Gotham Deco

The new style may have come from Europe (at first it didn’t even have a name, and was only later labeled Art Deco), but its roots were not so much Gothic, Renaissance, or Baroque, but rather drew on ancient Mesopotamia, Africa, the Mayans and Aztecs, the Ballets Russes, and the enamels and lacquers of the Middle and Far East… New York architects and decorators immediately seized upon this new global art: it was the perfect motif for the roaring years of the Babylon they were building and needed to adorn. In the span of years between the Jazz Age and the Great Depression, the island of Manhattan began to sprout towers in the so-called vertical style: the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Rockefeller Center… But Art Deco wasn’t just to be found in the architecture of tall buildings; in New York – the world capital of this new style – it was ubiquitous, visible on the large scale and the small (from radiator grillwork to elevator doors to mail slots…), and emblazoned on objects both luxe and mass produced.