The Art Deco House

Thanks. The shipping is a little long, like usually with books coming from USA. To recommend Olivier

The opening sentence "One of the big issues that exercised the minds and consciences of architects and social commentators between the two world wars was the future of domestic architecture" sets the tone for the book that follows. It discusses all of Modernism in the Twenties and Thirties, not just Art Deco, including Rietveld-Schroder and Villa Savoy among the Deco houses. It gives the context of the famous "machines for living" quote, often used as a rallying cry of the anti-Modernists, but which actually only refers to the thermostatically-controlled central heating, hot and cold running water, and other conveniences that were new back then.The author talks about the personalities, events and the Jazz Age itself as much as the houses, explaining the style had none of the intellectual seriousness of the International Style, was usually very expensive, and was never big in Britain. It's a very substantive book, full of interesting pictures, from an extremely knowledgeable and charming author.

There are some glorious color photos in this book of Art Deco (or Moderne) houses. Twenty-nine are featured as well as places like Miami Beach, Los Angeles apartments and Napier, New Zealand. This last place is the Deco capital of the southern hemisphere and I think there should have been more photos than just the four shown. Each house starts on a spread (frequently with a photo of the architect) and Adrian Tinniswood explains in detail the thinking behind the design. He also writes additional essays on other aspects of Deco style. Unfortunately there are no plans to any of the houses, something I would have thought was fairly essential to a book of historical architecture. I've always wanted to see a plan of the amazing Butler House in Des Moines. A major disappointment for me was the bland layout. Each page has only one column which makes the photo sizes very inflexible, most pages end up with one photo and a lot of empty white space. Someone should have suggested using more photos (especially interiors) and creating some interesting side-bars. The twenty-nine houses featured are probably the best examples of the Art Deco style but have a look at two other books on the same subject: The Modern House Today by Kenneth Powell, wonderful color photos of sixty-five still standing Moderne houses in England and Classic Modern Homes of the Thirties: 64 Designs by Neutra, Gropius, Breuer, Stone and Others (Modern House in America) by James and Katherine Ford, an inexpensive black and white reprint of a 1940 book featuring houses in America. Both these books have some floor plans. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.