History of Interior Design-Pilar Uribe Donatiu-Modernism and Art Decó

First decades of the 20^th century, there had been a lot of changes brought by industrialization and technology, changes as important as the discovery of fire and the invention of language.

Hand made objects were no longer made as everything was factory produced, it was the normal thing to do by the time.

New problems appeared due to population growth and the increase of general poverty. Communism and fascism was growing and the WWI created problems that technology could not solve.

In this time of changes it was obvious that traditions were something obsolete and did not serve art, architecture and design anymore.

Modernism is the name that the new shapes in elements of art, architecture, music and literature, were given.

It would not be easy to find a new design direction after WWI, something different that would represent the new era of the 20^th century. In French “moderne” would mean a new style which in English would be called “modernistic”. This would be an international style.

The main originators of this “modern movement” would be Walter Gropius (1881-1969), Mies Van Der Rohe (1886-1969) and Le Corbusier (1887-1965).

Art Decó (1920-1940). This movement started in France and slowly moved throughout Europe until it reached the American continent.

In the World’s Fair of 1925 in Paris (l’Exposition nternationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes) new styles were shown as a the exhibition acted as a showcase for interior design.

New shapes with strong geometry and new materials like aluminium, black lacquer and glass, and new shapes like zig-zags, were symbols that related to the new mdern world.

As I was in Miami for Easter break, I can relate to what I saw and the style they adopted.  Interesting patterns covered the famous part of South Beach, which was very fresh during the day, showing light pastel colours and white, and very bright at night with the use of neon lights. The architecture, as mentioned in class, had some elements of cubism, patterns that were adopted from African tribal art, Azteca, Mayan, Inca, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Viking and even Indian culture.

The main characteristics that I remember were the curves which came from circles and the zig zags that were very used in building entrances in V shapes. All in all, nearly every detail looked like it was taken from Fitzgerald’s Gatsby book or movie.