Page 51 - KW LUXURY MAGAZINE

of the century, and its aesthetics transcended architecture to in uence furniture design, graphic arts and fashion.
In the U.S., New York City boasts some
of the most monumental examples of Art Deco architecture. Skyscrapers built in this style include the Empire State Building, but a more glorious example — one whose prominent arched metallic crown exempli es Art Deco’s more amboyant qualities — is the Chrysler Building, completed in 1930. Other superb examples in the Big Apple are Rockefeller Center, the gilded American Radiator Building (now Bryant Park Hotel) and Brooklyn Public Library.
Evidence that Art Deco made its way out West, decades before the Dodgers left Brooklyn,
is a surprisingly rich collection of structures in Los Angeles. Among L.A.’s most prominent examples of Art Deco architecture are the former Bullocks Wilshire department store, the turquoise terra cotta-clad Eastern Columbia Building and Los Angeles Central Library.
Adrian Scott Fine, director of advocacy for the Los Angeles Conservancy, a prominent preservation organization, reports the movement
coincided with one of the fastest-growing periods in the city’s history. He also notes a strong Hollywood connection, citing its in uence on set design in Depression-era movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. “Hollywood delivered Art Deco to the masses with glitzy, beautiful and thoroughly modern interior spaces at a time when people needed some uplifting images,” says Fine.
L.A. also offers excellent examples of Streamline Moderne, a more curvilinear subset of Art Deco that was embraced by Angeleno architects in the 1930s. A variety of well- preserved theaters, hotels and restaurants represent Moderne’s more aerodynamic aesthetic, which Fine suggests was particularly well-suited to the emerging car culture in L.A. Emphasizing Art Deco’s timeless quality, Fine states, “It was the rst architecture that felt playful and fresh. Nothing before and nothing since looks quite like it.”
Art Deco masterpieces exist throughout America, in cities large and small. The highly ornamental metallic façade of the Niagra Mohawk Power Corporation headquarters in Syracuse, New York (dramatically illuminated at night)
With its amboyant metallic crown, New York’s Chrysler Building is among the greatest Art Deco skyscrapers.
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