Streamline Moderne
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]
Years active
1930s–1940s
International
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.
East Finchley Tube station, London (1937)
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.
Long Beach, CA
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.[2] 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.
Paquebot building at 3 boulevard Victor, 15th arrondissement, Paris by Patout (1935)
In France, the style was called Paquebot, meaning ocean liner. The French version was inspired by the launch of the ocean liner Normandie in 1935, which featured an Art Deco dining room with columns of Lalique crystal. Buildings using variants of the style appeared in Belgium and in Paris, notably in a building at 3 boulevard Victor in the 15th arrondissement, by the architect Pierre Patout. He was one of the founders of the Art Deco style. He designed the entrance to the Pavilion of a Collector at the 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts, the birthplace of the style. He was also the designer of the interiors of three ocean liners, the Ile-de-France (1926), the L'Atlantique (1930), and the Normandie (1935).[3] Patout's building on Avenue Victor lacked the curving lines of the American version of the style, but it had a narrow "bow" at one end, where the site was narrow, long balconies like the decks of a ship, and a row of projections like smokestacks on the roof. Another 1935 Paris apartment building at 1 Avenue Paul Doumer in the 16th arrondissement had a series of terraces modelled after the decks of an ocean liner.[4]
The Flagey Building was built on the Place Flagey in Ixelles (Brussels), Belgium, in 1938, in the paquebot style,[5] and has been nicknamed "Packet Boat"[6] or "paquebot".[7] It was designed by Joseph Diongre, and selected as the winning design in an architectural competition[8] to create a building to house the former headquarters of the Belgian National Institute of Radio Broadcasting (INR/NIR).[9] The building was extensively renovated, and in 2002, it reopened as a cultural centre known as Le Flagey.[8][10]
The Rumpler Tropfenwagen (1921) was designed by Edmund Rumpler, who was initially an aircraft designer
The 1931 WIKOV Supersport, Prostějov Moravia was one of the first produced truly aerodynamically designed automobiles.
Talbot Teardrop SS 150 (1938)
The defining event for streamline moderne design in the United States was the 1933–34 Chicago World's Fair, which introduced the style to the general public. The new automobiles adapted the smooth lines of ocean liners and airships, giving the impression of efficiency, dynamism, and speed. The grills and windshields tilted backwards, cars sat lower and wider, and they featured smooth curves and horizontal speed lines. Examples include the 1934 Chrysler Airflow and the 1934 Studebaker Land Cruiser. The cars also featured new materials, including bakelite plastic, formica, Vitrolight opaque glass, stainless steel, and enamel, which gave the appearance of newness and sleekness.[11]
Other later examples include the 1950 Nash Ambassador "Airflyte" sedan with its distinctive low fender lines, as well as Hudson's postwar cars, such as the Commodore,[12] that "were distinctive streamliners—ponderous, massive automobiles with a style all their own".[13]
1936 M 290.0 Slovenská Strela speed train, Czechoslovakia. Slovenská strela was manufactured by Tatra Kopřivnice in Moravia in 1936 for Czechoslovak State Railways.
Streamlining became a widespread design practice for aircraft, railroad locomotives, and ships.
Philips Art Deco radio set (1931)
Streamline style can be contrasted with functionalism, which was a leading design style in Europe at the same time. One reason for the simple designs in functionalism was to lower the production costs of the items, making them affordable to the large European working class.[14] Streamlining and functionalism represent two different schools in modernistic industrial design.