HomeJewelry → Five European cities to admire the best Art Déco buildings

Five European cities to admire the best Art Déco buildings

Exactly 100 years ago, Art Déco began to explode.They were the times of the Belle Époque and with it the architecture and interior design said goodbye to the curved lines, the floral motifs and the ornaments of the art nouveau. Yes, the one that in Catalonia we know as modernism and that had Antoni Gaudí, LluísDomènech I Montaner and Josep Maria Jujol as their top representatives.

There is then to confuse both styles.With the Art Déco, the simplification of the lines and the rise of geometry in the design and planning of buildings arrived.In addition, and since in those years the transatlantic crossings began to popular, this style born in Paris became a reference around the world.

But we do not have to think about the Art Déco district in Miami Beach, the Christ Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, the Moscow MetThe Chrysler building.Much closer than we think we have excellent samples of this style that also had its echo in sculpture, painting, fashion and even cinema.

Palais de Tokyo and Palais Chaillot.Paris

Smile to Modernity

The music of Josephine Baker, the meetings of surreal artists and the liberation of the woman's body imposed by Coco Chanel.The twenties, as exposed in the book Paris was an Ernest Hemingway party, marked a before and after and the Art Deco arose precisely to symbolize this return of prestige and the glory gala after the First World War, imposing itself on manyNew constructions in the city.

Good sample is the chopstick area.Two steps from the Eiffel Tower we find the Palais Chaillot and the Palais de Tokyo, in a deco style and inaugurated in 1937. At the same time the legendary Printemps stores in the Boulevard Haussmann and the Lafayette galleries, both built with the good taste ofPure and straight lines, white and geometric shapes, and luxury ornamentation typical of this aesthetic current.

Los Locos years 20

Art Deco arose to symbolize the return of prestige after World War I

This era of simplicity and symmetry can also be glimpsed in different sports facilities, such as the Piscine Pontoise, in the middle of the Latin Quarter, with its double gallery of private cabins to change.Built in 1933, the pool retained its original Art Deco architecture and is included in the French historical monuments inventory.

Today, in addition to being complemented with a gym, it is a scenario of shows during the Nuit Blanche or blank night in Paris, the first in Europe since 2002 and designed to offer a contemporary look on the city of light.

The Pools of the Butte-Aux-Cailles, the Molitor and the Georg Vallerey, are also alive examples of architectural realizations in the Art Deco line.The same goes for the Vaneau subway station, the cinemas Louxor or the Grand Rex and the Maison La Roche, currently known for hosting the Fondation Le Corbusier.

Jewish houseValencia

Eclectic ornamentation and a lot of color

The Valencian capital concentrates the greatest number of buildings of this “delivery” style in Spain.It is enough to walk through the neighborhoods of Russafa, Quatre Carreres, Jesús and Camins to Grau to verify it.

Cinco ciudades europeas en las que admirar los mejores edificios Art Déco

Lorenzo Criado and José Peris adopted this style of ornamentation, popularized following the exhibition of modern decorative and industrial arts in Paris in 1925, given that their easy geometric forms to work for the tallists allowed covering the facades with a modern aspect to lowprice.Good example of this are the Raimundo house and the Boigues house on Swedish street, and the Otero house in L’Avinguda de l’Ancne.

Little by little, the style was abandoning the purest imitation of the staggered motifs of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations to embrace the formal rigor, the predominance of the line and the rotundity of the contours of the bahaus inheritance and the influences of Cubism, constructivism and futurism.We can see it in the Chover house, on Alcoi Street, and in buildings that art historians dispute between the dicco and rationalism, such as the Rialto cinema and the Gil Casa, in the town hall square.

The building by antonomasia that shows us the importance of this style in Valencia is the Jewish house, located at number 20 of Castellón Street.Narrow and busy, this route a few meters from the North Station houses this jewel of shapes and colors built in 1930 by the architect Juan Francisco Guardiola Martínez.

Multicolored

The Jewish house moves for its aesthetics and colors, from the blue sky to olive green, yellow and orange tile

Amalgam of everything that the Art Deco welcomed, we see that in this house they are put at the same level and columns are used indistinctly with Egyptian capitals, staggered shots that remind the Asian pagodas and their disposition in plants more typical of rationalism, without stoppingMention the central wooden viewpoints and the upper windows topped with ogival arches or drafts of clear Arab inspiration.If we unite the extensive use of color, from the blue sky to the olive green, the yellow and the orange tile, we are facing a building that moves its aesthetics rather than its architectural plane.

Déco 'Everywhere'.London

Architectural work record

Although Art Deco was born in France, London is surely the European city with greater works of this style.Obviously the size of the British capital influences, but the most surprising thing is that the examples of this artistic current are in virtually all its neighborhoods.

The Hoover building, in the Ealing district, was born as the English branch of an American chain of vacuum cleaners, the Hoover Company.Built in 1933 by the Wallis study, Gilbert and Partners, stands out for its white facade with ornamentation inspired by the art of American natives, although Egyptian motifs can also be envisioned.

Surprises in each corner

London stands out because notable examples of style are found in virtually all its neighborhoods

White, it has several elements, such as stained glass and windows, in red and green.Purpose?In Wallis's words: “A little money spent on the incorporation of some form of decoration, especially color, is not a waste at all.It has a psychological effect on the worker. ”

During World War II the building was camouflaged to prevent it from bombinged by the Nazis.Subsequently it remained a workshop and warehouse that, in 1989 it was bought by the Tesco supermarket chain.A supermarket, yes.In 2015 but, it was acquired by the IDM Properties architectural office, which has restored and turned it into residential accommodation, recovering the original staircase with motifs in Zigzag and much of the geometric details of the windows.

The Senate's house in Bloomsbury, the old headquarters of the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph in Fleet Street or the Florin Court housing building, in Smithfield, are also art deco treasures to discover if London is visited.In fact, the latter was used as the residence of the character Hercules Poirot by Agatha Christie, in the television series about the detective (in the series, the floors were named Whitehaven Mansions).

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The Shell Mex House, in Victoria Ambankment, is today the headquarters of the Pearson publishing house and another example of the geometry prevailing those years.The southern facade watch, overlooking the river, is the largest in the United Kingdom.

Finally, in South Bank, we found the Oxo Tower, which, like the Tate Modern, was once an energy factory.Today it includes an art gallery, a restaurant owned by the Harvey Nichols luxury chain and different design stores.Built at the end of the 19th century, it was rebuilt in Deco between 1928 and 1929, with vertically aligned windows alternating the round shape and cross shape.Its eastern inspiration pinnacle contrasts with contemporary buildings that have been occupying the South Bank area.

Coffee, cinema and church.Lisbon

In the footsteps of Pessoa

According to prestigious magazines of the sector as Architectural Digest, A+T or Global Architecture, the Portuguese capital has some of the most impressive examples of the Art Deco in Europe.

In the first place, the Café to Brasileira appears, who frequently attendof Santa Justa.The interior of the establishment is a treasure that cannot be visited, with wood carvings and profusion of marble elements.In the sixties, the works of art that also sheltered moved to the current do Chiado Museum.

The legend tells that, when it opened its doors in 1905, coffee shoppers in grains that were sold in the area stopped to have a bica, a short coffee with a strong bitter taste.Therefore it is said that this type of coffee consumed throughout Portugal had its origin in A Brasileira.

Another acclaimed example of Art Deco in Lisbon is the Edén Theater, in Praça two restaurateurs.He opened its doors in 1931 and is the work of the architects Cassiano Branco and Carlo Florêncio Dias.He spent soon theater to be converted into cinema and today houses the Orion Eden Hotel.On the facade you can still see the carved figures of some actors acting in front of the camera.

The station in front of the Cais do Sodré river is another milestone to visit, with its geometric layers, the pictures and marble pavement reminiscent of the keyboard of a piano.Other notable Art Deco buildings are the National Statistics Institute and the Nossa Church Senhora do Rosário de Fatima.

From Burcht and the Canstuschinski.Amsterdam

Deco opulence

From Burcht, which in Dutch means the castle, was raised in 1900 under the orders of the architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage and was originally the headquarters of the Dutch Diamond Drilling Union.His Deco style drinks a lot of the Mediterranean Moorish motifs, since the Union included an Algerian Association of Workers.Moreover, given its purpose when built, its tower, dome and window are diamond shape.

Other parts that deserve to be contemplated with pause are the impressive inner staircase and all the colors and decorative motifs that the restoration of just over a decade has allowed rediscovering.In three showcases located in the basement we can see the small precision tools used to carve the diamonds at the beginning of the 20th century.

Halfway between the most austere dech and its most extravagant aspect that caused furor in the late thirties in the United States we find the Tuschinski cinemas, a few meters from the Rembrandt square.Its construction began in 1919 by the architect H.L.From Jong but the owner, the Polish businessman Abraham Tuschinski, fired him before finishing the works.

Other architects and interior designers then took care of the majestic inner decoration, which surprises in a country where architecture has always opted for austerity and the most rational forms.Yellow lamps, a foyer with autumn motifs with matches, carved wooden walls and bronze tiles make this sumptuous building, which initially had a cabaret called La Gaité, a Moorish style room and another destined to have teaAs if it were in Japan, in one of the most significant art deco referents around the world.

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The Southeast District of PiJP also has several buildings of this style, which was also chosen for the stadium that housed the city's Olympic Games in 1928.

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