Art Deco Origins

We have a fantastic library of design books at work, which is, not surprisingly, focused on gardens and architecture. Hidden on the shelves with some of the other architecture books I found this gem, and I've been fascinated with it ever since.


The book includes articles from House and Garden magazine as well as the mostly black and white photographs that accompanied the articles. In the section on the 1920's there's a great article written by the then-editor of House and Garden magazine, Richardson Wright, about his mixed reactions to the 1925 Exhibition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. The intent of the exhibition was to showcase French design and designers as leaders in the design world; it was mostly a state-sponsored marketing campaign on a giant level. The exhibition is now pinpointed as a sort of starting point for the modernist design movement; the Art Deco label was applied many years later, in the 1960's.

Detail above and cabinet by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann,
noted cabinet designer,
who participated in the 1925 Paris exhibition.


Ruhlmann's Hotel du Collectioneur, from the 1925 Paris Exhibition.