The Design Brief in progress.

Indian Design sensibility. When it comes to design, in a space/product relation, how can one with minimum intervention sprinkle the Indian flavor on things? A character that goes beyond “just surface Indianization.” Today all around, I’m witnessing a gamut of things and products declaring their Indian character; designers basking under the sun of creativity and the tag of creators. But the design of a majority of things being sold under the tag “Indian design” is very superficial.

However, a general description of the modern architecture in urban India today would be confused structures of mortar and other construction materials stuck together stripped of thought and ideology. “Aesthetics and design language” go in for a toss in the so termed hasty cost-saving battle. Things that seem beautiful and meaningful unfortunately many a times are replicas or inspired unethically from foreign sources. True intelligent design suiting the context seems a rarity.

The high-end furniture market in the country, with the skill-sets of craftsmen developed over centuries in a variety of product/material techniques and the cheap labor that is available can become the revolution today. It will be pleasing to attach the words - “quality products, original design and efficient production” to the country, a title that Europe has enjoyed since long.

As far as my part is concerned here, I’m on a ride to study the Art Deco to design further.

Deco movement/style is still modern against the sensibility of today and is a movement which accounts to very few that touched the country in whatever restricted way.

In the 1920s and 1930s in India, it appealed to the novelty-Indians who were albeit traditional in many respects but receptive to the foreign values traditions and visual and artistic influences. Adopting to the western lifestyle, traveling to Europe to enjoy season, sightseeing and paying homage to their sovereign, the elite Indian was embracing it with open arms.

Deco cosmopolitanism, sophisticated styling, associations with luxury and glamour and conscious machine age aesthetics appealed to rich India. However the Indian Deco scenario was highly restricted and influenced greatly by French art and style and had little to do with India. The colors, motifs, forms, stories and ideologies here were foreign in approach and showed little references to the place it came to. It was the exact Deco of Europe that had set itself in the country, non-affected by the strong personality of India. Bombay was exposed to European currents in fashion transmitted by regular waves of people who arrived there, including architects and designers in search of work. Prosperous Business people, whose success under British rule had given them a high regard for western thinking, were particularly receptive to the European taste and it was precisely this group that financed the development of the city.

The Coming of Art deco ideas in the city epitomized modernity, reflecting it visually in its new architecture, whose elegant streamlines forms, sparse put potent ornament and machine aesthetics glamorized the new age and its technologies. Although the social and cultural conditions that inspired the art deco in the west was largely absent in the Indian social and cultural environment, yet Art deco opened minds and gave way to the idea of modernism here.

However, the rich Indian dictionary of culture, design, motifs, architecture and other such “could-be” inspirations were not utilized in this cultural revival. A foreign concept, it came and pasted itself onto the Indian background without much alterations and considerations.

A great Art deco palace built between the 1931 and 1944 , the new palace in Morvi is a carnival of de luxe Art deco commissioned by maharaja Mahendrasinhji Lakhdiraj. The exterior of pink plaster defined by strong horizontal lines accentuates the building’s architecture embracing the horizontal with its long and low structure and curved corners. Borrowing from the styles of the ocean liners, luxury hotels and cinema interiors of the period, the palace exemplifies a charmed living in the cocktail age.

“The new palace with its clean, functional and unimaginative appearance belongs in inspiration firmly to the age of pre-stressed concrete rather than to the age of distressed stone, even though it is in fact constructed of the local granite. Inside however, the princely India is having its last fling. Six drawing rooms, six dining rooms and fourteen bedrooms jostle for space with swimming pool, card room, billiard room and bar. The rooms decorated and designed in art deco style, even down to such details as tubular-framed furniture are pure European in taste. Lifts descend to a subterranean bedroom decorated with erotic murals, and a bathroom made of seashells.”-(The Palaces of India By the Maharaja Of Baroda.)The “Indianness” in the deco tradition is restricted only to the artworks with manipulated Indian themes. (pics from the book Palaces of India by maharaja of baroda)

Another stylish Art Deco royal residence was Manik Bagh, commissioned by Yeshwant Rao Holgar, the Maharaja of Indore in 1930. This new palace in Indore, stands besides the old, in the centre of the city. It is said to be synonymous with the Maharani, whom a British officer once described as,” very much the type of modern English public-school girl, a good tennis player and very up-to-date in fashions of dress”

“Society painter Bernard boutet de monvel’s portraits of the prince in traditional Maratha and western evening dress captures his elegant and self –assured style in both worlds.”

An art enthusiast, oriented towards the Western avant-grade in Paris, heir to the ancient Holkar family, Yeshwant Rao Holkar had the palace decorated by the architect Eckart Muthesius, of the same age, with technical and aesthetic refinements; darkly tinted and clear window panes in metal frames for regulating the light of day, the first air conditioning system in India, unusually simple furniture of wood and metal, pictorial carpets, lighting fixtures as light sculptures, walls treated in alternating colors, Para vents as cubist paintings in space. Art for living made a fairy tale palace of modernism in India come true.

Ruhlmann, Wassali Luckhardt, Micheal Dufet and Eileen gray are a few names from which the interior elements were sourced. The interiors of Manik Bagh featured both highly simplified, functional, serially produced furniture and more decorative, individual pieces in exotic materials in the high French style.

Another Art deco masterpiece, Umaid Bhawan, in Jodhpur was build by maharaja Umaid Singh between 1929 to 1944 as an employment project during the period of prolonged droughts. The palace architecture is a curious synthesis of Art Deco and indigenous architectural and decorative traditions.

The architectural detailing of Umaid Bhawan is principally Indian, but the clean lines and streamlined, cool treatment of sculptural elements are entirely Deco in style. Although there was a peek of Indian influence in the architecture, motifs, soft furnishings, murals and paintings visible in the Palace but the furniture and the interior still were a European statement.

However in viewing this style/movement under the lens today, replicating it or even following the same lines of design makes no sense. If art Deco in India has to be reinterpreted today, it’ll be of a little altered nature. The ability to assimilate and modernize local decorative traditions of the style can be very well used to design and re-design objects which stand for the “new” and the “modern” and yet have a flair of India in them.

“In the spirit of the Deco for the search of the “modernistic,” receptive to changing times, yet respecting the traditions and techniques of the past- the new Indo-deco derives itself from the luxuriant and elegant French taste but transformed by regional influences. The style is for the modern Indian house, following the French Deco traditions- clean lines, restrained stylized decorations and simplistic. The Indianess of the furniture comes from the form, technique or the materials that India has to provide.”

Art Deco Features

Exterior features of art deco structures:

Stepped back features, but the roofs have only flat rooflines. If a skyscraper appears to have a taper it is usually the exterior lines, and not the actual roof itself. The architecture often includes balconies and roof over-hangings to compliment the exterior lines of the building.

Devoid of decorations elsewhere, art deco buildings tend to have ornate entranceways. Hence a building having a rather austere exterior, yet with a somewhat grand and ornate entranceway, might indicate an art deco structure.

Materials and Colors

Ornamented with trims and moldings in terra cotta tiles, glass blocks, aluminum, colored glass or stainless steel the exterior structure of an art deco building would usually be in concrete, stucco or brick.

glazed terra-cotta, Vitrolite, ceramic or gloss metallic panels and glass brick.

Art deco structures exhibit a subdued color palette mostly – tans, crèmes, whites or exposed concrete color.The ornamentation or trims are often in pastel colors: warm pinks, mint or light green, peaches and mauves. But a stark contrast is also visible at times when the trims go on to the other side of a spectrum, exhibiting a bold look of black shiny aluminum or stainless steel.

Combinations in contrasting colors, color which deviate slightly from each other, rich deep non related colors – cobalt blue, deep, dark, fiery red, sparse rich or subtle bold; Art deco ornamentation exhibits a wide style.

Unlike the predecessor Noveau, Deco architects believed in working with the natural beauty of the structure and using the ornamental detail to highlight the overall aesthetic of the building, rather than overpowering and cluttering with excessive details.

Windows

Porthole, resembling the round windows found on an ocean liner it pursued a nautical look.

Eg. Coca cola plant building in LA. But an Art deco building, especially home designs, will only employ the use of a single porthole window to highlight the same nautical theme.

Other windows style varied with the kind of art deco treatment that the building followed. E.g. in Jazz-age deco, the windows were shaped to compliment the verticality of the building, taking the form of tall slender bay windows.

Whereas in Streamline Deco the openings tended to be long, ribbon like windows that fit into the streamlined shape of the exterior.

Bauhaus, a style that competed with Art deco in the same period also had the similar long, slender windows incorporated in the structures. But Deco windows often flowed with the exterior of the buildings wrapping around at the edges and the corners of the buildings. The international style or Bauhaus was box-like and had little fluidity in its exterior lines. Streamline Moderne deco windows were evidenced by the use of curved glass or glass block which followed the smooth lines of the buildings exterior shape contributing to the buildings grace.

DECO ENTERS THE ORDINARY LANDSCAPE

By the mid 1930s, Art Deco architecture shifted from an elite style to a more broadly accepted form of architecture. It began to appear in far more prosaic structures, such as diners and gas stations. The common stainless steel diners, found across the American cultural landscape reflect the horizontal expression and the look of motion attributed to Streamline Moderne Deco. Society had become enamored with speed and motion, and the Streamline Moderne diners, with their rakish appearance, had the look of "built in motion." The Art Deco styled diner, sheathed in stainless steel, looked like a dining car speeding down the railroad track, and became a permanent fixture of the ordinary cultural landscape. Diners became an American icon. The classic "diner look" conjured up an image of a certain menu, the availability of comfort food, and fast efficient service; attributes which are still associated with diners to the present day. Businesses utilized the Streamline Moderne Art Deco as a way of advertising a business establishment. In this manner, many Art Deco gas stations were built with a consistent appearance according to standards adopted by oil companies. Texaco service stations, for example, created a corporate image based on designs by Walter Teague in 1937. Teague utilized the clean lines of Streamline Moderne to create an image of cleanliness and service efficiency. More importantly, due to the universal appearance of Texaco's White "Oasis" service stations, with their distinctive three green "Speed Stripes" encasing the station, motorists were able to recognize a Texaco station from a distance and before a competitor's. This consistent appearance would be associated to consistent service in the minds of customers. Thus, Art Deco helped foster the "iconization" of American business. Through icons, businesses were able to build a competitive advantage over competitors that lacked an established image or a recognizable corporate symbol.

Just as the Chrysler Building is the epitome of the earlier era, the Coca-Cola bottling plant of Los Angeles is a wonderful example of the horizontal motion associated with Streamline Moderne Deco structures. With its portholes as windows, and a ship's bridge for navigating, the bottling plant gives the appearance of an ocean liner. Although the building is firmly rooted in a sea of concrete and blacktop, it looks as though it could navigate the sprawling urban landscape of Los Angeles.

CRAFT VS MANUFACTURING (the CHICAGO WORLD FAIR 1933)

Although Art Deco had European origins, it was America that modified it and embraced its wide appeal. By the late 1920s, American architects had great success incorporating Art Deco architecture into the cultural landscape of major urban centers. American architectural influence continued into the 1930s, increasingly becoming a world center of creative design. U.S. Designers forged new paths, even with the onset of the Great Depression -- achieving ultimate pre-eminence with the Chicago World's Fair of 1933. Its theme was, "The Century of Progress". Nowhere was this progress more evident than in the United States. In Europe, the wide distribution of Art Deco products was hampered by being tied to the handwork of craftsmen and artisans, who essentially created the "look" of Art Deco through meticulous skill, as shown by a silver tea service set. Made of fine silver and ebony handles, it exhibited at the Paris Exposition in 1925. Its production was limited, however, due to the fact that it was essentially hand made. In America, Art Deco designs were being integrally linked to the industrial complex. Taking inspiration from the auto and aircraft industries, products and buildings were designed in the new elegant style, yet made available to the masses through the efficiencies of machine production. This contrast between crafts from Europe and manufacturing from America was highlighted at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933.

The streamlining of America

With the articulation of the new concept of streamlining by Norman Bel Geddes, in 1932, the look and functionality of every consumer product changed, allowing the manufacturer to produce goods as efficiently as possible and with a clean uncluttered appearance.

The U. S. automobile industry took the streamline trend to heart, both as an outward appearance and an enhancement to performance that the style afforded. Although often perceived by the buying public as simply a visual effect, this new style was built for speed and motion. The epitome of this expression was found in aviation's DC-3, an airplane design conceptualized to be "Streamlined.”

The DC-3, manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Corporation, exhibited a new shape--aerodynamic and aesthetically beautiful .It gave credence to the expression "Form follows Function." Rid of any unnecessary detailing and features that would adversely affect its performance, the DC-3 set new standards for aviation efficiency and flight. Unlike planes that preceded it, the DC-3's single wing, void of external supports, produced considerably less aerodynamic drag. Compared to the Ford Tri-Motor, the DC-3's wing surfaces were of smooth, rolled aluminum, while rippled metal encased the Tri-Motor. This allowed the DC-3 to use only two engines while achieving still better operating performance than the Tri-Motor. Clearly, "streamlining" the design was not just for appearance.

The Streamlining trend in American design was quickly embraced by architects and led ultimately to the United States becoming more of an innovator of style rather than the imitator. No longer was Europe viewed as the premier center of design and architecture. As America in the 1930s churned out new mass-produced products, impressively scaled structures and new fashion trends, the world took notice. Art Deco had reached its most sublime form of expression. "Simple lines are beautiful," wrote Paul T. Frankl, a noted industrial designer of the Art Deco era.

"Streamline Deco" tended to be utilized by structures that were an integral part of an efficient way of life, whether at work or at home. Many factories constructed in the Art Deco era were shrouded in Streamline Deco. Similar to the Jazz-age bank buildings, factories designed in Streamline Deco conveyed to the public more than just a factory that provided employment. Such styling announced that here was an efficient manufacturing center, a place where" products would be produced in the most modem and productive manner possible.

THE STREAMLINE MODERNA PHASE OF ART DECO ARCHITECTURE

The second later phase of Art Deco styling coincides with the economic pressure that plunged the world into crisis in the 1930s. The economic depression forced designers to build their products in the new "cleaner" lines of the "Depression Deco" phase of the Art Deco movement. Other synonymous names for this Art Deco period are the "Streamline Moderne," and "Art Moderne." Buildings created after the onset of the Great Depression were called "Streamline" because of an emphasis on the horizontal, uncluttered stream of the exterior. The look of Streamline Moderne was increasingly austere, and aerodynamic. The demand for cost savings made "Depression Deco" almost void of ornamentation, other than details incorporated into the actual structure. Where "Zig-zag Deco" emphasized verticality, "Streamline Deco" emphasized the horizontal. While "Jazz-age Deco" was rectilinear, "Depression Deco" was more curvilinear with graceful, smooth exterior lines.

JAZZ DECO

Jazz deco was also the preferred style when built by the corporate America to impress. These structures exuded prestige and stability, yet also progressiveness. Numerous banks were designed in Art deco. Although being conservative in regards to style, in 1920s banks were trying to lure customers by creating a new look for their traditional bank buildings. No bank or business house that claimed progressiveness would stay in quarters that were cluttered and unattractive.

A large part of the appeal to patronage is based on the building that it occupies (Auger, Sept. 1931: 266)." Jazz-age Deco fit perfectly. Through this style, a bank could give the impression of being stylistic in an understated way. The facades of many of the Jazz-age Deco bank buildings are impressive in their geometric styles and the rich, subtle detailing that evokes a restrained elegance befitting a financial institution. Other structures that tended to apply the Jazz-age Deco style included many corporate headquarters buildings; especially those involved with new burgeoning industries such as automotive, electric utilities, and communication companies.

With the Jazz-age Deco, these promising new industries were able to convey the message that they were enterprises that would be a stable part of the economy and were destined to play prominent roles well into the future of modem society.