Streamline Moderne Design in the height of the Great Depression made clear that they didn’t want to be stuck in the past, but adopt Consumer Culture and the radically new and different progressive design Transportation Infrastructure: that did not recall historical periods or ornamentation for decoration, but derived Design for the Twentieth inspiration inwardly from the spirit of that moment Century in that day. William Kowalik Developed following World War I in Europe Temple University and first exhibited in Paris, Art Deco was a response to the devastation of the continent following what was described as the “Great War”. Looking towards the future, designers for the upper-class created Situated in the time between World War I furnishings, decorative objects, and finishes in an and World War II, the design community sought a angular yet organic style. This however was not new design for a new century, free of the trappings entirely a departure from the past. Art Deco’s and encumbrances of the past. The impact of this organic design elements recalled the Art Nouveau new design idea would be far-reaching and serve as style of the previous two decades, with a more a remarkable milestone in the American experience, modern and urban influence (Meikle 93). Seeing ushering in modern contemporary mass-produced this as the en vogue style, it was quickly adopted by consumer culture, and stylistically and affluent Americans and American designers, who philosophically the successor to contemporary had little to show themselves at the 1925 exposition. design practice. The Art Deco style pioneered in the The Art Nouveau style’s association with the past years following World War I, exhibited at the was too great for it to be a sustainable design idea, L’Exposition Internationale des Artes Décoratifs et and by Art Deco still too similar though more Industriels Modernes of 1925 (translated to English removed. While Streamline Moderne is successor to as the International Exhibition of Modern and Art Deco, it existed in its earlier years concurrently Industrial Decorative Arts). Art Deco, while with the latter. It is a further abstraction of that certainly new, but was not entirely free of the style, rounding the angular edges, making the style ornamental motifs of the past. Additionally, Art less harsh and more approachable, and shaped by Deco prioritized the handcrafted, high-end, and the speed of progress. exclusive, providing exceptional design for those who could afford it. Similar in inspiration by speed and transportation, the Italian Futurist movement, by Streamlining was just that, stripping away artists such as Umberto Boccioni, which predates the excesses of the past, of even a just few years the Art Deco period are angular and aggressive prior. Streamline Moderne, also referred to as Art (White 105). One heavily linked idea of Futurism Moderne evolved from Art Deco as a more that is strongly correlated with Streamline Moderne accessible style that was influenced by that present is “dynamism”. While the figures, shapes, and moment, the fast paced, contemporary life, taking objects are angular, they are not static. These shapes cues from motion, speed, and transportation connote motion, much like in Streamlining. infrastructure—adopting an aerodynamic image. However, the futurists looked to the future but with Key to Streamline Moderne over Art Deco was the the same combative adherence to the past that widespread availability of items and products meant weighted the Art Deco style and its predecessors for everyday use by a far-reaching group of despite offering a vision of what was to come, it Americans. Defining elements of the Streamline nonetheless was also commentary on what had Moderne style as marketed to consumers are happened. Streamline Moderne is also influenced efficiency to fit into the fast-paced lives of the by and related to the Bauhaus. This German style users, not so different from marketing today. The was first cultivated and inspired much like Art Deco clean, rounded lines exude elegant simplicity and in the years following World War I, but more ease of use for the modern household. For those similar to the Streamlined Style that would follow. who could afford this forward-thinking new style at The Bauhaus promoted a universal set of design guidelines, and a commonality between all artistic It was at the World’s Fairs of 1933 in practices--architecture, decorative arts, furnishings, Chicago, and 1939 and New York; that the promise paintings, and other trades which prioritized of Streamline Moderne as a realized style was abstraction as a reflection of modern life (Maulsby presented to a global audience. Chicago’s Century 146). Lucy Maulsby speaks of the rise of “Mass of Progress Exposition promised a bold, bright Culture” and the relationship of modernity and how future to exhibition-goers. Featuring the people would live in it “in a fundamentally new Burlington’s Zephyr train, manufactured by the way of inhabiting the world” (Maulsby 147). The Budd Company of Philadelphia, the first streamline “freedom”, “anonymity”, and “sophistication” of designed train, Buckminster Fuller’s extraordinarily the Bauhaus, like Streamline Moderne appealed to futuristic Dymaxion Car Number 3, and the Americans (Maulsby 146). Chrysler Airflow (Hanks and Hoy 36). Each of these items exuded early on a sense of movement The accessibility, and perhaps mundane and dynamism, all in their names alone. The New nature of Streamline Moderne is what makes it York World’s Fair of 1939, similarly featured interesting because the extraordinarily significant streamlined design in every possible application, nature of what this style accomplished as far as continuing to demonstrate a model of the supposed advancing design forward, while remaining so future of the world, with the motto of “building the ubiquitous and ordinary. Architecture, furniture, world of tomorrow with the tools of today”, which decorative objects, automobiles and vehicles, and Hanks and Hoy describe as the “ultimate household appliances and fixtures all designed in endorsement for streamlining” (Hanks and Hoy 36). the Streamline Moderne style held a prominent This endorsement of streamlining as it was applied place in 1930s and 1940s American households. For to so many products and ideas was executed not the first time, a larger body of the American only in the name of progress, but progress for a population was exposed to and maybe able to afford cause. Streamline Moderne and the act of “good” design that was not only aesthetically “streamlining” as a verb, looking beyond the very considered, but also new tools for a new century basic tenet of increasing efficiency, sought to through time-saving products and transformative improve the lives and experiences of users. inventions, but also novelties of and for consumer fascination. Drawing inspiration from the pure forms of machinery, a preoccupation with the nature of Designers struggled to find a machine innovation was not a new concept by the 1930s. A aesthetic both intellectually defensible and similar predilection towards the enshrinement of the commercially viable. They sought a new “machine” was seen as a commanding force in the style that would honestly express the years following the American Civil War, as technological modernity of American life. evidenced by the 1876 Centennial Exposition in But that style also had to appeal to Philadelphia, and perhaps even earlier than that with consumers. (Meikle 113) the rise of the “Industrial Revolution”. A new modern industrial revolution was taking place that Streamlining was presented as hopeful, a clear and would dramatically alter the means by which proud statement about moving towards the future in Americans would purchase, look at, and interact the present day at that particular moment in time. with household objects and in the larger picture, Designers opted to make use of inexpensive and design as a whole. What is clear is a linear timeline readily available materials to manufacture these of industrial innovation that paved the way for consumer goods. The materials included were modern consumerism, sustained by desire for smooth materials found both in nature and man- objects to make life better and easier. It is in this made “such as plastics, composite metals, and wood realm of the domestic sphere at allowed Streamline laminates reflected the national obsession with Moderne to take off. speed at a time when efficiency and productivity were passwords to a fast-paced future” (Kardon 28). As a consumer culture assumed social The interest in streamline modern design pervaded dominance for the first time in history, the every aspect of design. commercial practice of design became more significant than ever. New products— automobiles, phonographs, radios, toasters, demonstrates that these products could all be washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum marketed the same way utilizing the same appeal. cleaners—had to be given forms reflecting modernity…Consumers had to decide how In Art and the Machine; An Account of much to modernize domestic surroundings. Industrial Design in 20th-century America, a book Would acquiring a modern-looking radio for written concurrently with the rise of Streamlining, the living room stimulate a desire to replace the authors’ words express the excitement that traditional furniture with something more streamlining offered not only to the consumer but in up-to-date? Or would it serve as a token of the greater context of the power and potential of modernity among the comforts of a design to serve as a representative mode of change: traditional interior? Or would timid consumers avoid modern styles and instead We are thrilled to be eyewitnesses to a select a radio disguised in eighteenth century battle for supremacy between two types of trappings? Manufacturers and designers had common carriers, as one epoch of railroad to determine what consumers wanted and domination ends and another begins to be then provide it—but with subtle innovations established, seeing historic significance in to keep them slightly off balance, disposed the struggle: a struggle which is intensified towards novelty and further consumption.