Seldom has an architectural style been more associated with a specific time period as Art Deco was to the 1920s and 1930s. The decorative-heavy style grew from the French Art Nouveau movement of the turn of the 20th century and took its name from the 1925 world’s fair staged in Paris called the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. The truncated “Art Deco” was truly an international style, infused with decorative elements imagined from ancient civilizations and the Far East. Art Deco burst into American design and was immediately influencing everything from architecture to furniture to the vacuum cleaners standing in household closets.
The most obvious impact of Art Deco was on big city skylines. The geometric forms at the heart of Art Deco style meshed well with the verticality of skyscrapers. The exuberance of Art Deco matched the go-go Roaring Twenties in lockstep. In New York City the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building were Art Deco icons that took construction to new heights. The decorative elements often played to the purpose of the building. The Chrysler Building, for instance, was a 1000-foot high advertisement for Walter Chrysler’s powerful new automobiles; the “gargoyles” were even stylized radiator caps.
For smaller cities and towns Art Deco was most evident in the local movie theater. The 1920s were when motion pictures became the dominant entertainment form in America and gave birth to the “movie star.” Art Deco was the perfect architectural expression for the exotic new movie palaces needed to accommodate the hordes of new fans, many of which could seat up to 3,000 patrons. Radio City Music Hall could handle over 6,000 for a movie screening.
The Great Depression of the 1930s brought a somber mood to the country and Art Deco adapted accordingly. Decoration became more subdued and the federal government – often the only builder with money for new construction in the early 1930s – adopted a “stripped down classicism” for its Deco buildings. As fortunes picked up Art Deco pivoted again in the late 1930s with the Streamline Moderne style that featured curving facades and long horizontal lines meant to evoke speed and the possibilities of the future. Transportation buildings, bus stations or airport terminals, were common recipient of a Streamline Moderne facade; they were also the first to embrace new building materials such as chrome plating and stainless steel. But instead of a pathway to the future, Streamline Moderne marked the end of the line for Art Deco. The outbreak of World War II abruptly brought a strict functionality to building design, locking the Art Deco style securely into its time and place in history.
Where to find Art Deco in Philadelphia:
The Drake, 1512 Spruce Street
Verus T. Ritter and Howell L. Shay pooled their design talents in 1920 and flourished as an architectural partnership until commissions dried up in the Great Depression of the 1930s. When investors were flush in early 1929 they delivered this 30- story Art Deco tour-de-force decorated with Spanish Baroque elements. The confection boasts terra-cotta ornamentation, setback terraces, turrets and a red tile roof. The Drake was the sort of hotel where power brokers and celebrities would sign the guest register – canine thespian and movie star, Benji, stayed here. Today it trundles on as an apartment house.
WCAU Building, 1620 Chestnut Street
Built in 1928 by Harry Sternfield and Gabriel Roth, this playful Art Deco building is meant to call to mind a radio; the glass tower was lit in blue at night when WCAU radio was on the air. The clear channel 50,000-watt signal carried across the country at night. The building was renovated in the 1980s for the Art Institute of Philadelphia.
Customs House, 100 S 2nd Street
Another creation of Ritter and Howell, this government building from 1932-34 was their final major work. The Art Deco skyscraper was for the U.S. Customs Service, the first federal agency established by Congress back in 1789. Despite working in a modern style the designers melded the lower stories with its historic eighteenth-century neighborhood through the use of classical details on the broad, low base.
N.W. Ayer Building, 210 West Washington Square
Francis Wayland Ayer was 21 years old when he started a business in 1869 to represent religious weekly magazines. Ayer was the first agency to hire a full-time copywriter (1892) and the first to hire an artist (1898). Over the next hundred years it grew to be Philadelphia’s largest advertising agency and the country’s oldest before defecting to New York City in 1973. Its Art Deco tower, with bronze doors etched with busy advertising employees, was built in 1928 by Ralph Bencker. True to its
breeding, The Ayer is now a luxury condo house.