The Art Deco House [Hardcover]

Adrian Tinniswood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2002

Modern architecture between the two world wars was a deliberate rejection of the past, causing a tension between traditional concepts of the home as warm, intimate, and comfortable and cool, futuristic visions of the house as a technological paradise.
Art Deco was an attempt to resolve these tensions. Some of the most popular and influential architects and designers of the past 150 years—Norman Bel Geddes and Richard Neutra, working in the US; Robert Mallet-Stevens in France; and Berthold Lubetkin in the UK—designed houses that could be defined as being in the Art Deco style. And Art Deco enjoys a new popularity today, unrivalled since its inception in the 1920s.



In The Art Deco House, architectural historian Adrian Tinniswood combines fascinating text and stunning photography to create an essential reference for anyone who loves Art Deco design. Captivating chapters provide detailed overviews of the design, decoration, furnishings, and gardens of the Art Deco house, covering such themes as streamline moderns; Modernist ideas for estates and apartment blocks; urbanism and domestic design; and more. Within each chapter, special stand-alone features draw upon contemporary literature, magazines, and museum exhibitions to demonstrate the style and philosophy of the Art Deco movement.



This remarkable guide also features hundreds of stunning, full-color examples of a broad range of Art Deco houses, including the House of Tomorrow by Norman Bel Geddes; the Henry House in Utrecht, Holland; Geragh in Sandycove, Dublin; and Rudolf Schindler's Los Angeles home.





• An essential source-book of Art Deco style, with scores of resplendent illustrations

• Features little-known houses from the US, France, Ireland, Germany, and Austria

• Provides fascinating insight into the lives of Art Deco architects and their clients

• Art Deco style is enjoying a resurgence in popularity

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Tinniswood, author of The Arts & Crafts House (1999), celebrates the boldness, flair, and sweep of the art deco movement and its innovative, technology-based design vocabulary. Its influence was pervasive and international and impacted architecture both exterior and interior, public and private. Focusing on the latter, Tinniswood captures the extraordinary range of art deco homes in places as far-flung as Los Angeles and Santa Monica and Dublin and Havana. Chrome, glass, and tubular steel replaced the more traditional woods and natural fabrics of the past, as did a growing interest in Meso-American and Native American motifs first rediscovered and embraced by Frank Lloyd Wright, who had a tremendous influence on European architectural design in the 1910s and 1920s, culminating in the high deco peak at the famous 1925 Paris Exposition. This handsome coffee-table volume's clearly written and informative text and generous spreads of color and black-and-white photographs of 34 spectacular homes ensure this title its place as a major design sourcebook and a must-see for the legions of art deco fanatics. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Adrian Tinniswood has worked for Britain's leading heritage organization, the National Trust, as an author, editor, and educational consultant for 15 years. His recent books include The Polite Tourist and The Arts & Crafts House (Watson-Guptill, 1999). He lives in Bath, England.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill; 1St Edition edition (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823003159
• ISBN-13: 978-0823003150
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 0.8 x 11.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #786,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Art Deco

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good text, good photos and dull layout., May 5, 2002

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art Deco House (Hardcover)

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.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than Deco, February 7, 2004

By 

misterbeets "misterbeets" (Safe Harbor, MD USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Art Deco House (Hardcover)

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.

17 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and informative but not helpful to me., January 31, 2005

By 

Dafna Levy "Opinion8ed" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art Deco House (Hardcover)

This book is full of beautiful pictures and is well written. However, I was expecting a book about the average art-deco home. This book featured only the more extravagant homes of the time. It did not help me decide how to furnish my modest 1930's home.