau, Francis Jourdain, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Corbusier, and, in the Soviet Union, Konstantin Melnikov; the Irish designer Eileen Gray; the French designer Sonia Delaunay; and the jewellers Georges Fouquet and Jean Puiforcat. They fiercely attacked the traditional art deco style, which they said was created only for the wealthy, and insisted that well-constructed buildings should be available to everyone, and that form should follow function. The beauty of an object or building resided in whether it was perfectly fit to fulfil its function. Modern industrial methods meant that furniture and buildings could be mass-produced, not made by hand.

The Art Deco interior designer Paul Follot defended Art Deco in this way: "We know that man is never content with the indispensable and that the superfluous is always needed...If not, we would have to get rid of music, flowers, and perfumes..!" However, Le Corbusier was a brilliant publicist for modernist architecture; he stated that a house was simply "a machine to live in", and tirelessly promoted the idea that Art Deco was the past and modernism was the future. Le Corbusier's ideas were gradually adopted by architecture schools, and the aesthetics of Art Deco were abandoned. The same features that made Art Deco popular in the beginning, its craftsmanship, rich materials and ornament, led to its decline. The Great Depression that began in the United States in 1929, and reached Europe shortly afterwards, greatly reduced the number of wealthy clients who could pay for the furnishings and art objects. In the Depression economic climate, few companies were ready to build new skyscrapers. Even the Ruhlmann firm resorted to producing pieces of furniture in series, rather than individual hand-made items. The last buildings built in Paris in the new style were the Museum of Public Works by Auguste Perret (now the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council), the Palais de Chaillot by Louis-Hippolyte Boileau, Jacques Carlu and Léon Azéma, and the Palais de Tokyo of the 1937 Paris International Exposition; they looked out at the grandiose pavilion of Nazi Germany, designed by Albert Speer, which faced the equally grandiose socialist-realist pavilion of Stalin's Soviet Union.

After World War II, the dominant architectural style became the International Style pioneered by Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe. A handful of Art Deco hotels were built in Miami B