Please Don't Quote Me By Caralee Aschenbrenner Awake half the night wondering if that house you saw while meandering around in the 'burbs was Art Deco or Art Moderne? To put your busy brain at ease, it commonly depends, according to research, on how much extraneous motif it has! Some references don't delineate so finely between the two architectural styles but place them both under "Modernistic." Art Deco was the first named but it appeared mostly on public and commercial buildings, few residences, although apartments came in that style. Its smooth wall surfaces were mostly white and stucco and had some vertical decorative projections with zigzag or chevron patterns. Those were especially seen on the grand movie palaces of the 1920s and '30s.

In Europe those patterns were influenced by the contemporary art form of the time. Cubism, while in American Art Deco decorations were inspired by North or South American Indian patterns which, to quote, "Could be rich, varied, handcrafted or reduced to the merest suggestion of efficient machined production."

Art Deco was not thought of as just an architectural style but also it greatly inspired jewelry, clothing, furniture, home appliances plus most notably, cars, trains and other vehicles which became streamlined, a much used word that era.

We often take celebrity in the most humble ways. 'Way back in the 1930s-'40s we could brag about having the STREAMLINER zip through our humble community, if nothing else would do. After all, they were going to the metropoli of either coast. Petting the movie dog, Lassie took second place as proximity to stardom!

Art Deco took its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratif and Industriale Modernes in Paris in 1925. Its promotional literature stated that, "Reproductions, imitations and counterfeits of ancient styles will be strictly prohibited." The emphasis on the future rather than the past was one of the style's principal characteristics.

Although that Modernistic period lasted only about twenty years1920-1940 when many examples were erected throughout the nation, it was primarily in New York City that the most of the Mo-derne were constructed. The primary representation was Rockefeller Center, a grandiose instance, indeed.

But it was in Chicago that the architectural style got its greatest boost on the ladder of acceptance ... "The first major impetus," it was said; a push to awareness of Art Deco when in 1922, the Chicago Tribune newspaper held an international competition for an architectural design for a headquarters in the "Second City."

The first prize went to the Gothic design which is so familiar to us today. But many in the architectural profession believed that the second place entry should have won. That Art Deco entry as created by a young Finnish architect, Eliel Saarinem, who since has become internationally known for his soaring constructions. His career was begun with that much publicized, eventful competition.

Art Deco came to fashionable notice. It was a real break from the past because, yes, it's streamed lines directed to the future.

Although never very plentiful or common, Modernistic elements are scattered throughout residential areas in much of the nation. Art deco are still to be seen in public district, however with their verticalized stylizations to identify them.

Art Moderne, however, are more to be seen of the two flat roofed, plain wall constructions you find with this article. Their "lines" (windows, etc.) are horizontal in contrast to the "Deco's" vertical. Art Moderne had almost no applied decorative detail except for, perhaps, a little, plain coping around the roof edge or some industrial-type piping (railing) on upper levels, usually curving in some way as might be, too, projecting lintels above the windows and doors ... Which entries were asymmetrical, not balanced as in other styles.

Wall surfaces were smooth, most usually stucco. Most "Mo-derne" to be found has at least one corner of the residence curved also, sometimes more. Those corners curving could be of the wall material OR the glass block which was a feature of the Art Moderne style. It could be plain glass windows also which might form a "ribbon" horizontally across the facade.

Some reference guides to architectural styles have wide variations between the two entries under ModernisticDeco and Moderne so one can't be too definite in identifying one house over another. The two white ones here surely are Art Moderne for their lack of verticality. The "ribbons" of windows and other characteristics of the design show off its label.

Just as the Modernistic styles were becoming recognizable, another architectural design was introduced to become popular mostly as a result of an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 1932 which was the first to show architecture as the focus. It was intended to bring some discipline or cohesiveness to the multiple architecture styles that had pervaded both Europe and America the past forty years.

Exhibits were entered from fifteen different countries so the show as called the "International School." The entries were to be "vigorously functional, stark, unadorned and based on openness and flexibility using mostly concrete, glass and steel" utilitarian. There were factory steel sash windows ... (You know the kind from the schools built in the 1950s!). Or factories ... Factories were the source of "inspiration" for much of the austere, barren functionality of the International Style which sprang up in the arly 1930s. Le Courbusier, Gropius, Mies van der Rohe were only a few of the architects who became famous because of that type of design. Many of them are extreme in their starkness.

Not all architecture was of the "less is more" variety. Many were the construction of the Period Style which came on the scene in the early 1930s, too. Period was a revival of past picturesque styles which, to repeat an explanation, "Convincing copies of older styles which had proven their worth and had popular appeal."

Perhaps, in response to the severe Modernistic designs architects/builders could construct charming replicas of some Old World English or French cottage would and easily find a buyer ... "Without compromising the client's desire for all the modern utilities." Or appliances and amenities of the twentieth century. There couuld be cozy Georgian, Italiante, Spanish and American Colonial ... All imitated but with all the excellent building materials offered by then on the market. Speculators built thousands, perhaps, millions throughout the country, creating comfortable neighborhoods, suburbs, communities which still make today's owners of them proud. One can discover a Period style home most anywhere with an arched doorway or passageway to the side terrace or the half-timbering which suggests a small, medieval manor house such as seen here with its smooth stucco-like walls and at least two of the features of the one-time style of a period long past. Such as example tells us that even seventy-to-eighty years ago folks were just as up-to-date as they are today ... Maybe even more colorful ... This house is, besides its Period style, painted a comforting soft rust in contrast to its conservatively painted neihbors, white homes. Don't you love America!

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