The Chrysler Building

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The Chrysler Building

The beginnings of the Art Deco era were planted well in advance to the 1925 Paris Exposition, whence the term Art Deco is derived, as early as the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, when Art Nouveau still reigned in supreme. This highly nature inspired, curvilinear and asymmetrical style experienced its golden days at the 1900 ‘Exposition Universelle’, which also took place in Paris, but the style’s decline began soon afterwards due to the rise in industrialisation. The phrase ‘Art Deco’ evokes a whole range of images and ideas to many people; elegant Parisian furnishings, streamlined minimalist designs, and glittering Manhattan skyscrapers. The style is often characterised by rich colours, lavish ornamentation, and geometric shapes. Art Deco emerged from the interwar period when rapid industrialisation and advances in technology were transforming culture. This distinguishes Art Deco from the organic motifs favoured by its predecessor Art Nouveau. Historian Bevis Hiller defined Art Deco as ‘an assertively modern style that ran to symmetry rather …show more content…

The highly ornamented, 1046ft structure was completed by 1930, with its soaring tower dramatically covered in shiny nickel-chromed steel, in a design of layering arcs, divided by triangular windows. Underneath this gleaming sector of the building, at the 59th floor, eight stylised steel eagles play the roles of modernist gargoyles; and even lower at the 31st floor, the exterior brickwork creates a pattern of streamlined automobiles. The Chrysler Building is clad in white brick and dark gray brickwork, used to enhance the window rows. The eccentric crescent-shaped steps leading to the spire were made of stainless steel as a stylised sunburst

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