Patrick Bade
American Art Deco

Patrick Bade - American Art Deco

- Well, in order to get you in the mood for this lecture, I’m going to play you one of my favourite records. It was made in 1927 in New York with the Duke Ellington Band and Adelaide Hall. And there’s an interesting story about how it came about. Adelaide Hall was attending rehearsal, she was going to record a song later, and the original version of this piece called “Creole Love Song” didn’t have a vocal element, but while they were rehearsing she just spontaneously improvised a vocal descant sounding a bit like a trumpet solo, and this is the result. Sorry to cut that off, but I will play you the rest of the record when talking about Harlem Renaissance in a couple few weeks time. Now, Art Deco as a style was created in Paris in the years just before the First World War, and it was to a large extent a reaction against the excesses of the Art Nouveau style. It reaches a climax in 1925 with the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, and it was that exhibition, of course, that gave the name to the style, which was only coined sometime later as a contraction of Exposition Decoratifs. So the 1925 show was, as I said, a climax, but it was also a turning point. So really there are two main types of Art Deco, a more florid and decorated version up to 1925 and a much simpler, more streamlined version after ‘25. It’s a style that spread all around the world. There are wonderful examples all along the north coast of Africa. I used to love the Art Deco architecture in Tunis when I went there, but every city in the former French Empire has wonderful Art Deco. And unless you know, you’d never guess where these two interiors are. One is in India and one is in Japan.

It’s a bathroom from a maharaja’s palace on the left-hand side and the Asaka Palace in Tokyo on the right-hand side. And you could see obvious similarities here between British Art Deco, that’s the old Express Building on Fleet Street on the left, and on the right is an American diner. All sort of angular and shiny and jagged typically Art Deco. Now, the Art Deco has minor variations, but it’s much more consistent, for instance, than Art Nouveau. Brussels Art Nouveau, Glasgow, Barcelona, Vienna, they all have versions of Art Nouveau which in very, very different from one another. One consistent aspect of Art Deco is the love of the machine. It has a machine and an industrial aesthetic. So when I take people to flea markets or send them off to flea markets and they say they want to collect things that are in their price range that are nice, I always say, well, you’re better off avoiding Art Nouveau 'cause Art Nouveau is a luxury handicraft style and it’s pretty nasty when it’s mass produced or machine made. And the opposite is actually the case of Art Deco. You can have very satisfying, very beautiful things. So there’s a kind of love of the machine which you see even in films like “Metropolis” that came out in 1926 that is very critical of industry and the effect it has on mankind. But the machines in that movie and the futuristic cities with amazing industrial structures are beautiful. And this is the robot who is the sort of evil heroine of “Metropolis,” also very beautiful. And another film that is actually very critical of industry and of capitalism, this is the 1936 film “Modern Times” with Charlie Chaplin.

And throughout that movie you can see that the camera just loves the machines and there’s a real joy in the mechanical aspects of the sets. So this is a big difference between Art Nouveau and Art Deco that usually in Art Deco inspiration comes from natural forms, organic forms. This is the famous Paris Metro entrance by Guimard on the left-hand side which takes its inspiration from plant forms. And this is a decorative plaque from a lift inside the Empire State Building on the right-hand side where you can see instead of flowers or leaves, the decorative elements are parts of machines. And this love of machine you also see in the Busby Berkeley movies where hundreds of girls are made to look like the moving parts of machines. Now, when I was teaching, very often students would would say, well, of course flowers equal Art Nouveau and angularity and machines equals Art Deco. And they’d say to me, “What’s the difference? "It’s got flowers on it. It must be Art Nouveau.” Well, that is, flowers can be misleading. You also find plenty of flowers in Art Deco. But if they’re geometricized and symmetrical and shiny and smooth and metallic looking, then it’s not Art Nouveau, it’s Art Deco. And look at the splendid set of lift doors from the Chanin Building in New York with no floral or plant decoration. All machine elements used decoratively. Another big factor in the birth of Art Deco was dance.

The arrival of the Ballets Russes in Paris and Isadora Duncan, who you see on the right-hand side. We’ve got Nijinsky on the left, Isadora Duncan on the right. Modern dance, modern ballet is intimately connected with the birth of the Art Deco style. Particularly Nijinsky’s ballet “The Afternoon of the Faun,” it was the first modern ballet, and Diaghilev sent him off to the Louvre to look at Greek vases, and he came back with these stylized poses and movements with the head and the feet in profile and the hands in profile and the torso turned towards the viewer, so you get this torsion in the body. And this becomes very, very typical of the Art Deco style. This is the leading American Art Deco sculptor Paul Manship, and you can see the same idea really of the head and the legs in profile and the torso turned towards us. Again, this is a piece by Paul Manship where you see the same kind of torsion of the body. So a love of machines and a love of speed, of movement. This is a period when the world is speeding up. Trains are getting faster. We’ve got the introduction of aeroplanes before the First World War becoming much more frequent air travel in the interwar period. Zeppelins. Ocean liners racing each other across the Atlantic. A very bitter rivalry between France and Britain for the Blue Riband, the fastest run across the Atlantic. And so this fascination with speeding vehicles leads to a fascination with streamlining. Streamlining, which, of course, actually has a practical purpose for a racing car or an aeroplane or a boat 'cause it minimises the resistance to air and it can enable the vehicle to go faster. So here we have a roadster, a speedster car of 1935.

Oh, I forgot to mention this. Of course, this still exists. It’s a ceiling painting in Bullocks Wilshire in Los Angeles by an artist called Herman Sachs. And trains, I said, it’s the great age of the trains, trains from the mid 19th century up 'til the Second World War travelling across the vast distances of America. This is a very elegant streamlined train, express train, leaving Chicago on its way to New York. And how about this is a beautiful, elegant car. This is a Chrysler car from the mid 1930s. This particular car actually never existed outside the movies. It was designed for a 1938 movie called “Young at Heart,” but it really takes streamlining to an extreme. And how about this. This must be the sexiest, most elegant meat slicer in the world. So, of course, there’s no particular reason why, no practical reason why a meat slicer should be streamlined. It’s in this case purely an aesthetic choice. The man who was particularly associated with streamlining designs was called Norman Bel Geddes, who the name Bel Geddes may ring a few bells for you. He was the father of Barbara Bel Geddes, who very famous as Miss Ellie in the TV series “Dallas.” But he was a leading industrial designer of the interwar period. Many of his designs were futuristic and probably not really intended for practical use, like this car on the left-hand side and this ocean liner.

Although this dates from the early '30s, and in 1938, Hollywood called upon his services to design a futuristic ocean liner for a film called “The Big Broadcast of 1938.” And this is a super elegant cocktail shaker and cocktail, I don’t know what you call them really. They’re not glasses 'cause they’re metal. And cups and bit. I’m not sure the exact date of this 'cause Prohibition wasn’t repealed 'til 1933, and I think this is probably around that date. And another important industrial designer in this second phase of Art Deco where everything is very sleek and very simplified, this is a man called Donald Deskey. And this is a piece of furniture by him as as well and a screen by Donald Deskey. Another important factor in the Art Deco style everywhere and particularly in America is the use of new industrial materials, wide range of plastics being developed. Most famous, most collectible is Bakelite. It was invented by a Belgian called Monsieur Leo Baekeland in 1907, but it really takes off in the interwar period, used for all sorts of things, for radio sets and telephones and jewellery, costume jewellery. It actually became a bit demode to go out to the opera or whatever wearing diamonds. Really smart, cutting edge fashionable people preferred to wear costume jewellery. It was Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli and so on designing costume jewellery for the rich in the interwar period.

And on the left-hand side is a Bakelite ashtray, which I actually have here in my flat in Paris, it’s in the next room, that is actually British rather than French or American because it was designed for the ocean liner the Queen Mary launched in 1936 and I presume somebody nicked it and took it as a souvenir from the ship. Tubular metal furniture, that is one of the great success stories of the interwar period. It’s probably a story I told you before. The architect Marcel Breuer, who was employed at the Bauhaus in 1925, his son came home from school on a bicycle, and he watched his son get off the bicycle and pick it up and carry it into the house. And he thought, wow. That was a great eureka moment. Penny dropped. How amazing is that, that this thing is strong enough to support my son, but light enough for him to carry it? And he thought, well, perhaps you could make a bicycle into a chair. And he went to a bicycle manufacturer who thought he was nuts, so he made his own prototype in a studio at the Bauhaus. That’s 1925. And I said, it’s one of the huge, huge success stories in the history of industrial design because it really took off incredibly quickly. And so you get tubular metal furniture really all around the world within five years. This is a Heath Robinson caricature on some rather elderly old fashioned people disconcerted to find themselves dining off what looks like something out of a hospital operating theatre. But so this is five years later.

This is the super elegant, sophisticated, luxurious apartment of the French art dealer Bernheim. And you can see two elements here which are very typical of the Art Deco period, the use of glass structurally, so glass everywhere, and the chromed metal furniture. Of course, both considered to be hygienic. And here, this is a film actually of 1931, so only six years later than the first tubular metal chair of Marcel Breuer. And this is a New York apartment which is meant to be the ultimate in luxury and sophistication. It’s the wages of sin for this young kept woman who’s sleeping with her boss. Well, I’d forgive anybody for sleeping with the boss to get an… You know, I think selling your body cheap at the price to get an apartment like this in New York. This is from another movie later in the '30s. It’s actually it’s again the film “Young at Heart” from which I showed you that streamlined automobile. And so you can see how this very avant-garde use of materials, the structural architectural use of chunky glass, and the chromed metal furniture has invaded Hollywood in the '30s. And another new material which everybody got very excited about in the '30s was cellophane. And I think this has come up in lectures before, the Cole Porter song “You’re the Tops,” one of the lines goes, “You’re Garbo’s salary, "you’re the National Gallery, you’re cellophane.” And here is an advertisement for cellophane. Now we tend to these days associate cellophane with things that have died at the back of the fridge, so not necessarily very hygienic, but I think in the '30s, everything that was smooth and shiny and could be white was fashionable because it was deemed to be cellophane.

On the right a still from the 1936 film “Swing Time” starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, the most wonderful final scene of that movie, of course, when they do a spectacular dance up and down those stairs. And here is Ginger standing on the stairs, and as you can see, all the tables in this elegant nightclub are wrapped in cellophane. Hygiene is very, very big in this period, at least if you’re wealthy enough to afford it. Again, it’s something I think I’ve mentioned in a number of lectures that Christian culture was very, very late to come to hygiene. Hygiene is integral to most of the world’s religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism. I mean Judaism, of course, very, very strict hygiene laws as you know, going back to the Jewish Bible. The Christians, it was almost the opposite were that somehow hygiene was regarded with suspicion. If you were really holy, you were supposed to despise your body, of course, the real hardcore Christians. And the the first hotel in London to have ensuite bathrooms was the Savoy, and that was considered a scandal in the 1880s. And newspapers, articles questioned what was going on in this hotel that people needed to wash so much. But with the discoveries of Lister and other great scientists… Who’s the Frenchman? Pasteur. And Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. I did remember her name this time, so I hope I won’t be rapped over the knuckles as I was last time when I forgot her name. These people realised in the 19th century that there was a connection between health and hygiene. And so wealthy people had bathrooms.

Still, I mean, in France in 1945, it was still only one household in five that had a bathroom with a bath. In Britain, it was one in two. I’m sure that proportion was much higher in America. America’s, I think, Americans of course often scandalised by the lack of hygiene in Europe. But so this, how about this for a bathroom? This is from a French magazine, but it’s an American bathroom. And of course in movies of the 1920s and the 1930s you get these absolutely wonderful bathrooms. Always an excuse for a bit of semi nudity and a bit of titillation for the audience. These are 1920s. So these represent that first phase of Art Deco which is more decorated and more elaborated. And this is a bathroom from the 1939 movie “The Women” as Joan Crawford enjoying a bubble bath, which is, of course, much sleeker and more streamlined. So I’m looking specifically today at the American version. I would say that apart from France, probably America is the country that embraced the style and produced the best quality Art Deco. Although, as I said, you can find it absolutely everywhere in the world in this period. South Africa has plenty of wonderful… Johannesburg has wonderful Art Deco. New Zealand has wonderful Art Deco. And you can find, you know, Art Deco in the middle of a Arab souk.

But one very specifically American factor in the Art Deco period is the height of buildings, I’ve talked about this before, due to two great American inventions, the lift and the steel frame construction. That meant that between the 1890s and 1931, the world record for the height of buildings was constantly being broken in America. And that reached its peak, literally, in 1931 with the completion of the Empire State Building. Two things brought that whole development to an end. One was the Wall Street crisis and the Depression, so there wasn’t any need for these enormous buildings later in the 1930s. And I think also probably the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building represented the limits of what was possible with the technology of the day. Now, the ziggurat shape that we see here as the building becomes more slender as it rises, this is down to planning laws in New York, Manhattan, where you have these canyons, narrow streets with these enormous buildings and worries about air and light not being able to penetrate down to street level. So the ziggurat shape was actually required. But it becomes a symbol and it becomes America. This is the great period of America, isn’t it? I would say. Well, for me, the great period of America is probably from the First World War up to the 1950s, undoubtedly the leading nation in the world. Everybody is looking to America, it’s most dynamic culture, the most dynamic economy in the world. And the ziggurat shape of the skyscraper becomes symbolic of that.

Lifts because you couldn’t get to the 102nd floor if you didn’t have lifts. These are both lift doors that again I would say represent the first phase of Art Deco being more elaborately decorative. This is a lift in the Chrysler Building on the left-hand side. And it’s the Union Trust Building in Detroit dating from 1929 on the right-hand side. Famous scene in the movie “42nd Street” with Ruby Keeler dancing with dancing skyscrapers. And this is the Architects’ Ball in New York in the late 1920s with various architects coming to the ball dressed as the buildings that they had designed. And in the middle crowned by this very spectacular headgear is the architect Van Alen, William Van Alen. He designed the Chrysler building. And we’ve got two details. I think one of them, you know, just a breathtaking building. For me, one of the most beautiful buildings in in the world up there with great cathedrals. And these, so the ziggurat shape is taken up by many designers. You can find mantelpiece clocks and radios inspired by the ziggurat. And here’s furniture by a designer called Paul T. Frankl inspired by the skyscraper ziggurats. Now, as I said, Art Deco is a style that has less variation than Art Nouveau, but there are nevertheless regional variations even within the United States. And one of the most famous places in the United States for Art Deco is Miami, and it’s a distinctive version with the colours, these very sweet pastel colours associated, appropriate, really, I suppose, for a seaside resort.

And also very characteristic of this type of Art Deco are the windows that are wrapped around the corners of the building. Of course, when you have that, that’s telling you something about the building. It’s telling you that the walls, the external walls, are not actually supporting the weight to the building. The building is being supported from within by steel columns. Here again is a very characteristic building from Miami. And wonderful Art Deco on the West Coast of America. You’ve got this boom growth of Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century. And this is Union Station in Los Angeles. And you you’ll find that on the West Coast, Art Deco can reference, sometimes it references South American architecture. I mean, pre-Columbian South American architecture, Mayan architecture, but it also can reference Hispanic missionary styles. And that’s what this does, the exterior of the Union Station which dates from 1939. And here we are inside that station. And more buildings from Los Angeles. This is the Eastern Columbia Building, 1930. So up ‘til 1930, you still get a lot of this quite elaborate decoration as you can see in the entranceway. This again is the entranceway of the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles. And this is, was a department store. I gather it’s now been taken over by a law firm. This is Bullocks Wilshire. And I detect some element here again of pre-Columbian influence in this building. This is a building which inside has that wonderful ceiling painting with aeroplanes and zeppelins and other speeding vehicles. Quite common in the '30s are buildings, streamlined buildings that seemed to be inspired by ocean liners.

The '30s was the golden age of the ocean liner, as I said, with this great competition between the French with the Ile de France and the Normandie, Normandie launched in 1935, and the British with the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth. And you see these built, this is the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Los Angeles that looks as though it’s about to set sail into the Atlantic. Still in Los Angeles we’ve got the City Hall on the left and the… What is that? I think it’s a law court on the right-hand side. Somebody might correct me on that one. We’re into the '30s here, and this is a type of Art Deco that we find quite a lot of in Europe which is quite simple and very massive and very monumental and references classical architecture with the columns. You see the fluted columns on the right-hand side and the columns at the top of the City Hall on the left. In Europe, this tends to be associated with fascism. You find a lot of this style in Italy, you find it in Germany, but not exclusively. In London, we have Senate House and the Shell House, which are very much in the same style. And of course in Paris there is the Trocadero and the Palais de Chaillot built for the 1937 Paris World Exhibition. Now we’re moving from Los Angeles to Detroit, and this is the Fisher Building in Detroit dating from 1928. And it’s quite similar to some of those New York skyscrapers that I showed you a few weeks ago which reference gothic architecture. We’ve got various gothic detailing here. And again in the lobby it’s 1928, it’s still the very, even slightly fussy, showy, elaborate kind of Art Deco decoration.

Moving on now to Cincinnati, and this is the Union Terminal Station in Cincinnati. Symmetry is, of course, a very important element in both phases of Art Deco. And in that, Art Deco is reacting against the asymmetry that is typical of the Art Nouveau style. And this is the wonderful Paramount Theatre in Aurora, Illinois. Sadly, so much of this architecture, particularly cinemas, has been demolished in America where they have much more lax laws protecting buildings than we have in Europe. But even in Europe, of course, this type kind of architecture went badly out of fashion in the post-war period, and it was only really revived through, I think, people’s interest in the movies. Certainly as a child I remember loving watching the Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire movies on the Sunday afternoon on television, and that, I think, was a big factor in a revival of interest in the Art Deco style that had been previously dismissed as very kitschy. Well, Chicago, of course, is one of the great architectural capitals of the 20th century with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright and plenty of wonderful Art Deco. But I’m just using this one example, which is the Chicago Opera Building on Wacker Drive opened in 1925. I’ve already talked about that or at least what went on in it.

And here is the lobby of that where the lamps and the ceiling decoration are quite elaborate, but these huge monumental columns and the lamps, the very classical looking lamps, wall lamps, are looking forward more to that kind of slightly, as I maybe rather frivolously put it, fascist deco of the 1930s. Not that it necessarily has any kind of political connotations at all in this kind of context. And so we come back to New York. New York is full of wonderful Art Deco buildings, but I’m just going to concentrate on the Rockefeller Centre, which was started in 1931 and continued all the way through the '30s 'til 1939. And this is definitely in that monumental slightly fascist-looking Art Deco style. Got very beautiful sculpture in the foreground by Paul Manship. Here you see it in closer detail. And this is the interior of the theatre, the Radio City Music Hall inside the Rockefeller Centre. And here is the auditorium, which I was very lucky and privileged to visit thanks to my very, very good friend in New York, Robin Miller, who invites me to go and see the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald towards the end of her career. And that was an unforgettable experience, a highlight in my life to be in this amazing space and to hear the great Ella Fitzgerald. So I’m actually going to finish with Ella Fitzgerald singing to us not about New York, but about Paris. ♪ Every time I look down on this timeless town ♪ ♪ Whether blue or grey be her skies ♪ ♪ Whether loud be her cheers or whether soft be her tears ♪ ♪ More and more do I realise that ♪ ♪ I love Paris in the springtime ♪ ♪ I love Paris in the fall ♪ ♪ I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles ♪ ♪ I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles ♪ ♪ I love Paris every moment ♪ ♪ Every moment of the year ♪ ♪ I love Paris ♪ ♪ Why, oh, why do I love Paris ♪ ♪ Because my love is near ♪

• Right, well, let’s see what you’ve got to say.

Q&A and Comments:

Happy New Year to you too, Stuart.

Q: “Is there a connection between futurism and Art Deco?”

A: Yes, there is. There is quite a lot of Art Deco I’d say that is influenced by futurism, and the connection is through this obsession with speed and movement and machines. So you’ll find quite a lot of, say, Art Deco travel posters which will use futurist devices or fragmentation to suggest dynamism and speed and simultaneity. Futurism was an Italian movement, which it was created by a poet actually called Marinetti, who published “The Futurist Manifesto” not in Italian and not in Italy, but in French and in the French newspaper on the front of “Le Figaro” in 1909.

Q: This is Shelly, “Were there separate styles "of Art Nouveau and Art Deco in designer women’s clothing?”

A: Yes, I would say so. I would say so. I mean, one of the people who in a way who marks the move from the Art Nouveau, the shape, the Art Nouveau shape of a woman is hourglass shape. It’s all curves, s-curves, and everything is designed with padding and with really radical corsetry to exaggerate the curves of the women. With Art Deco, la ligne a la mode, as the French would say it. In Art Nouveau it’s all s-curves, and in Art Deco it’s straight up and down and androgynous and very boyish. And the person who really introduces this is the French couturier Paul Poiret in 1908. It’s around 1908-1909 that Art Deco really gets going in France, and he almost overnight completely changes the shape of women. And then, of course, going through to the interwar period, Poiret, he goes through the 1920s, and he represents in a sense the more fussy version of Art Deco. It’s very decorated. His pieces are very, his dresses are very decorated. And then once you move into… He goes out of business partly as a result of the Great Depression, but also, I think, because tastes were moving on. And the fashion designers who represent the more streamlined version of Art Deco are Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli. Thank you very much, Sharon. You’re very, very kind.

This is Francoise who says, “The French Bernheim family relished all the Art Deco. "They all relished, not just Josse. "Emile commissioned the hotel du golf Beauvallon "from the Swiss Julien Flegenheimer, "and his daughter commissioned Pierre Chareau.” Wonderful, wonderful architect, designer. Oh my God. Oh, La Maison de Verre, Which I’ve never managed to get into. It’s very difficult to get into.

“Use of poured concrete is very evident "in southern climates.” Yes, thank you, Sandra. “Many cinemas around the UK "have the distinct Art Deco style.” Yes, particularly associated of course with the, it’s sometimes called the odeon style because of that, particularly in the '30s, the more streamlined version of the style. “India, Australia, actually, as you say all over the world, "there’s plenty of Art Deco in almost every country.”

Q: “How does Bauhaus connect to deco?”

A: Well, in some ways it’s against it because Bauhaus is all about function, form following function. If you’re a real adherent to Bauhaus aesthetics, you don’t want any kind of superfluous decoration. It’s unnecessary. It’s against their principles. But what happens is that, well, 1925, the Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, the Germans were not invited and they were, of course, a major absence. And I think there were two reasons for that. One was hostility left over from the war that had only finished seven years earlier, and the other was, the other reason was that the French were really scared that the Germans had an edge on them with the Bauhaus modernism. So there was no German Bauhaus represented in that show, but Bauhaus ideas of simplicity and functionalism were represented by the Swiss Le Corbusier, his Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau. And so I think the second phase of Art Deco where it becomes less fussily decorated, more streamlined, more simple, is to some extent influenced by Bauhaus principles. In London, of course, we have those wonderful tube stations on the Piccadilly line which are kind of modern deco, second phase of deco I would say.

This is Michael who’s telling us sadly that Art Deco buildings in Johannesburg have been demolished. That’s really sad, isn’t it?

Yes, Sandra, as I was saying, the City Hall in Los Angeles it is that type of slightly brutal simplified classicism is particularly associated not just with fascism, of course, but with totalitarian regimes. Stalin liked it as much as Hitler and Mussolini did. Oh, the Hoover Building in London. I’m trying to remember the name of the architect. There were two great buildings, very similar. There was the Firestone Building and the Hoover Building, both by the same architect. The Firestone Building, again, scandalously, scandalously demolished. It was about to have, in fact, there was a preservation order in the post and somebody leaked it, and the owners of the building, Trafalgar House it was, they should be shot. They sent in the bulldozers overnight to wreck the building before the preservation order could be applied. It’s very, very Art Deco. In Britain I would say it doesn’t, of course, come anywhere near either France or America for Art Deco, but we do have some examples, and that would be a prime example.

Happy New Year, Naomi. Thank you very much. And thank you, Katarina. Yes, I know. Well, Robin, my very dear friend Robin, she may be listening to this. I sent her lots of love. It’s her birthday on Christmas Day. She’s my best friend in New York. And thank you for all your kind comments. We’ve got some more down here. Thank you.

I am going to do a talk. I don’t know enough about the YPA, but my next talk to you is going to be about Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Palace of Culture in Warsaw, I can imagine. Yes. City of Nelson in New Zealand. Yes, I know New Zealand has got very important Art Deco architecture.

“Some of the decoration are Art Deco buildings.” Yes, there is a whole sub version of Art Deco, Egyptian Art Deco, which is always said to be inspired by the discover of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. But amazingly, not even five minutes walk from where I’m at the moment, there’s an Art Deco, Egyptian Art Deco cinema in Paris called Le Louxor, and it was built in 1921. So it actually predates the discovery of Tutankhamun. Thank you all for your very, very kind comments. I’m sure there must be Art Deco walking tours in many cities. Certainly there must be in New York, and I would think there would be in Chicago. Of course, it’s so difficult to walk at all, isn’t it, in Los Angeles. You need a car to get anywhere. Thank you all very much.

And Ella, yes, it’s a nice way to start the year, isn’t it, with Ella. Brutalism, yes. It’s really a 1970s development. Thank you so much. Oh, I don’t agree with you, Francine. I don’t think she sings it. I think she sings it as though she’s really in love with the city. I love her version of it, so we’ll have to disagree about that one.

Oh, you can’t see the questions, Clive. I’m not sure. I’m so non-technical. I really can’t help you in this. “Greyhound bus depots, Court Old House in South London.” You’re thinking of Eltham Palace. That’s a wonderful example of Art Deco in Britain. “De Lempicka in her best period, which is 1925 to 1933, "is the epitome of Art Deco.” Yes, you’re quite right. Of course, there is an awful lot of Bauhaus, and somebody else mentioned that earlier, in Tel Aviv. Baltimore still has good theatres, I’m glad to hear. And public housing in the Bronx, main library in downtown L.A. good example of Art Deco. Thank you, all.

“A building was demolished in Toronto "in the middle of the night.” Yes, I know. Shocking things happen. I know Toronto’s got a fantastic Art Deco department store 'cause that was highlighted in a recent exhibition of Art Deco in Paris. Hoover Building, Wallis, Gilbert and Partners. Thank you, Rita. And they’re also, they were the architects of the Firestone Building before it was destroyed. Right. Thank you again.

El Dorado. I’ll look out for that next time I’m there. Yes, lots in San Francisco, of course. “'American Masters’ has just had Edward Hopper on PBS.” And I have done that. I have actually done a Frank Lloyd walking tour in Chicago many years ago. And Radio City Hall. Oh, Palace of Culture in Warsaw ‘50s. Yes, well that wouldn’t be Art Deco then. It would be that kind of Soviet style, as you say. Raymond Loewy, developer of American steam locomotives in the 1930s. Otto Kuhler was another American locomotive designer.

Q: “Best book to read on Art Deco?”

A: Oh my god, Yolande, you put me on the spot there. I’ve got shelves and shelves and shelves of books on Art Deco, and there are many wonderful illustrated books on American Art Deco.

That’s Anne Baxter. I didn’t know her connection with Frank Lloyd Wright. Yes, to me, jazz is definitely connected. That’s why I used the Duke Ellington at the beginning. And swing, to me, the sound of swing, Benny Goodman, sounds like streamlined Art Deco. And just thinking back to what Francine said about the way that Ella sings that, it is of course much slower than Cole Porter intended. And I think it’s all those Gershwin songs like “The Man I Love” and so on in the '20s and the early '30s, they actually were sung quite a lick. It’s ♪ Da-da da-da da-dum ♪ ♪ Da da da dum ♪ You know, that’s the speed of that song. But all those songs in the post-war period interestingly really slowed down in the way that they were performed. And my Ella recording actually dates from I think around 1960 or the late '50s and not from the Art Deco period. So in fact you do have a point, Francine. And that seems to be it.

Thank you all very, very much, and see you again on Sunday.