Paris-New York: Design Fashion Culture 1925-1940
Product Description
A burst of creative energy in the fields of architecture, design, and fashion characterized the years between the two World Wars. Shaping new styles of buildings and furnishings, redefining contemporary dress, and giving visual form to avant-garde performing arts, architects and designers forged a still-influential modern aesthetic. The era’s most creative figures rarely worked in isolation, preferring instead to participate in international dialogues that crossed national boundaries and linked capital cities in collaborative artistic enterprise.
No two cities engaged in a more fertile conversation than Paris and New York. The interchange between them was never simple, however, comprising in equal measure admiration and envy, respect and rivalry, as artists and designers in each city interpreted and incorporated principles of Art Deco, Cubism, the International Style, Neo-Romanticism, and Surrealism into their own practices.
Paris-New York: Design Fashion Culture 1925-1940
Written by admin under Fashion Books.
Igor Vander
October 27, 2010 at 11:49 am
There are so many books on the 20s, 30s and 40s….One can grow really skeptical of another one out there but I am definitely pleased with this purchase.
Paris/ New York. Design/ Fashion/ Culture/ 1925-1940 is a companion book to the exhibition under the same title that is going on right now at the Museum of the City of New York. If you do not have a chance to visit it – do not despair: the book does a great job of covering all the aspects of the exhibition and beyond that, it is that kind of a book in your library you will enjoy to read and look over again numerous times. However it is not an in-depth kind of a book on individual subjects of architecture, fashion, interior design, music and arts but rather an overview and introduction to the subjects in that period.
Richly illustrated, it can be a starting point of inspiring you to study that period’s design, fashion and culture more in depth and getting more material. The book actually offers the list of that material and notes in one of the final chapters.
Each part is an essay written by a different writer. You will find the following subjects of the exhibition reflected in the book after the preface and the introduction:
Metropolis In The Mirror: Planning Regional New York and Paris
Modernity and Tradition in Beaux-Arts New York
Beyond Metaphor: Skyscrapers Through Parisian Eyes
Africa on the Spiral: Jazz in New York and Paris Between the Wars
Fashion Showdown: New York versus Paris 1914-1941
The Longest Gangplank (about the Normandie ocean liner)
New York Haute Cuisine
Art Deco to American Modern at the 1929 Metropolitan Museum of Art Industrial Art Arts Exhibition
From Deco to Streamlined: Donald Deskey and Raymond Loewy
A Bridge to Postwar American Design: Gilbert Rohde and the 1937 Paris Exposition
Neo-Romantics
Further Reading and Notes
Index
Board of Trustees Museum of the City of New York
Photography credits
This book gives me the feeling that I actually took the whole exhibition from the museum back to my home.
Rating: 5 / 5
Claudia M. Strasser
October 27, 2010 at 1:27 pm
I just got this book and haven’t put it down. The photos are just sensational, and the text is both informative and interesting, something you don’t always find with these kinds of books. I got it while working on a story and it’s been indispensable. If you love great old interiors you will adore this book!
Rating: 5 / 5
Sacramento Book Review
October 27, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Paris/New York is a companion book to the currently running exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York (through Feb 22), and contains a wealth of information about the creative period between the World Wars. The artists, architects, fashion designers and others in New York City and Paris competed and collaborated in incorporating the new artistic techniques of Cubism, Art Deco, Neo-Romaticism and Surrealism in their work.
Albrecht is the curator of architecture and design at the Museum, and this collection of examples from his exhibit is almost (but not quite) as good as seeing it in person. Paris/New York is not an in depth review of the subjects or time, but instead a very good overview of the period. Each chapter has an essay by a different writer about a aspect of the cultural sharing between the cities, from Jazz to food. Albrecht also included a decent bibliography and notes from the chapters themselves. Anyone who enjoys the inter-war period will find this an enjoyable book to read and reference. And an encouragement to find an excuse to visit New York sometime before the end of February.
Rating: 5 / 5
Arnaud Gaudry
October 27, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Very well documented, interesting articles coevring a fascinating era. A very fine book with high quality prints and documents that may be difficult to find elsewhere. Perfect gift for those who love New York, Paris and the art-deco era.
Rating: 5 / 5