MODERNIST ARCHITECTURAL MASTERPIECES.

I lived in New York City for many years, which does not make me an authority on the city’s numerous examples of Art Deco architecture, but… here’s a few of my favorites. Above, the incomparable Chrysler Building (which opened in 1930).

All black and white photographs are by Samuel Gottscho, from the Gottscho-Schleisner Collection at the Library of Congress.

Lobby of the Empire State Building (1930).

30 Rockefeller Plaza (1933).

Lobby of the Daily News Building (1930). A previous post about its magnificent globe: https://wp.me/p7LiLW-17y

Crown of the General Electric Building (1931).

Auditorium of Radio City Music Hall (1932). There’s almost 6,000 seats.

Gone, but not forgotten
The Trylon and Perisphere, centerpiece of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. A previous post about them: https://wp.me/p7LiLW-2fK

A streamlined locomotive at the Fair.

Art Deco (short for Arts Decoratifs) takes its name from the Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Industrials Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris in 1925. Although elements of Art Deco had been around for decades before that. The style had a huge influence on all forms of design through the 1920s and ’30s. Geometric ornament, streamlined forms and straight lines were some of the components of the Art Deco style.