Deco?

So, on and on I go about things in my life I can’t talk about. And yet, I’ve finished my new tour class and am getting ready to get certified on of all things…Art Deco.

Art Deco..I’m trying to get used to it. I made a good analogy in my head and here it is:

Mom is the historic skyscrapers, the buildings of Burnham and Sullivan. These are skyscrapers we were learning HOW to build. Steel frames and curtain walls, these were things no one had EVER built before. And these men in the 1890’s were learning how to build tall buildings.

Dad is the Modern movement, Mies Van der Rohe and the Bauhaus school in Germany. These are the buildings built in the 1950’s after the war and the depression. These buildings (like our very own Federal Center) are very serious, very democratic, very philosophical and no mucking around of any sort.

And then swinging in the middle, laughing and looking up at mom and dad, is Art Deco. The LaSalle Bank Building, Board of Trade, 333 N. Michigan, these are examples of Art Deco buildings. AD buildings were built in the 1920’s to the early 1930’s and they were opulent, streamlined, modernized, and easy peesy to read. They have beautiful lobby’s with lots of decoration, lots of gold leaf, lots of what is on the outside of the building represents what they do on the inside.

So it’s a fun tour to learn, but the thing that’s hanging me up is the lack of personality. Historic and Modern have Burnham and Mies, Sullivan drinking in the corner while Frank Lloyd Wright deals with his murdered wife.

Art Deco, it’s about the buildings, not the architects,not the philosophy, so it’s weird. There’s no “story”, just pretty buildings to look at that don’t mean anything other than what it says on the building.

Anyhoo, if you want a tour, let me know, I gotta be certified by Nov. 20th.

Bell Grande.