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Essay Subject: An account of the intersection of Art Deco design and skyscrapers.... More...

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Paper Abstract: An account of the of Art Deco design and the development of skyscrapers. Cultural and artistic context of art deco. Design motifs. Metal construction and its impact. Examples of some buildings. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine the Art Deco architecturestyle and the development of the skyscraper chiefly in the United States The plan of the research will be to set forth the cultural and artisticcontext in which Art Deco was defined as well as the discourse ofskyscraper architecture and then to discuss not only the architecturaltheories and theorist practitioners whose ideas informed debate overskyscraper construction but also the popular and professional reaction tothe buildings at the time they were constructed Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Influential as the Home Insurance building was, however, controversysurrounds the issue of whether it should be considered the first skyscraperin the US. However, the termthat was to overtake style moderne to define the modernist style wassomewhat of a Johnny-come-lately. That is not to say that Art Deco and skyscrapers hada cause-and-effect relationship; however, by the 192 s, Americanskyscrapers routinely favored incorporation of Art Deco design, which seemsto have been uniquely suited to the shape that they assumed. Despite the German provenance of the film, its artdirection, appropriately enough, has been attributed to Lang's 1924 visitto New York City (Ebert). The cited influences would help explain, for example, FrankLloyd Wright's use of Navajo patterns in his furniture and other objectsand his reference to Mayan sources in hotels and other projects. More generally,Willis cites the convention in New York City of "tall towers and pyramidalsetbacks" that characterized skyscrapers there (22). Additionally, the building's ornamentation was a function of"economic factors" (1 ) associated with the construction--that is, notexclusively a function of Art Deco sensibility. In thewake of 9/11, of course, controversy has once again entered the discourseof skyscrapers, for reasons that perhaps only biplane pilots could haveanticipated. The so-called "Chicago School" is thename given to the commercial-architecture style of buildings constructed inand around Loop (downtown Chicago) in the years following the famous firein the last part of the nineteenth century. The American architectural ship of style moderne, of course, had longsince sailed. The Empire State Building is perhaps the most famous and undoubtedlythe most massive example of Art Deco architecture as well as exemplary ofemergent architectural modernity more generally. Gone were the leaves,cherubim, and shells of baroque and rococo design. For the style itself had evolved tobecome deployed in decorative and architectural art by the 192 s. On one side, in 1933, there was theiconographic valorization of the building as a sturdy monolith in the finalpart of the motion picture King Kong, which has the beast climbing to thetop, only to be being shot down by a bevy of biplanes. "Beauty and the Bank: The Skyscraper Is Reborn in Hong Kong." The New Republic, 23 Dec. In the background of the streamlined aspects of Art Deco architecture,which were to be incorporated into significant Deco buildings such as theEmpire State Building in New York, was a view evolving among architectsthat form should follow function and that function should entail livability--itself a view that seems to have evolved at least in part from the lessonsof mechanization wrought by the Industrial Revolution over the course ofthe 19th century. In any case, themodernist design, according to Wiseman, was to overwhelm the decorationthat Sullivan viewed as a necessary aspect of the steel-frame concept thathe and Adler applied to more than 1 buildings, many of them skyscrapers.Sullivan, too, was overwhelmed, as it turned out. "Metal technology," as it was called,which was used in the construction of such monumental objects as theBrooklyn Bridge, could be incorporated into "the impulse to go ever higher"without obliging builders to create massive foundations to support thestructure (Wiseman 75). While traditional accounts of theskyscraper phenomenon date use of the word from completion of the Homebuilding, Peterson quotes historians who say the term was in use before1885. Chicago, which had the second-most skyscrapers inthe country, had only 151 comparable buildings by 1922. The term itself was derived in Paris, where in 1925 was held theExposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Willis downplays theinfluence of design as a controlling factor of the Empire State, citinginstead the fact that the designers sensibly adhered to a constructionformula that had an economy all its own. The sequence hasbeen described as "cinema folklore" (Maltin). Ironically, Sullivan was never to witness the widespreadimplementation of his ideas about modern architectural form, in concertwith Art Deco design. Scott Fitzgerald's meditation on the EmpireState's power to expose the provincialism of New Yorkers, even those whohad valorized tall buildings. The Home Insurance building marked the firstsignificant use of steel in construction and proved that masonry could beused not for structural mass and strength but could be literally hung onthe steel frame (Wiseman 8 f; Peterson 218). Indeed, pioneering modernist architect Louis H.Sullivan proclaimed in 1896 that a tall building, which would signify thevery future, was meant to be a "proud and soaring thing" (Wiseman 74) thatwould dominate cities. Buildings of the Chicago School--first factories, then skyscrapers--were distinguished by iron-and-steel frameworks made possible by advancesin engineering, patented or not, but even more distinguished by Sullivan'soft-articulated principle, following Viollet-le-Duc, that the form of astructure should follow function organically and express "both the physicaland the social aspects of [its] environment" (Bush-Brown 19). By the time tall buildings were once againseriously on the drawing boards of architects in the US and Europe, theGreat Depression and World War II had run their course, and Art Deco ashigh-rise ornamentation had been eclipsed by the more severe, aggressivelyunornamented approach of curtain walls and steel-framed glass boxes. Diskette. Louis, which was designed by Dankmar Adlerand Louis Sullivan and completed in 1891. Diskette. Art Decocan be said to have subsumed Art Nouveau, actually exploiting or expressingarchitectural form in terms of its industrial base. Leonard Maltin. Nevertheless, Art Deco practitioners appropriated design modes fromEuropean sources--for example the streamline concept from the Bauhaus inGermany. Contrast such imagery with the bucolic scenes of theRenaissance and Mannerist pastoralizations of monumental Greco-Romandesign, highly decorative baroque architecture, Gothic style, or variousrevivals of classical architectural forms. "A Tale of Two Worksites." Natural History 1 6 (October 1997): 18-29.Jacquet, Pierre. New York: Horizon P, 1953.----------------------- [1]Of stone-and-masonry architecture, the Asch Building, Triangle'saddress, was considered fireproof; the fire spread because of thetremendous amount of fuel inside Triangle's locked-door sweatshop, notablyclothing-construction materials, shirtwaist fabric, and the clothing of thegirls. "The First Skyscraper." Science News 5 April 1986: 218-19.Smith, Terry. One view is that American designers fused European influences,geometric shapes, native culture influences, nationalist sensibilities, andstylized forms with multiple manmade materials--e.g., plastic, bakelite,masonry sheets--to arrive at the modalities of Art Deco ornamentation(Breeze passim). Works CitedBayer, Patricia. Cinemania 96. It seems to have been only after 19 thatSullivan adapted the message of functionalism to his work (Wills 18).Additionally, there is a view that Sullivan was more devoted to decorationthan his modernist/functionalist declaration might imply; the Wainwrighthad Celtic ornamentation. Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Corporation, 1996.Peterson, Ivars. Yet Lincharacterizes the Empire State as "captur[ing] the myth of the skyscraper,"at the base looking "mountainous" but also "launching into the sky,glamorously punctuated . There were other non-American (more exactly, non-US)influences as well, such as ancient Egypt, Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria inthe Old World and pre-Columbian and Mayan civilizations, as well as NativeAmerican cultures in the New World (Bayer 15-16). "Skyscraper Zoning: New York's Pioneering Role." Journal of the American Planning Association 58 (Spring 1992): 2 1-12.Willis, Carol. Jacquet disparages Art Nouveau, which heidentifies with "modern style," as "the last pseudo-romantic attempt toseparate architectural form from industrial civilization" (88). Modernism disdained the traditional use of Greek, Roman, andRenaissance models for monumental (typically, public-use) architecture forwhat was held to be a less frankly ornamental line. "Louis H. This was happening at atime when Europe was still using neoclassical building design for itscomparable buildings. Completed in 1931, the Empire State capped off the"architectural extravagance" that had characterized skyscraper constructionduring the 192 s (Lin 25), just as the stock-market crash of 1929 heraldedthe Great Depression, which was well under way in 1931. London: Leisure Arts Limited, 1965.Lin, Maya Ying. Even so, Sullivan is said to have "establishedthe definition of the commercial building" (Jacquet 9 ). Nor had 193 s Europe warmed to the skyscraper. Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago. In that regard, Smith makes the point that in theiconography of Art Deco architecture and decoration that flourished in theUS in the 192 s and 193 s, there is abundant repetition of imageryinvolving "industry and workers, cities and crowds, products and consumers"(Smith 42). Thus Art Deco can be interpreted as an expression of ideas evolvingout of reaction against architecture traditions in an industrializingcontext. Characterizations of thisbuilding point in the direction of the confluence of architecture and ArtDeco. The purpose of this research is to examine the Art Deco architecturestyle and the development of the skyscraper, chiefly in the United States.The plan of the research will be to set forth the cultural and artisticcontext in which Art Deco was defined, as well as the discourse ofskyscraper architecture, and then to discuss not only the architecturaltheories and theorist/practitioners whose ideas informed debate overskyscraper construction but also the popular and professional reaction tothe buildings at the time they were constructed. by spires as delicately designed as jewelry"(Lin 25-6). He died in 1924, in poverty and obscurity. Industrialization had also enabled builders to exploit newbuilding materials such as iron and steel in ways that had not beenpossible with bricks and mortar. In their place weresleek, streamlined, geometrical lines, as well as an emerging theory ofarchitectural line as articulated by such practitioners as Wright andSullivan. Lincharacterizes Art Deco ornament as romantic, fusing with the "structuralexpressionism" of skyscrapers (26). Wiseman, who says that sheer height and not structural components orutilities and elevators should be the criterion of skyscraper status, citesthe Wainwright Building in St. Leonard Maltin. The tall-building myth, as it turned out, was difficult for the EmpireState Building to embody, let alone sustain. As early as 1912 New York City had more than 1,5 buildingscontaining from nine to seventeen stories and ninety-one buildingscontaining from eight to fifty-five stories, a figure that continued togrow through the 192 s. For one thing, architectural historians have found that Jennyused masonry as well as a metal frames for structural purposes and that in1889 Chicago architects made a project of discrediting an engineer whopatented a steel-framework iron skeletal frame, breaking the patent in partby pointing to Jenney's pre-1889 use of metal on the Home building(Peterson 219). Ed. . The fusionof modernist (steel-frame) architecture and Art Deco detail was expressedin innumerable public buildings, theatres, and commercial buildings allover the US by the 192 s and through the 193 s. 1985: 25-29.Maltin, Leonard. That is the mise-en-scène of FritzLang's 1926 motion picture Metropolis, which is distinguished byskyscrapers (and for that matter characters) designed according to Art Decoat its most geometric. The structure, renamed the Brown Building, remains standing to thisday (Gould 22). Any meaningful discussion of the link between Art Deco architectureand the development of the skyscraper must begin with a clarification ofdefinition of the term Art Deco. American Art Deco: Modernistic Architecture and Regionalism. Betsky (51) cites Fitzgerald's essay "My LostCity," which argued that the view from the top of the Empire State revealedNew York to be "a city after all and not a universe." With completion of the Empire State docked the ship of US monumentaland Art Deco architecture. Sullivan." New York Review of Books 4 (21 October 1993): 15-22.Wiseman, Carter. At nine stories, it wasconstructed almost entirely of metal, beginning with a cast-iron-columnframe and wrought-iron beams overlaid by brick or clay-tile sheath toprotect against fire. "Babylon Revisited: The Latest Skyscraper Designs Offer Mixed Hopes for a Towering Aesthetic." Architecture 91 (December 2 2): 42-31.Breeze, Carla. Theexpo was a showcase for decorative-arts items that had been familiar toelites (for whom one-of-a-kind Art Deco items had been designed for someyears) but that were beginning to be adopted by the middle classes (andcity planners, as it turned out) of the United States. Braziller, 196 .Ebert, Roger. After 1895 he and Adlerdissolved their partnership, and Sullivan's solo practice did notparticularly thrive. Redmond, Wash.: Microsoft Corporation, 1996.Gould, Stephen Jay. Also called style moderne, Art Decoemerged out of a nonhistorical approach to architecture and the decorativearts. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1994.Weiss, Marc A. Rev. of Metropolis. That is a reference to theconvention, based on classical proportions that had height dictated by thestrength of the base. Its massive scale was partof its original conception, and the fact that it was located on a verylarge Manhattan lot contributed to this. Because of the GreatDepression, there was a 75% vacancy rate in the building until 1941, andWillis calls the building the "most colossal miscalculation of the 192 s"(9 ). London: Thames & Hudson, 1999.Betsky, Aaron. Ed. Wiseman (82) saysthat with the Wainwright Sullivan "launched American architecture on acourse toward aesthetic and technological dominance for decades to come."Although the Wainwright had a large base, the dominant dynamic was one of"express[ing]" the structure "unconcealed on the façade" (82). Princeton: Princeton Architectural P, 1995.Wills, Garry. Rather than simply quoting the models, however, Art Deco designers andarchitects employed stylized or otherwise reconfigured versions of theoriginals. A graduate ofEcole des Beaux Arts in Paris just a decade after Viollet-le-Duc'smanifesto, Sullivan was particularly hostile to what he referred to as"alterations and adaptations" to European architectural styles--French,English, Gothic, Classic, Renaissance, Italian, or Louis Quinze--inAmerican settings. New York: Norton, 2 3.Bush-Brown, Albert. Art Deco Architecture: Design, Decoration, and Detail from the Twenties and Thirties. By 1929, when thestock market crashed, half of all the buildings in the US that were atleast ten stories were located in New York city (Weiss 2 4ff). In 1863, at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Artsin Paris, an architect named Viollet-le-Duc declared that "no architecturalor artistic form can be considered beautiful if it is impossible tounderstand its function" (Jacquet 85). It was in Chicago, indeed, thatthe first skyscraper so-called rose in 1885, the Home Insurance CompanyBuilding, designed by William Le Baron Jenney. On the more contemplativeside, in 1932, there was F. That is, after a baseof several stories, there was placed on top of the base and set back fromits façade the smaller perimeter of the tower portion of the high-rises.The "wedding cake" setbacks were a consequence of zoning laws that cameinto force in New York in 1916 that permitted the construction of tallbuildings only that would preserve a degree of light, air, and "open spacein the sky" (Weiss 2 1). What could be called the Empire State's economies ofscale appears to have contributed to the fact that its entire design andconstruction were completed in 18 months (Willis passim). New York: G. Lin cites the building's "clearly defined vertical members [that]carried the form upward as one sculptural gesture" (25). That approach to controlling architectural designleft open the question of how high any building in the city could be andessentially paved the way for limitless upward construction, even though in1911 a fire at the ten-story Triangle Shirtwaist Factory had claimed 146lives, many of which were lost as the trapped jumped from the ninth floorto their deaths and even though firefighting equipment at the time couldreach only as high as six floors (Gould 22).[1] Reaction to the Empire State appears to have been influenced bynonarchitectural considerations. Increasedmechanization of everything from agriculture to war showed thatfunctionality as a controlling idea was overtaking the idea of decorationin architecture. Making the Modern: Industry, Art, and Design in America. Louis Sullivan. Art Nouveau, which hadmade use of nature as decoration, appears to have exerted some influence onArt Deco, and nude female forms, flora, fauna, and sunrays found their wayinto some Art Deco ornamentation. That concept took hold over thebalance of the century, evidently more in the US than in Europe. As a style in actual use, Art Deco wasvery much an American phenomenon before it was sanctified in Paris in 1925.In his manifesto on the future of architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright arguedfor a certain nativism in architectural design, asserting that style mustnot be borrowed from another culture (e.g., the Renaissance from theancient Greeks) but proceed "as genuine consequence of natural or ethniccharacter" (1 2). Peterson cites partisans of the 187 Equitable Building inNew York, which had 7.5 stories, an elevator, and ample utilities, andwhich was destroyed by fire in 1912. . "The Rise of the Skyscraper and the Fall of Louis Sullivan." American Heritage 49 (Feb.-March 1998): 74-83.Wright, Frank Lloyd. More than that, Metropolis is a cautionary tale,idealizing Art Deco for visual purposes but in the process commentingnegatively on the social organization wrought by ultramodernism. The engineering calculations weresuch that the 197' x 425' lot could support a tower measuring 1 ' x 212'(Willis 77). History of Architecture. Rev. of King Kong. Thereis one distinctive European exemplar of Art Deco architecture from the192 s, though it is entirely fanciful. Although the skyscraper is normally associated with the New York Cityskyline, Sullivan's city was Chicago. That did not prevent him from designing in the classicalstyle for some 2 years after his graduation, not least a controversialpavilion for the Chicago Exposition of 1893 that incorporated Romanesqueand Renaissance elements. The Future of Architecture. Cinemania 96. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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