# Could art Deco Be Revived? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 7, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663 "2009-11-07T01:13:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/21 "2009-11-08T02:53:21Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > These things never have a precise beginning or end. I think of it as a 70s thing because that’s when I first started to notice it; but yeah some aspects of it carried over into the 80s. The thing I always think back to is listening to an interview with Patrick Nagel, where he described his own work as being a continuation of Art Deco and the stylistic heir to Erte. I know he started his thing back in the 1970s, but this Nagel is the image of the 80s to me: [Rio, by Duran Duran.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DuranRio.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/22 "2009-11-08T13:20:30Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > The thing I always think back to is listening to an interview with Patrick Nagel, where he described his own work as being a continuation of Art Deco and the stylistic heir to Erte. I know he started his thing back in the 1970s, but this Nagel is the image of the 80s to me: [Rio, by Duran Duran.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DuranRio.jpg) Isn’t Nagel dead? ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/23 "2009-11-08T13:27:30Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Isn’t Nagel dead? Yes, he is. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/24 "2009-11-09T00:59:58Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > No. It’s just not part of the business model, and nothing changes the business model but marketing data. It’s a closed system. Still struggling to understand what you’re getting at, sorry. I think you’re saying that Art Deco/Moderne was only possible because industry was still naive at that time. Nowadays, businessmen wouldn’t allow themselves to be dictated to by designers to such an extent, but in those days the limits of design vs. commerce had not yet been established. Is that it? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/25 "2009-11-09T01:29:07Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Still struggling to understand what you’re getting at, sorry. > I think you’re saying that Art Deco/Moderne was only possible because industry was still naive at that time. Nowadays, businessmen wouldn’t allow themselves to be dictated to by designers to such an extent, but in those days the limits of design vs. commerce had not yet been established. > Is that it? Yes. Industrial designers - people like Loewy, Teague, Dreyfuss - were names, gurus, in those days. After marketing got more sophisticated, they were no more than contractors. Now they’re usually anonymous employees. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/26 "2009-11-10T07:30:33Z")
I’ve got a great Art Deco bridge that spans San Francisco to Marin that I’d like to sell you at cost for $35 million. I guarantee it will never go out of style. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/27 "2009-11-10T07:39:50Z")
I give you the [Cincinnati Union Terminal Museum](http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/174025/). Once when visiting the museum I locked my keys in my car. Didn’t mind waiting for the lock smith to come by because of the view. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/28 "2009-11-10T10:40:02Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I give you the [Cincinnati Union Terminal Museum](http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/174025/). > > Once when visiting the museum I locked my keys in my car. Didn’t mind waiting for the lock smith to come by because of the view. Link has pop-ups! ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/29 "2009-11-10T14:54:44Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] Could art Deco Be Revived? [/QUOTE] God, I hope not. It was fine for its time, but now (like its bastard stephild Googie) it just looks too retro. When you want to signal retrofuturism, it is to deco/streamline that designers seem to turn - see _Meet The Robinsons_. But all that gleaming chrome signals “past”, not “future” to me. \*Metropolis \*is a classic movie and all, but I wouldn’t want to live there. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/30 "2009-11-10T17:39:15Z")
I’d love for it to make a comeback. I could stare at [the Chrysler Building](http://www.flickr.com/photos/troymccluresf/sets/72157604677031115/) all day long, and always take an afternoon in NYC just to concentrate on shooting it. There’s little flashes of it in & around San Francisco (plus there’s apparently some bridge), but it’s definitely not prevalent. > [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > Another thing Deco - in fact any 1920s-30s cultural product - would have to overcome is that it carries a strong gay connotation (at least in America, not so much in Britain). Bwa? -Troy McClure SF, Castro resident. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/31 "2009-11-10T18:12:13Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > Yes. Industrial designers - people like Loewy, Teague, Dreyfuss - were names, gurus, in those days. After marketing got more sophisticated, they were no more than contractors. Now they’re usually anonymous employees. Art Deco’s big, visible, lasting success was in architecture, not in consumer design (which is still considered important, if not done by “name” gurus). Architecture doesn’t even try for Art Deco anymore, and its impact on consumer products has faded in favor of much _less_ mass-market goods. Different manufacturers offer their own brand of style and design, and you can still find art-deco-style products. Marketing has become, not an anonymous number-crunching by faceless corporate shadows trying to leech money, but rather an integrated field of customer service and product support trying to find out what, since most of the tim they can’t coherently express it themselves. That is, comments like “marketing, which presumes to know what consumers want better than consumers themselves” are so ignorant as to be laughable. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/32 "2009-11-16T00:24:41Z")
I always wondered if there were any churches built in an Art Deco style. It seems to me that religious themes would be translatable into art Deco style-are there any such churches? I don’t recall any. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/33 "2009-11-16T00:55:20Z")
I was always convinced that [this](http://www.usmcmuseum.com/museum_index.asp) was a church passing by it in I-95, and I’m not fully convinced that it’s not despite the fact it’s a museum 🙂 Now whether or not it’s Deco is another question: on the other side of things if you made [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sagrada_familia_by_night_2006.jpg) more streamlined and metallic, it would have some Deco cred. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/34 "2009-11-16T01:23:17Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I was always convinced that [this](http://www.usmcmuseum.com/museum_index.asp) was a church passing by it in I-95, and I’m not fully convinced that it’s not despite the fact it’s a museum 🙂 You may be touching on something valid here. The Marine Corps Museum was designed in an era when military service is strongly - if indirectly - associated with religious faith. This is so for political and cultural reasons, as well as the fact that we’re at war. The Corps also has a culture that means as much to its members as many organized religions do to their adherents. > [@](#): > > Now whether or not it’s Deco is another question It’s anything but. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663/35 "2009-11-18T02:57:10Z")
[“The Gernsback Continuum,”](http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1988/1/1988_1_34.shtml) by Bruce Sterling. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-art-deco-be-revived/516663.md?page=1)