Precisionism vs Streamline Moderne

プレシジョニズム / ストリームライン・モダン

Precisionism comes from American Modern Art and Streamline Moderne from Modern Architecture. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with different intent, which is the fastest way to tell them apart.

Precisionism

Precisionism — デムース『私のエジプト』1927 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainPrecisionism — シーラー『交差するコンベア』1927 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainPrecisionism — デムース『金色の5』1928 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Paints factories, silos, cities and machines reduced to clear contour, simple geometry and smooth planes.

Streamline Moderne

Streamline Moderne — グレイハウンド・バスターミナル 1938（CC BY 4.0）Streamline Moderne — コード810 1936 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainStreamline Moderne — エアストリーム・トレーラー 1956（CC BY 2.0）

Gives even stationary things speed and machine-age optimism through streamlines, horizontals, rounded corners and metal.

PrecisionismStreamline Moderne
Era1910s–1940s1930s–1940s
FamilyAmerican Modern ArtModern Architecture
KindStyleStyle
CuesSharp contours / Industrial landscapes / Geometric simplification / Smooth surfacesStreamlined forms / Horizontal bands / Rounded corners / Chrome
Best used forRendering factories and warehouses as ordered and quiet images · Showing industrial structure as form, with no people in the frameGiving stationary buildings or equipment an impression of speed · Shaping appliances or vehicle bodies as one mass with fewer joints
TypeKeep only the lettering already on the building and add noneWide horizontal letterforms carried sideways by speed lines
CompositionBuild on horizontals and verticals, split planes with hard diagonal shadowsRun horizontal bands, round every corner, align openings wide
MaterialSmooth paint with no visible stroke, grey to white tones, hard lightChrome, opal glass, curved metal panels with the joints hidden
CautionCleaning up contours without deciding where the light comes from leaves the planes unexplained, and the picture flattens into a technical drawing.Curves and horizontals added without any functional reason become a pattern that merely looks fast, no different from the ornament they replaced.

Put these two together

American Modern Art ／ Modern Architecture

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