ADAMSON UNIVERSITY

SAN MARCELINO, ERMITA MANILA

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN 7

ART DECO IN THE PHILIPPINES

SUBMITTED TO:

ARCH. ROBERTO S. DURAN

SUBMITTED BY:

DAROING, MARIA FARIAL L.

IBRAHIM, OMAR AMEER O.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2016

Art Deco was a movement in the decorative arts and architecture that
originated in the 1920s and developed into a major style in Western Europe
and the United States during the 1930s. Its name was derived from
the Exposition Internationale des Arts Dcoratifs et Industriels Modernes,
held in Paris in 1925, where the style was first exhibited. Art Deco design
represented modernism turned into fashion. Its products included both
individually crafted luxury items and mass-produced wares, but, in either
case, the intention was to create a sleek and antitraditional elegance that
symbolized wealth and sophistication.

The distinguishing features of the style are simple, clean shapes, often with a
streamlined look; ornament that is geometric or stylized from
representational forms; and unusually varied, often expensive materials,
which frequently include man-made substances (plastics, especially Bakelite;
vita-glass; and ferroconcrete) in addition to natural ones (jade, silver, ivory,
obsidian, chrome, and rock crystal). Though Art Deco objects were rarely
mass-produced, the characteristic features of the style reflected admiration
for the modernity of the machine and for the inherent design qualities of
machine-made objects (e.g., relative simplicity, planarity, symmetry, and
unvaried repetition of elements).

The Art Deco style suffered a decline in popularity during the late 30s and
early 40s during World War II when it began to be seen as too gaudy and
ostentatious for wartime austerity, after which it quickly fell out of fashion.
Beginning in the late 1960s there was a renewed interest in Art Deco design.
Into the 21st century Art Deco continued to be a source of inspiration in such
areas as decorative art, fashion and jewelry design. Art Deco owed
something to several of the major art styles of the early 20th century. These
formative influences include the geometric forms of Cubism (note: Art Deco
has been called "Cubism Tamed"), the machine-style forms of Constructivism
and Futurism, and the unifying approach of Art Nouveau. Its highly intense
colours may have stemmed from Parisian Fauvism. Art Deco borrowed also
from Aztec and Egyptian art, as well as from Classical Antiquity. Unlike its
earlier counterpart Art Nouveau, however, Art Deco had no philosophical
basis - it was purely decorative.

DICTIONARY DEFINITION
A style of decorative art developed originally in the 1920s with a revival in
the 1960s, marked chiefly by geometric motifs, curvilinear forms, sharply
 defined outlines, often bold colors, and the use of synthetic materials, as
plastics.
A popular design style of the 1920s and 1930s characterized especially by
bold outlines, geometric and zigzag forms, and the use of new materials
(as plastic).

ENCYLOPEDIC DEFINITION
Art Deco, or Deco, also known as Style Moderne, is a style of visual arts,
architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War
I. It became popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and influenced the design of
buildings, furniture, cars, movie theaters, trains, ocean liners, etc,. It took its
name, short for Arts Dcoratifs, from the Exposition Internationale des Arts
Dcoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern
Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris in 1925. Art Deco features
geometric shapes, clear and precise lines, and decoration which is attached
to the structure, often in the form of metal or ceramic sculptures. It
combined modernist styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials.

VARIEITES OF ART DECO

Architecture - The Art Deco style is one of the easiest to

identify since its sharp-edged looks and stylized
geometrical decorative details are so distinctive. The
development of this architectural style was an intentional
break with past precedents in an effort to embody the
ideas of the modern age.
 (Architecture) Movie Palaces - Many of the best surviving
examples of Art Deco are movie theaters built in the
1920s and 1930s. The Art Deco period coincided with the
conversion of silent films to sound, and movie companies
built enormous theaters in major cities to capture the
huge audience that came to see movies. Movie palaces in
the 1920s often combined exotic themes with art deco
style.
Interior design - Art Deco houses were very rare; the
grand showcases of Art deco interior design were the
lobbies of government buildings, theaters, and
particularly office buildings. Interiors were extremely
colorful and dynamic, combining sculpture, murals, and
ornate geometric design in marble, glass, ceramics and
stainless steel.

Graphic Arts - The Art Deco style appeared early in the

graphic arts, in the years just before World War I. It
appeared in Paris in the posters and the costume designs of
Leon Bakst for the Ballets Russes, and in the catalogs of the
fashion designers Paul Poiret. The illustrations of Georges
Barbier, and Georges Lepape and the images in the fashion
magazine La Gazette du bon ton perfectly captured the
elegance and sensuality of the style. In the 1920s, the look
changed; the fashions stressed were more casual, sportive
and daring, with the woman models usually smoking
cigarettes.

Furniture - The major event of the period for furniture

design was the International Exhibition of Modern
Industrial and Decorative Arts in 1925, which gave the
movement its name. The exhibit made the reputation of a
young designer, mile-Jacques Ruhlmann, whose Paris
workshop produced works that were simple in form but
lavishly decorated, using fine woods and inlays.
Ruhlmann used the rarest and expensive materials,
including ebony, mahogany, rosewood, ambon and other
 exotic woods, incrusted with ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl, little
pompoms of silk decorated the handles of drawers of the cabinets.

Jewelry - Art Deco jewelry was influenced, to some extent,

by the two previous periods, Art Nouveau and Edwardian.
Borrowing from Art Nouveau its highly stylized and
graceful designs, Art Deco took the free flowing curves and
naturalistic motifs and replaced them with a harshly
geometric and symmetrical theme. Color also played an
important role in the development of Art Deco jewelry. The
pastel colors, that were uniquely Art Nouveau, were
replaced with a vivid display of bold colors. The stark whiteness of
platinum combined with diamond or crystal is a fundamental theme of
Deco jewelry.

Textiles - Clashing colors and designs of Fauvism,

notably in the work of Henri Matisse and Andr
Derain, inspired the designs of art deco textiles,
wallpaper, and painted ceramics.

Fashion - Art Deco was also influenced by the high fashion

vocabulary of the period, which featured geometric
designs, chevrons, zigzags, and stylized bouquets of
flowers. It was influenced by discoveries in Egyptology,
and growing interest in the Orient and in African art. From
1925 onwards, it was influenced by a passion for new
machines (airships, automobiles and ocean liners). and,
after 1930, by aerodynamic forms, the streamline style.

Industrial design - As the Great Depression of the 1930s

progressed, Americans saw a new aspect of Art Decoi.e.,
streamlining, a concept first conceived by industrial
designers who stripped Art Deco design of its ornament in
favor of the aerodynamic pure-line concept of motion and
speed developed from scientific thinking. The style was the
first to incorporate electric light into architectural structure.
 Paintings - During the 1920s, affordable travel permitted
exposure to other cultures. There was also popular interest
in archeology due to excavations at Pompeii, Troy, the tomb
of Tutankhamun, etc. Artists and designers integrated motifs
from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Asia,
Mesoamerica and Oceania with Machine Age elements.

Sculpture - Sculptural decoration was an important element

in Art Deco architecture from the
beginning, and made it distinct from
Modernism. It was usually not built into
the structure, but attached to the outside,
in marble or stucco plaques. It was often
used in government buildings in the
United States, celebrating various
professions and the common man.
Sculptures by Antoine Bourdelle were the essential decorative feature of
the earliest Art Deco building, the Thtre des Champs-Elyses in Paris, in
1912. In the later part of the Art Deco period, in the 1930s, sculptural
decoration of buildings like Rockefeller Center was much more colorful
and elaborate, in sharp contrast with modernist architecture.

ART DECO IN THE PHILIPPINES

American and European-educated Filipino architects such as Pablo Antonio,
Juan Arellano, Tomas Mapua, Juan Nakpil, and Fernando Ocampo modernized
and rebuilt the Filipino architectural landscape by introducing Art Deco to the
country.

At first appearance, Art Deco in the Philippines followed the dictates of the
international style. Upon closer inspection, the Filipino overlay to the style is
obvious. The Filipinos created a national version to the international Art
Deco. Filipino architects, responding to the tropical environment, softened
the severe Western architectural style. Thin concrete slabs broke flat
facades, protruding from unadorned wall surfaces to protect door and
window openings from torrential monsoon rain and the hot sun. For increased
air circulation in the hot and humid Philippine tropics, windows were
enlarged, and geometric hand-wrought iron grilles covered openings cut into
the exterior walls for ventilation. Light concrete and Philippine hardwoods of
different shades and fragrances replaced the steel, aluminum and chrome of
the West. Stylized tropical flora and fauna ornamented pillars, balustrades,
staircases; ceiling murals, gates, doors and windows. Glass and grillwork
took windows, doors, balconies and terraces beyond function into the realm
of art. Stained glass set off exquisite plays of light.

Architecture in Art Deco style had appeared all over the Philippines.

Art Deco civic buildings were built in many Philippine cities. Appropriately,
homes of the affluent were in that style. Movie theaters, the new palaces of
pleasure, were Art Deco fantasies.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/217447/lifestyle/artandculture/art-
deco-regaining-lost-memory

http://www.artpostasia.com/press_inside/index/8000024

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