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The Memorial House Kolašin Montenegro Marko-Mušič

@Barbican_City_of_London

It’s got to be all about Art Deco and its enduri

It’s got to be all about Art Deco and its enduring impact, on the 100th Anniversary of the Paris Exposition. This is the Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica, architect M. Eugene Durfee. It welcomed its first guest in 1933 and became a favourite with stars and gangsters- and as we’d expect under the circumstances, had a secret speakeasy during the prohibition era. Back in ‘33 Santa Monica was a sleepy backwater far away from the prying eyes of Los Angeles gossip columnists, however that changed quickly and amongst its notable guests over the years were Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Bugsy Segel, Al Capone and Fatty Arbuckle. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Santa Monica began to expand to became the seaside resort city it is today. The hotel has had its fair share of ups and downs in the intervening years and was even a retirement home at one point. In 2020 its new owner planned the now completed renovation and today it’s clearly returned to former Deco glory. Image Americo Toledano CC BY SA 4.0

Ludwig Leo’s Umlauftank 2 in Berlin, a research

Ludwig Leo’s Umlauftank 2 in Berlin, a research structure developed by the Research Institute for Water and Ship Construction at the Technical University of Berlin. Why paint it pink? Why not! Image Gunnar Klack CC BY SA 4.0

Hotel Marcel - the former Pirelli Tire Building de

Hotel Marcel - the former Pirelli Tire Building designed by Marcel Breuer in the late 1960s brought back to life by Becker & Becker. Born in 1902 in Pécs Hungary, Marcel Breuer began his artistic career as scholarship student in Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts. ‘Lajkó’ stayed briefly before switching to an architecture apprenticeship. Again he left and in 1921 he headed to the Bauhaus in Weimar studying under Johannes Itten. Attending the school’s director Walter Gropius’ carpentry classes he was spotted as an exceptional student and Gropius gave him an apprenticeship in his firm, which led to Breuer creating the furniture for Gropius’ Sommerfeld House project in Berlin. This was the beginning of a long collaboration. When Breuer completed his studies he joined Pierre Chareau’s office in Paris but the offer of a role as Bauhaus Junior Master in the Carpentry Department took him back to Germany. He stayed for 3 years during which time he is credited as the first designer to create a chair capable of production for a domestic market using tubular steel. Working in industry pivoted him into the commercial world, perhaps he would have stayed in Germany until the political situation ignited and it was no longer safe for him to remain in Germany because of his heritage. His return to Hungary in 1934 was hampered by his inability to obtain his certificate to practice from the Hungarian Chamber of Architects (due entirely to the fevered political climate). He briefly went into partnership with Farkas Molnar and Joszef Fischer until 1935 when he followed Gropius & Moholy-Nagy to London to work for Jack Prichard’s Isokon Company. Here he designed the plywood long chair. Gropius left for the US and became Director of the Department of Architecture at Harvard. Breuer followed teaching in the Grad School of Design 1937-1946. Breuer set up his own practice in Cambridge Massachusetts and later New York. His career went from strength to strength and to be honest its hard to pick out a ‘best of’ post-war selection from one of the 20th century’s greatest modernists, but the Pirelli Tire building is without doubt a stand out example. Photo with thanks to @modarchitecture

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