1925, When Art Deco Seduced the World (hardcover)

Catalog of the exhibition “1925, When Art Deco Seduced the World” at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Paris, from October 16, 2013 to February 17, 2014

1925 is a historic date which, for the French, is associated with the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris, an illustration of glory and a rediscovered power, an illusion of universal peace. Although it was not the most significant of French exhibitions, it would be, despite the criticism, the one that would have the most impact and, without doubt, the greatest influence in the world. Many French architects and decorators were called to major international projects in the decade that followed. French embassies and ocean liners were their Trojan horse.

After the desolation of the First World War, reconstruction saw the first examples of the new style appear. In 1925, you had to be modern. The development of aviation and automobiles required it, as the first garages and aerodromes emerged. Art Deco is often associated with luxury but it also influenced the design of inexpensive housing and garden cities. Department stores and boutiques were developing and creating their decoration lines.

The modern woman appeared. She was embodied by the flapper who smoked, drove, flew planes and chose her own architect-decorator. She did not forget to be elegant, and the couturiers, friends of the architects, invented sportswear for her. The foreigners in Montparnasse, because Paris 1925 was the center of the world, introduced a new leavening into the old dough. Cubism too, with a call to a geometric order of squares, diamonds and zig-zags, but Joséphine Baker, dropping her banana belt for a moment, set the record straight by recalling what modern art and the new movement owed to African culture.

More than a date, 1925 is therefore a state of mind: how the “Roaring Twenties” followed on from the “Belle Époque”, Art Deco from Art Nouveau, and also how, through this apparent continuity, the characteristics of a global, modern art that was impatient to blossom were emerging and asserting themselves. This Art Deco movement, born in the Champagne of a newfound peace, will be hailed for its glamor and its invention, adopted and adapted by each country, in an ever-renewed effervescence of patterns, shapes and colors. Today, the Art Deco Society around the world, wishing to preserve and keep the memory of this common heritage, recalls its radiant universality.

• 24 x 28 cm
• 288 pages
• 450 illustrations
• Hardcover
• ISBN: 978-2-9155-4255-4
• With the Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine

Text in French only

Emmanuel Bréon. Conservateur en chef du patrimoine, chef du département des peintures murales et des vitraux du musée des Monuments français à la Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, il est le créateur du musée des Années 30 de Boulogne-Billancourt en 2002 et le créateur du musée Paul Belmondo et de la sculpture figurative du xxème siècle, inauguré en septembre 2010. Il a été directeur du musée national de l’Orangerie de 2008 à 2011. Son exposition « Ruhlmann, Genius of Art Déco », présentée au Metropolitan Museum of Art à New York en 2004, lui a notamment valu de recevoir le prix de la Critique à New York.

Philippe Rivoirard. Architecte DPLG, historien de l’architecture des années 30 et enseignant à l’ENSA Paris-Val de Seine, il a été co-commissaire des expositions « L’Architecture des années 30 à Paris » et « Cinquantenaire de l’Exposition Internationale de Paris 1937 ». Il est auteur de divers articles et notamment de Mettre en scène l’architecture, dans le catalogue de l’exposition Tamara de Lempicka et La Modernité à l’Exposition des arts décoratifs de Paris. 1925.