The project's architect, Hilyard Robinson, also designed the moderne-style Ralph Bunche home at 1510 Jackson Street NE. Note the curved railings, the moderne marquees over the doors to individual residences and the light fixtures that illumine the street numbers. MODERNITY FOR THE MASSES - When Queen Juliana of the Netherlands came to Washington in the Forties, one of the sights she asked to see was Langston Dwellings, a subsidized housing project at 2101 G Street NE. The store's wide silk ties come in geometric prints or with hand-painted Shriners' Temples. PUTTING ON THE THIRTIES - As Times Goes By, 655 C Street SE near the Eastern Market, sells the kind of long, sleek, bias-cut gowns Jean Harlow was always slipping in and out of. Then close your eyes and watch the DC-3s take off. From the sweeping balcony, with its deco-motif aluminum grillwork, look across the room at the etched-glass eagles over the doors that led to the old observation deck. Inside the original building, cast aluminum banisters lead up the steps to a restaurant. Hidden under the curved portico in front is a blue, gold and white mosaic sky. TAKING OFF IN STYLE - Few of the passengers running to catch the shuttle may take time to notice, but National Airport, completed in 1940, has some fine deco touches. She was sculpted in the Thirties by George Stanley, father of the statuette named Oscar. Note especially the terra cotta figure near the Palm Terrace fountain. The commissioned work, some of it in the art deco style and some in the art nouveau style of the turn of the century, is supplemented by deco pieces collected by the owners. ROADHOUSE REVIVAL - Clyde's owners Stuart Davidson and John Lattham set up a Thirties-style roadhouse as "a pleasant oasis in the midst of Tysons Corner," of artwork, stained glass, sculpture and furniture. A large panel shows the inner workings of a coal-burning, steam-producing boiler, with workers in overalls. Limestone and terra cotta panels on the front of the building, whose lines seem to converge near the top to make it soar, celebrate power. Nothing fired the imagination and the hope of the Thirties quite so much as raw power and the machinery that generated it. So hop into a Chrysler Airflow and return to the days of breadlines and Busby Berkeley, of Lalique and Raymond Loewy, to a generation that, the New Yorker magazine chided, "designed everything, from automobiles to alarm clocks, to buffet a hypothetical tornado." POWER FOR THE BUREAUCRACY - The Central Heating and Refrigeration Plant, on 13th Street between C and D Streets SW, has since 1933 fueled many of the government buildings near the Mall. There's even some neo-deco, created by fans of the Thirties. But, though there's no Radio City, no Chrysler Building here, the spirit of deco-moderne is alive - in power plants, bars, movie houses, apartment buildings, statues, antique stores, warehouses and public housing projects. Deco-moderne only lasted a few years and since Washington's usually a few years behind the times we almost missed the style completely. The style that made the Atlantic crossing is variously known as art moderne, art deco, streamlined moderne or Depression modern.ĭeco-moderne swept over New York, but Washington, swaddled in red tape, embraced the new style with characteristic caution. It all started in Paris in 1925, at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. In their place are buildings that reach for the sky steel, aluminum and glass brick chevrons, ziggurats and geometric designs clothes that are sleek and cut on the bias. Gone are the gargoyles, the ruffles, the Hepplewhite legs. Roosevelt's in the White House, and a phoenix - a streamlined, no-frills, built-for-speed bird - is rising from the ashes of the Great Depression. "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"īut there's hope.
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