Thesis Title: Aestheticizing Mobil ities: Art Deco and the Fashioning of Interwar Public Cultures
Art Deco\, as a mode of design\, was a response to the conditions of pos t-World War I modernity\, including the advent of “mass” culture\, a desire for a return to order\, and an intense interest in mobility—physical/geogr aphical\, conceptual\, temporal\, and social. This thesis argues that mobi lity lies at the heart of Art Deco as it fashioned public cultural spaces t hroughout the globe in the interwar years. Both the iconography and genera l formal qualities (whether zig-zag forms popular in the 1920s or streamlin ing of the 1930s) evinced the idea of movement\, which suited the optimism of the 1920s as well as a desire for control in the period of socio-politic al unrest caused by the Depression.
This thesis explores some of the socio-political ramifications of the style as it entered the patterns and s paces of everyday life (i.e.\, lifestyle). The imaging of mobility so appa rent on the surfaces of Art Deco points to the larger\, interpenetrating sy stems of mobility that underpin the fabrication of modern public cultures. These “mobilities” included migration\, transportation\, commodity exchang e\, capital\, and communication (notably print\, film\, and radio\, but als o fashion\, design\, and architecture). While the Deco appeared “new” in a manner consonant with the sense of immediacy (even fashionability) brought about by these mobilities\, and optimistically gestured to a new world in the future-present\, the style ultimately reinscribed the pre-existing soci al order. It was a cosmopolitan style: traditional yet modern\, “worldly” in appearance yet local.
This thesis travels through a number of diff erent spaces\, envisioning Art Deco as a kind of crossroads—a style of flow and intermixture yet stability. While celebrating mobility\, the Deco oft en masked other forms of (im)mobility. I examine these concepts in relatio n to the Marine Building in Vancouver\, Bullock’s Wilshire department store in Los Angeles\, the Regal and Eros cinemas in Bombay (Mumbai)\, and the d esign of radio cabinets in Canada. In so doing\, the thesis suggests the r each of the Deco into everyday life and across the globe\, and offers a new way to approach a style that is most often associated with the frivolous b y emphasizing its socio-political implications.
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