Streamlined Moderne in Dar es Salaam!

Art Deco in Tanzania? Who knew!

Thanks to my niece (who did volunteer work in Africa recently) for showing me the book, Street Level' by Sarah Markes.  It contains lovely pen-and-ink sketches of buildings in Dar.  This is just one of them!

Experiencing Toronto's Deco skyscrapers... on your own

In 2012 and 2013, I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to lead a walking tour of downtown Art Deco buildings, as part of Heritage Toronto's walk series. 

Not sure what building we were looking at  in this view of the 2012 walking tour (perhaps former Toronto Stock Exchange). There was very bad construction noise that year, even on a Saturday morning!

For that tour, Heritage Toronto and I created this brochure which provides some useful info if you decide to take the tour on your own! Wait for a sunny day when the temperature's just right (late April / May, and September / early October are the best times in my experience). Remember to wear comfortable shoes, be safe when crossing streets, and bring along your camera!

Where did those wordless years go?

If you're wondering why there's a three year gap in my blog posts, it's because I've been posting on Facebook and Twitter, but not here.

Thanks to the wise counsel of www.SofieAndreou.com, I've revised my online strategy; this is now the place to come for stuff about Art Deco.

(I'm working on upgrading my Glue online presence as well... Stay tuned!) 

Streamlined Moderne house in Hamilton NOW SOLD

The award-winning, 1939 'Hambly House' in Hamilton, designed by Edward Glass, has sold since it was put on the market in sometime in the spring of 2012. Click here to learn more about the house itself and its history.

Walking tour of Toronto's downtown Deco skyscrapers

Prudential House (55 York Street, 1929)

On Saturday June 16 at 10 am, award-winning author Tim Morawetz will be leading a Heritage Toronto walking tour entitled 'The Art Deco Towers of Bay Street.'

The free, 90-minute tour will walk past seven high-rise office towers, financial institutions and a department store.

The tour departs from Prudential House, 55 York St, just north of Front Street and the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, and wraps up at the corner of Bay and Richmond Streets.

The tour happens rain or shine, and wear comfortable shoes!

Magnificent chandelier lights up downtown Toronto synogogue

If you want to see wonderful original (or restored) Art Deco chandeliers in Toronto, you could visit the Allstream Centre (formerly the Automotive Building at the CNE), or the CIBC Mellon Building (formerly Canada Permanent Mortgage Corp.) on Bay Street.

Or, perhaps surprisingly, you could pay a visit to the Anshei Minsk Synagogue in Toronto's Kensington Market and see this magnificent chandelier featuring broad terraces and universal fan-shaped Deco motifs interspersed with the Star of David. 

The synagogue, at 10 St. Andrew Street, is open daily with morning minyan at 7:30 am.

Decadent dresses from between the wars

 Do you know how to tell the difference between women's fashion from the 1920s and the 1930s?

If not, then you should check out the following video that features the curators of a new exhibit at the Museum of Vancouver entitled Art Deco Chic: Extravagant Glamour Between the Wars. The garments and accessories on display come from the private collections of Ivan Sayers and Claus Jahnke, as well as from the MOV and other’s collections.

Drawing inspiration from geometric shapes to evoke elegance and modernity, the fashion design of the era was also influenced by an increased ability to travel world wide – bringing inspiration not only from modernism, but from faraway places such as Russia, Egypt, and Mexico.

The show includes 66 different gowns representing some of the most important fashion designers in the world in the 1920s and 1930s, including Chanel, Lanvin, Vionnet, Patou, and Schiaparelli. Handbags, hats, shoes, and jewelry are also on display to further illustrate the use of geometric shapes to create sleek, sophisticated designs.

Notable Vancouver items include a black beaded gown worn to the opening of the city's Commodore Cabaret in 1929; a red and gold lamé evening dress made from fabric depicting the battles of the Trojan War; and a modest, yet stylish, navy polka dot dress made by the Aurora Dress Company of Vancouver around 1927.

Art Deco architecture across Canada – sneak peak!

This Sunday afternoon (March 25), Tim Morawetz is delivering an illustrated lecture entitled 'Art Deco Architecture Across Canada' as part of the Roaring Twenties Lecture Series at the Bata Shoe Museum in downtown Toronto.

Ceiling of Marine Building lobby, Vancouver, 1929

During the talk, Tim will showcase several dozen Art Deco buildings from coast to coast, including:

Hambly House, Hamilton, 1939

* Halifax's Bank of Nova Scotia
* Montreal's best Deco Roman Catholic Cathedral
* Toronto's legendary Maple Leaf Gardens
* Hamilton's newly restored Hambly House
* Winnipeg's best Moderne high school
* Calgary's dismantled York Hotel
* Vancouver's spectacular Marine Building

This talk is a chance to preview some of the buildings that will be featured in Tim's upcoming book to be published later this year.

Lecture tickets are $16, which includes Museum admisison and a short tour of the Roaring Twenties exhibition following the lecture (free for Bata Shoe Museum members). Pre-registration is required; call 416-979-7799 x240 or email programs@batashoemuseum.ca.

Delightful Art Deco typefaces

Thanks to 'The Daily Heller' blogger Steven Heller – who is also prolific author of books on Art Deco design and the practice of graphic design in general – for profiling some dynamic typefaces that helped define the Modernistic era in a specimen sheet from 1930! 

Check out his blog post to see some other wonderful examples of fonts.

Check out this cool Italian pasta packaging, circa 1934

Click here to learn more about the Buitoni Foods Corporation!

Tragic loss of Moderne high school in British Columbia

The 1948 Streamlined Moderne style Southern Okanagan Secondary School, located in Oliver, B.C., was consumed by fire on Monday, Sept. 12. 

The school had been undergoing a $29-million renovation, and while the new gymnasium, science laboratory and cafeteria were saved, the south and east wings were destroyed, as was the cherished and historic auditorium.

Thanks to Robert Hill, author of the Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800–1950, for passing along that the school was designed by Theo Korner and Harry W.  Postle in 1945–46.

For news story links, visit The Globe and Mail, Wikipedia, or Google the school's name. 

Step out in Hollywood on Sept. 24!

The Art Deco Society of Los Angeles is launching a brand-new walking tour of Hollywood Boulevard.

For details, visit: http://adsla.org/info/content/september-24-art-deco-walking-tour-hollywood-boulevard.

Discover the life story of Italian illustrator Paolo Garretto

If you love Deco-style illustration, then you should check out this two-part article by design blogger Steven Heller that tells the life story of Italian illustrator Paolo Garretto (1903-1989). Part one is here, part two is here.

Heller notes that Garretto's "airbrushed caricature epitomized Deco styling. During the Twenties and Thirties he was a master of international advertising design and editorial art, as inventive as A.M. Cassandre, as prolific as Jean Carlu, as witty as Miguel Covarrubias. His geometric conceits captured the romance of the industrial age.

Garretto's graphic approach was based on simplification of primary graphic forms into iconic depictions and loose, but poignant likenesses. Vibrant, airbrushed color was his trademark, and he also experimented with different media to create exciting new form, including experiments with collage and modeling clay which proved fruitful. Without his superb draftsmanship what is now pigeon-holed as Deco styling would surely have been a superficial conceit, but his conceptual work was so acute, and his decorative work was so well crafted that he eschewed these pitfalls.

Shoot-em-up digital Deco

Okay, so you may not be into video games, especially M (Mature) rated ones that are rather violent.

But if you like the Art Deco aesthetic, then you might enjoy looking over the shoulder of someone playing the video game BioShock.

You'll find some elegant geometric-patterned wall panels, and plenty of multiple-plane detailing on columns and trim.

It's just one more example of how the Art Deco style has permeated popular culture!

 

Deco drives artwork of 1927 car parts catalogue cover

Even thought the illustrations within this 1927 Parisian motor parts catalogue are crisp and free of decoration, the front cover certainly reflects its time and place in design history.

You've got (Art Deco) mail!

Canada Post has released the designs for a series of five postage stamps, to go on sale June 9, that feature five Art Deco structures from across Canada.

Stamp designer Ivan Novotny of Taylor | Sprules says: “Many of the great (Art) Deco buildings across this country have very distinct silhouettes that were defined by the principles of the movement. It’s the commonly overlooked extraordinary details that adorn these great spires that demand a closer look.”

The five buildings featured in the series are:

• MONTREAL: Cormier House – Ernest Cormier (architect and engineer); 1930–31
•  OTTAWA: Supreme Court of Canada – Ernest Cormier (architect and engineer); 1939
• TORONTO: The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant – Thomas C. Pomphrey (designer, of engineering firm Gore, Nasmith and Storrie); initial phase designed 1932–1937 and opened 1941
• REGINA: Dominion Building – Reilly and Portnall (architects), 1935–37
• VANCOUVER: Burrard Bridge – George Lister Thornton Sharp (architect), 1930–32

If I was asked to add five buildings to turn this into a top-ten list, I would recommend:

• QUEBEC CITY: Price Building – Ross and MacDonald, 1929–30
• TORONTO: Garden Court Apartments – Page and Steele, 1939–42
• CALGARY: (former) Bank of Nova Scotia (Eighth Avenue West) – John M. Lyle, 1929
• VANCOUVER: Marine Building – McCarter and Nairne, 1929–1930
• VANCOUVER: Vogue Theatre – Kaplan and Sprachman, 1940–41

What great Canadian Deco buildings would YOU add to the list?

Check out this dozen Toronto Deco photos!

A brief profile of the Art Deco Architecture in Toronto book has just been published in Canada's History magazine that features a dozen photos of Tim Morawetz's favourite Deco buildings in the city.

These are just some of the 70-odd buildings featured in the book.

Enjoy!

News from Miami Beach

As you'll see in the Miami Design Preservation League's February 2011 newsletter, the advocacy campaign to protect the historic district's vacant windows from being used for ad space was successful. Also, read about the various activities that made the city's Art Deco Weekend such a great event.

(Miami Beach is the birthplace of the International Congress of Art Deco Societies, the governing body that's responsible for overseeing the bi-annual World Congress on Art Deco® -- the ultimate experience for Deco aficionados. The next one is being held in Rio de Janiero in August 2011.)

Miami Beach, Florida and Napier, New Zealand are two communities that have very effectively leveraged their Art Deco heritage and created ongoing events that celebrate their cultural value while also fostering economic activity!

URGENT: Help stop the defacement of Miami Beach's Art Deco district!

The Miami Design Preservation League is encouraging Deco-lovers and others to make their voice heard and help persuade the Miami Beach City Commission NOT to liberalize its proven sign laws at a committee meeting on Monday, Jan. 31.

If the laws are weakened, Miami Beach could soon have full-sized advertising signage in empty store windows, and potentially allow for roof-top billboards – the scourge of so many other cities.

If you feel strongly about preserving the character of this unique historic district, please click here and send a email to the Mayor and Commissioners.

Thanks in advance for your support!

How Deco helped sell glamour and style

The weekend of January 14 to 16, 2011 is the annual Art Deco Weekend in Miami Beach, Florida, and the theme this year is Selling Glamour & Style.

As usual, the weekend includes a lecture series (highlighting the influences of the Art Deco era on the modern marketing machine),guided historical walking tours, a couture fashion show, furniture exhibit, film series, weekend drive parade and classic car fest.

Click here for details.