Art Deco
Geometric forms, stepped moulding profiles, and stylized ornament capture the elegance and glamour of the early twentieth century.
What Is Art Deco?
Art Deco is a decorative design style that flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, combining geometric forms, clean lines, and stylized ornament. In architecture and interiors, it is recognized by stepped forms, strong vertical accents, decorative surfaces, and carefully coordinated details.
The style brought together traditional craftsmanship and enthusiasm for modern materials, machines, and technology. Its influence extended beyond architecture and interior decoration to furniture, industrial design, fashion, the visual arts, and cinema, creating an enduring association with elegance, glamour, and modernity.
The Collection
Art Deco Characteristics
Art Deco architecture combines stepped forms, repeated geometric patterns, and stylized ornament inspired by machines and nature. Decorative motifs include sunbursts, scallop shells, simplified Ionic volutes, deer, leopards, palm leaves, and cloud forms, often reduced to geometric shapes. Buildings and interiors range from richly embellished compositions to more restrained designs.
- Strong vertical accents and horizontal bands
- Stepped forms, zigzags, triangles, trapezoids, and chevrons
- Rounded corners and curves, especially in Streamline Moderne
- Metallic accents, decorative glass, and polished or lacquered wood
- Symmetry and balanced compositions
- Bold color contrasts and coordinated finishes
- Stylized geometric and natural ornament
ART DECO MOULDINGS
Art Deco mouldings combine flat surfaces, stepped profiles, repeated curves, and geometric forms. Door and window casings emphasize openings with layered edges and strong vertical lines, while baseboards and horizontal wall mouldings organize the surrounding wall surfaces.
Crown mouldings often use successive steps or rounded elements to create depth at the ceiling. Used together, these profiles establish a coordinated interior in which the arrangement and repetition of the woodwork contribute to the overall design.
Shop Now
Period Details & Drawings
History of Art Deco
Art Deco developed in France during the early twentieth century, with roots in the decorative arts before the First World War. Designers sought a contemporary aesthetic that combined exceptional craftsmanship with new forms suited to an increasingly industrialized society. During the 1920s, this approach gained wider recognition across architecture, interiors, and other areas of design.
Its influences were varied. Designers reinterpreted classical and Neoclassical ornament, ancient Egyptian forms, and the geometric approaches of movements such as Cubism and Constructivism. The linear, geometric work of Josef Hoffmann also helped establish a foundation for Art Deco design. These sources were combined with imagery drawn from nature, machinery, and modern transportation.
The Société des Artistes Décorateurs (Society of Decorative Artists) promoted French decorative design and craftsmanship through exhibitions of its members’ work. The 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris brought these developments to a wider international audience. The exhibition’s title later provided the name Art Deco, which became widely used retrospectively during the 1960s.
The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, completed in 1913 through the work of Auguste and Gustave Perret and other collaborators, anticipated Art Deco through its restrained geometric architecture and integrated decoration. At the 1925 exposition, Le Corbusier’s Pavilion of the New Spirit presented a contrasting modernist approach, emphasizing standardized construction and functional living rather than the luxurious decorative treatments associated with many other exhibits.
During the 1930s, Art Deco continued to evolve as the Great Depression changed construction activity, budgets, and attitudes toward luxury. Richly ornamented designs existed alongside more economical interpretations. The related Streamline Moderne approach emphasized horizontal lines, smooth surfaces, rounded corners, and nautical details such as porthole windows, reflecting contemporary interest in speed and transportation.
Art Deco and other forms of Modernism developed alongside one another. After the Second World War, simpler architectural approaches and changing priorities in housing, materials, and production increasingly displaced Art Deco’s decorative emphasis.
Art Deco in America
American audiences encountered objects from the Paris exposition through the 1926 museum exhibition “A Selected Collection of Objects from the International Exposition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Art at Paris 1925.” Organized by the American Association of Museums, it was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in February 1926.
Art Deco became closely associated with the prosperity and cultural energy of the Roaring Twenties and remained prominent in American architecture throughout the 1930s. Famous examples include the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and Rockefeller Center, where geometric forms and coordinated decorative details helped define a modern urban identity.
American interpretations ranged from lavish interiors and elaborate decorative finishes to more restrained designs using less expensive materials. During the 1930s, New Deal programs, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Public Works Administration (PWA), supported public building projects that incorporated Art Deco and related Moderne approaches. Municipal buildings, libraries, and schools often adopted simplified geometric or classical treatments associated with Classical Moderne.
The style was especially prominent in commercial and public buildings, including offices, hotels, and movie theaters. It also appeared in apartment buildings and residential interiors, although it was less commonly used for detached houses. Today, Art Deco continues to influence interior decoration, furniture, mouldings, and architectural detailing.
