Sleek, streamlined geometry-that was the form the future took for many American architects and designers in the 1920s and 1930s. The style came to be called Art Deco or Art Moderne, and the period produced some of Chicago`s most dazzling buildings.
Some 65 years later, though the term conjures images of fedoras and flappers, Art Deco design still says ”modern.”
To celebrate its place in Chicago`s architectural heritage, a tour, ”Art Deco in Chicago,” will be offered Wednesday to kick off the 3rd Annual Winnetka Modernism Show, which features art, furniture and crafts from this period, as well as Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts and other 20th Century design movements. The tour will include visits to two Chicago residences, a Loyola University chapel and a selection of skyscrapers, old and new, that incorporate Art Deco elements.
”We have wonderful examples of Art Deco here,” says Lynn Abbie, former president of the Art Deco Society, who is currently writing a book on the era. ”I`m not just being a Chicago chauvinist . . . it`s true. But I think the reason we haven`t gotten our due is that it`s scattered; we don`t have one area like Ocean Drive in Miami.”
Chicago is resplendent with chevrons, ziggurats, sunbursts, bolts of lightning and other motifs from the rich tradition called Art Deco.
”After World War I, people needed a new design vocabulary. They understood it was the machine that had won the war,” says architectural guide Irene Overman Kreer, who will conduct the ”Art Deco in Chicago” tour.
”So what is one`s response to a machine as an artist? All kinds of design elements came out of that. . . . The zigzag, for example, is . . . all about electricity and communication. Everybody fell in love with the machine.”
The style takes its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925, a showcase of modernistic design. Primarily a French movement at the beginning, Art Deco soon became an international style and found its interpreters here in Chicago. In 1920s America, Art Deco design reflected a mood of optimism. Skyscrapers zizagged into the air, and interiors of theaters and public buildings were extravagantly appointed.
Smooth, hard surfaces, such as granite and marble, created sleek finishes, and repeated geometric forms expressed a modern sense, free of historic associations.
Softer images and materials were used as well. Stylized animal and plant forms, for example, and mythic figures were depicted in terra cotta ornamentation.
After the stock market crash of 1929, the exuberant decoration of the Art Deco style gave way to a more functional and streamlined aesthetic during the Depression. Images of technology and industry-speeding automobiles, locomotives and ocean liners-were popular, as well as murals glorifying muscular men and women at labor.
Among the treasures to be explored by the ”Art Deco in Chicago” tour is the Carbide and Carbon Building. Designed by Burnham Brothers-the sons of architect Daniel Burnham-and built in 1929 at 230 N. Michigan Ave., it is a spectacular example of the style. Forty stories of black granite and gold trim, the building is topped in grand Deco fashion with a tower made of dark green and gold-glazed terra cotta.
The Chicago Board of Trade building at the foot of LaSalle Street is another highlight of the tour. Designed by Holabird and Root, the three-story lobby of the 1930 building is distinguished by black marble piers that alternate with billowing cascades of beige marble.
Rich Art Deco detail is found everywhere, from the twisting, ribbonlike staircase railings to the grillwork featuring stylized sheaves of grain and ears of corn. Abstract forms dance in the marble floors of the lobby, while ships, airplanes and zeppelins float in the lower level floor.
One high point of ”Art Deco in Chicago” is the interior of a Near North Side residence designed by a leading artistic figure of the period, Edgar Miller. Whimsical and eclectic, the apartment`s current incarnation began as a modernistic makeover of a Victorian home in 1927. And, with the help of Miller, a recent School of the Art Institute graduate at the time, designed the apartment around the materials that were affordable and available to him, such as tiles scouted from Maxwell Street and the Century of Progress exhibit. The result is a mix of stained glass, terra cotta and carved wood that is rich in Art Deco imagery. A two-story, diamond-patterned, stained-glass window dominates the living room of the multilevel apartment. Carved into doors and window trim and painted into murals are Miller`s signature animal figures-horses, deer, lions and giraffes. The apartment evokes many styles, from Mexican influences to the American Arts and Crafts movement.
In recent years, Miller, who is now in his 90s, has assisted the current owner in continuing work on the apartment. While Miller is best known for his work with architectural firms, the apartment interior is a charming record of Miller`s personal design pursuits.
While Miller no longer gives interviews, Lynn Abbie says he is still involved in glorifying the era. ”His step may not be so quick, but he hasn`t lost his artistic touch. He doesn`t like to be called a genius, but that`s exactly what he is. And he doesn`t like to call it Deco. He`ll say, `It`s not any school; it`s just me.` ”
By contrast, architect Andrew Rebori`s Madonna della Strada Chapel, just steps from the Lake Michigan shore at Loyola University, embodies the streamlined, modernistic aesthetic of 1930s-style Art Moderne.
Built in 1939, the chapel`s scant exterior ornamentation includes repeated geometrical forms-chevrons, vertical lines and circles. The west end of Rebori`s rectilinear structure culminates in a series of arching poured-concrete bands connected with glass blocks that form a dome over the altar area.
When the church`s name (which translates from Italian as ”Our Lady of the Way”) was given, it was anticipated that Lake Shore Drive construction would continue north beyond Hollywood Avenue and run past the chapel. Instead, the church today is a retreat on the campus, where lapping waves, rather than traffic sounds, break the silence.
Two new buildings, NBC Tower and the AT & T building, are part of the tour itinerary. Both of these 1989 additions to Chicago`s skyline were designed by Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.
The NBC Tower at 454 N. Columbus Dr., with its setbacks and vertical lines, suggests earlier Art Deco-style buildings, while resting its footings firmly in the present.
Rich in Deco reference, as well, is the AT & T building at 227 W. Monroe St. Elevators, light fixtures and railings suggest the period. Columns of backlit, translucent glass march above elevators and over the ceiling, recalling similar panels of light on the north walls of the Board of Trade lobby.
Abbie, who has lead ”hundreds and hundreds” of Art Deco tours since the late 1970s, explains why people never get tired of the era and why many campaign passionately to preserve each building, whether it`s a grand movie palace or a neighborhood parking garage.
”In truth, life may never have been lived exactly that way . . . with such elegance . . . but we want to believe that it was. We all need to be inspired; to surround ourselves with a little magic.”
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The ”Art Deco in Chicago” tour will take place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday; fee is $50. Lunch at the Philip Maher-designed Woman`s Athletic Club of Chicago is included. For reservations, call 708-446-0537. Hours for the Winnetka Modern Show at the Community House, 620 Lincoln Ave., are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 7 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 8. Admission is $7 in advance, $8 at the door.
