Personification of Art Deco...

As an offshoot of the Tamara Lempicka thread now running amok in this forum, I haven't seen a single post that says how 'dated' the Art Deco look is, in all it's manifestations. But particularly in architecture. I personally abhor the use of glass brick that was so dominate a feature of Art Deco construction. Combined with the sterile stucco look, it's about the most displeasing architectural style to come along in the last century-plus, IMO.

And Tamara Lemicka's stylized figures are the epitomy of that style in figurative painting. There was an artist (illustrator?) named Rockwell Kent - and another whose name I can't recall at the moment who created the figures in Rockefeller Plaza - who were the male counterparts of Lempicka in that era.

The question we, as contemporaries, should be asking ourselves is what are we doing today that could be considered the equivalent of the Art Deco movement in trying to depict the

It's already being done. It's called 'fantasy art'?

You know, the funny thing is that Art Deco is often used in SF movies as the style of the future (Gattaca of 1997 for example).

But I don't really see some dominant stylistic movement depicting the future right now. It seems to me nowadays styles are not really that concerned with the future.

You're correct. But it found it's greatest use (glass brick) in the pre-WWII housing industry in the USA, which is my reference when I speak of my dislike for the 'style.'

No disagreement from me, but once more it is a 'dated' style. I'm not sure, but suspect it may have some influence on the currently popular 'flights of fancy' architectural styles, which I like immensely for the most part, in spite of the huge costs involved in their execution.

Art Nouveau was another 'decorative' style rather than an art movement per se. I still enjoy the Nouveau stuff immensely - it's VERY collectible too. IOW's, still very much 'in vogue.'

The way I compare the two decorative styles is to say that I get a warm fuzzy feeling from much of Nouveau while finding most Deco stuff hard, cold and unfeeling (frosty and insensitive).

Geez, I finally had a reasonable exchange with Mani!

So, can you point us to a style which we can say is more contemporary, or is Nouveau the last style which was recognisable in it's own day? Thur

I agree, but dated doesn't mean that its best works should be rejected. I believe styles in present times are often fusions of the past. A little Barock, Nouveau, etc with the addition of an unavoidable contemporary flavor.

I might add that the absence of that flavor is what I dislike about many of the ARC artists. Note that I respect them for their ability but feel that the are so engrossed in the masterful work of the 19th C. that many locked themselves exclusively into that subject matter.

I agree. Some things in architecture should express beauty beyond just utility.I think the real reason for the let-it-all hang out essentially funcctional style of the present is really because it cost less.

Agreed. Art styles are really a name for the look of a particular time

Not all but a lot of it. I think this is technically due to the dominance of straight lines and sharp angles as opposed to flowing curves with a careful use of inflections and abstraction.

If you look at my responses you'll notice that I answer in kind.

'Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservative.' -John Stuart Mill

Tired of Modern Art? check

'The future is scary...yes, it sure is!' - Frank Zappa

Love the comment about us all dressing like the Emperor Ming! Check out the fashion statements in Lang's Metropolis...some parachute pants that pre-dated MC Hammer by seventy or eighty years. Remember the Rudi Gernrich future fashions that appeared in Time Magazine sometime in the Sixties? Male and female both topless and old people wearing floor length mu-mu's to spare the rest of the population from having to look at their aging bodies! I've always thought that 'futurists' speculations are more for entertainment value than any real significant predictions of actual trends. Technology changes. This affects design in a very direct way. Lots of spun aluminum in the 20's and 30's because it became technologically feasible. Bakelite...the wonder material! Some Scandinavian furniture from the middle of the 20th century was made possible by the use of plywood. The advancement of futuristic design is almost always followed by a counter-trend of nostalgia. Consider the trend in the late sixties in America from the jet-age, streamlined Eisenhower era stuff to the revival of the Victorian - Tifany lamps, flocked wallpaper and Edwardian period styled men's suits, etc. Glass and metal became symbolic of faceless dehumanization and wood and thing organic became symbols of the new era of the 'individual'. Best example to me was on Doctor Who...we went from the white, very well lit control room of the Tardis to the 'old' control room (which we hadn't seen before) which was a duplicate of the 'new' one but done in dark wood and with warm, moody lighting. Who says that Time Lords don't have decorating problems?

Both Mars and the Moon have lower gravity. Does that give you some ideas?

BTW, Arthur C. Clark's 'Rendevouz with Rama' featured a elvator to space...remember? Just this year a major nanotech breakthrough in carbon nanofibres make it possible. Going up? Find 'Space Elevator' at this link: http://www.niac.usra.edu/studies/

And that's what it boils down to, I think. New technology and materials will change the face of architecture. I'm already thinking of building a 'papercrete' adobe like that got out there in your direction.

Erik

Nit pick - the novel you're thinking if (probably) 'The Fountains of Paradise', which is _about_ building a space elevator. I don't think 'Rama', which took place aboard an ET vehicle, had a space elevator.