Art Deco vs Stripped Classicism
アール・デコ / ストリップト・クラシシズム
Art Deco comes from Historical Styles and Stripped Classicism from Modern Architecture. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Art Deco
Stages urban luxury with repeating geometry and a metallic sheen.
Stripped Classicism
The manner of government and memorial building in which classical architecture is shorn of ornament, leaving only proportion, axis and the rhythm of the columns. That it still reads as classical without ornament made it a cheap means of speaking authority. Important as a case in which the minimal and the intimidating live together.
| Art Deco | Stripped Classicism | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1920s–1930s | 1920s–1950s |
| Family | Historical Styles | Modern Architecture |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Symmetry / Radiating lines / Stepped motifs / Gold and black | The rhythm of columns stripped of ornament / A strong axis and symmetry / Smooth planes of stone / Walls without large openings |
| Best used for | Giving an event a sense of occasion · Producing instant classic luxury | Institutional identity for courts, banks and archives, where permanence has to be signalled with almost no elements · A cautionary reference in brand work: the devices that read as timeless minimalism are the same ones that read as state power |
| Type | Tall, narrow geometric display type | Incised roman capitals, widely spaced, centred on the axis and stated once only. |
| Composition | Centered, symmetrical composition | Bilateral symmetry with the entrance on the axis, a tall base, an unbroken wall and a heavy uninterrupted cornice line. |
| Material | Black, gold, ivory; repeated hairlines | Large ashlar limestone or granite, honed flat, with joints fine enough that the wall reads as one continuous surface. |
| Caution | Too much ornament turns theme-park. Let white space carry the dignity. | Reaching for it because it looks austere and expensive: the symmetry and the blank wall make a claim of authority whether or not you intended one. |