Roaring Twenties

Art Deco Architecture: Chrysler Building, Empire State, and More

Art Deco architecture was the most visible, most photographed form of 20th-century American design. The buildings of the late 1920s and early 1930s, particularly the New York skyscrapers, fixed the Art Deco image in the American mind: the setback profile imposed by the 1916 New York City zoning resolution, the chrome and stainless steel ornament, the geometric repetition of sunburst and chevron, the angular relief of the stone and terra cotta. The most iconic American Art Deco buildings, the Chrysler Building of 1930 and the Empire State Building of 1931, were the most famous buildings in the world for two generations, and the Miami Beach Architectural District of 800-plus Art Deco buildings is now the largest concentration of Art Deco architecture anywhere.

For the wider Art Deco context, see the parent Art Deco Design cluster page and the 1920s Arts and Entertainment pillar overview. For the history of the style, For the decorative arts,

The New York Skyscrapers

The New York City skyline was rebuilt in the late 1920s and early 1930s in a single, sustained building boom. The first major Art Deco skyscraper in New York was the American Radiator Building of 1924, designed by Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells, a 23-story black brick shaft ornamented with gold terra cotta that gave the Bryant Park neighborhood its visual anchor. The Paramount Building of 1926, the General Electric Building of 1929, the Chanin Building of 1929, and the Barberini House of 1927 were among the other major Art Deco towers of the late 1920s.

The Chrysler Building of 1930 was the most famous American Art Deco tower. Designed by William Van Alen for Walter P. Chrysler, the 77-story building was an exercise in ornament: the seven-story Nirosta stainless steel crown, the eagle gargoyles modeled on Chrysler hood ornaments, and the hubcap-and-fender ornament on the lower setbacks. The building was the subject of one of the most famous competitions in architectural history, the “Race to the Top” with the 40 Wall Street (Bank of Manhattan Trust Building) of H. Craig Severance, Van Alen’s former partner. Van Alen secretly assembled the building’s 185-foot spire inside the crown of the Chrysler Building and raised it through the roof in a single 90-minute operation on October 23, 1929. The trick gave the Chrysler Building the title of tallest building in the world and produced a public-relations coup that the headlines called “The Race to the Top.”

The Empire State Building of 1931, designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, was the more austere and more canonical version of the Art Deco skyscraper. The 102-story building, built in a record 410 days, was 1,250 feet tall with a 200-foot dirigible mooring mast at the top. The limestone and chrome facade, the five-stepped setbacks, and the central position in the skyline made the Empire State Building the visual emblem of New York for nearly half a century.

The McGraw-Hill Building of 1931, also by Raymond Hood, was the most radical of the Art Deco New York towers: a 35-story setback tower faced in blue-green terracotta with horizontal bands of windows that looked forward to the International Style of the next decade. The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel of 1931 and the Rockefeller Center complex (begun 1930, with the 70-story 30 Rockefeller Plaza of 1933) were other major Art Deco projects in New York.

Chicago and the Midwest

The Palmolive Building (now the 919 North Michigan Avenue Building) of 1929, designed by Holabird & Root for the Palmolive Company, was a 37-story Art Deco tower on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago; the building’s original 1929 blimp mooring mast and the Lindbergh beacon that swept the sky for 200 miles in the months after the aviator’s 1927 transatlantic flight were among the most famous Art Deco features in America. The Chicago Board of Trade Building of 1930, also by Holabird & Root, was a 45-story Art Deco tower with a Ceres statue at the top.

The Fisher Building in Detroit, completed in 1928 and designed by Albert Kahn for the Fisher Brothers (the body-builders of General Motors), was the most lavishly decorated Art Deco building in the Midwest. The 30-story tower, faced in tan, gray, and rose-colored marble with a base of gray Belgian marble, was a kind of cathedral of the auto industry. The Fisher Building is now a National Historic Landmark.

The International Spread

Art Deco architecture was the first architectural style to be truly global. By the early 1930s, examples could be found on every continent. The Marine Building in Vancouver, British Columbia, completed in 1930 and designed by McCarter Nairne and Partners, was a 22-story terracotta-clad tower with a green copper roof. The building was the tallest commercial building in the British Empire when completed. The Aldred Building in Montreal (1931) and the Royal York Hotel in Toronto (1929) were other Canadian landmarks.

In India, the Eros Cinema in Mumbai (1938) and the Regal Cinema in Mumbai (1933) were central features of the Art Deco precinct of south Mumbai, a 2.5-square-kilometer district of about 200 Art Deco buildings that is now the largest collection of Art Deco buildings in India. The Strand Arcade in Sydney, Australia, was rebuilt in Art Deco style after a fire in 1921. In the American South, the National Tobacco Company Building in Durham, North Carolina, and the Wade Hampton State Office Building (Greenville City Hall, 1926) in South Carolina were notable examples.

The Miami Beach Architectural District

The most concentrated collection of Art Deco architecture in the world is the Miami Beach Architectural District, also called the Art Deco Historic District of South Beach, Miami Beach, Florida. The district, which runs roughly along Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue, and Washington Avenue from 6th Street to 23rd Street, contains more than 800 preserved Art Deco buildings, including the Carlyle Hotel (1941, Albert Anis, an example of the later Streamline Moderne variant), the Hotel Cavalier (1936), the Tides Hotel (1936), and the Winter Haven (1939). The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, one of the largest historic-designation projects in the country.

The Streamline Moderne variant of Art Deco that is well represented in the Miami Beach district, with its smooth white stucco facades, its horizontal “racing stripes” of windows, its rounded corners, and its “eyebrows” over the windows, is a later and more austere development of the style, more closely related to the International Style and to the streamlined locomotive and ocean liner design of the 1930s.

The 1920s and early 1930s saw the construction of the American movie palace, the large, lavishly decorated single-screen theater that was the principal site of film exhibition. The Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California, completed in 1931 and designed by Timothy Pflueger, was one of the most spectacular Art Deco movie palaces in the United States. The Fox Theatre in Detroit (1928, C. Howard Crane) was another major movie palace. Major railway stations were also built in Art Deco styles, including the Cincinnati Union Terminal of 1933 and the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, completed in 1933.

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