Wednesday, October 5, 2022 – THAT WONDERFUL ROUNDED LOOK THAT WAS ALL THE RAGE IN THE 1930’S

By admin

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEDNESDAY,  OCTOBER 5,  2022



THE  799th EDITION

STREAMLINE

MODERNE

ARCHITECTURE

AND

DESIGN

WIKIPEDIA
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The Maritime Museum in San Francisco — in the Aquatic Park Historic District, within the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Formerly the Aquatic Park Bathhouse, containing club and social areas, and changing rooms. An example of Streamline Moderne architecture, built in 1936 by the WPA. Credits Images by en:User:Leonard G. Maritime Museum Judge’s tower


Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design, it was used in railroad locomotives, telephones, toasters, buses, appliances, and other devices to give the impression of sleekness and modernity.^[1]

In France, it was called the style paquebot, or “ocean liner style”, and was influenced by the design of the luxury ocean liner SS Normandie, launched in 1932.

Front and southern side of the former Blytheville Greyhound Bus Station, located at 109 N. Fifth Street in Blytheville, Arkansas, United States. Built in 1937, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

As the Great Depression of the 1930s progressed, Americans saw a new aspect of Art Deco, i.e., streamlining, a concept first conceived by industrial designers who stripped Art Deco design of its ornament in favor of the aerodynamic pure-line concept of motion and speed developed from scientific thinking. The cylindrical forms and long horizontal windowing in architecture may also have been influenced by constructivism, and by the New Objectivity artists, a movement connected to the German Werkbund. Examples of this style include the 1923 Mossehaus, the reconstruction of the corner of a Berlin office building in 1923 by Erich Mendelsohn and Richard Neutra. The Streamline Moderne was sometimes a reflection of austere economic times; sharp angles were replaced with simple, aerodynamic curves, and ornament was replaced with smooth concrete and glass.

The style was the first to incorporate electric light into architectural structure. In the first-class dining room of the SS Normandie, fitted out 1933–35, twelve tall pillars of Lalique glass, and 38 columns lit from within illuminated the room. The Strand Palace Hotel foyer (1930), preserved from demolition by the Victoria and Albert Museum during 1969, was one of the first uses of internally lit architectural glass, and coincidentally was the first Moderne interior preserved in a museum.

Coca-Cola factory, Los Angeles by Robert V. Derrah (1936)

Streamline Moderne appeared most often in buildings related to transportation and movement, such as bus and train stations, airport terminals, roadside cafes, and port buildings. It had characteristics common with modern architecture, including a horizontal orientation, rounded corners, the use of glass brick walls or porthole windows, flat roofs, chrome-plated hardware, and horizontal grooves or lines in the walls. They were frequently white or in subdued pastel colors.

An example of this style is the Aquatic Park Bathhouse in the Aquatic Park Historic District, in San Francisco. Built beginning in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration, it features the distinctive horizontal lines, classic rounded corners railing and windows of the style, resembling the elements of ship. The interior preserves much of the original decoration and detail, including murals by artist and color theoretician Hilaire Hiler. The architects were William Mooser Jr. and William Mooser III. It is now the administrative center of Aquatic Park Historic District.

The Normandie Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which opened during 1942, is built in the stylized shape of the ocean liner SS Normandie, and displays the ship’s original sign. The Sterling Streamliner Diners in New England were diners designed like streamlined trains.

Although Streamline Moderne houses are less common than streamline commercial buildings, residences do exist. The Lydecker House in Los Angeles, built by Howard Lydecker, is an example of Streamline Moderne design in residential architecture. In tract development, elements of the style were sometimes used as a variation in postwar row housing in San Francisco’s Sunset District.

East Finchley Tube station, London (1937)

Hecht Company Warehouse in northeast Washington, D.C. (1937)

Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles, California (1935–1989)

Marine Air Terminal of LaGuardia Airport, New York (1939)

Hotel Shangri-La (1939), Santa Monica, California

Greyhound Bus Station, Columbia, South Carolina (1936–1939)

Streamline Moderne church, First Church of Deliverance, Chicago, Illinois (1939), by Walter T. Bailey. Towers added 1948.

MORE TOMORROW

PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES
IN THE MODERNE STYLE

WEDNESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

WILLIAM VAN ALEN,
ARCHITECT OF THE CHRYSLER BUILDING DRESSED UP AS HIS STRUCTURE

ALEXIS VALLAFANE AND JOYCE GOLD GOT IT RIGHT

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff

All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated

Sources

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