Decorative Art 1920s

Highlights from Decorative Art, The Studio Yearbook

TASCHEN's Decorative Arts series, whose six installments span the 20th century up through the 1970s, carefully reproduces the best of Decorative Art, The Studio Yearbook. Published annually from 1906 until 1980, the yearbook was dedicated to the latest currents in architecture, interiors, furniture, lighting, glassware, textiles, metalware, and ceramics. Since the publications went out of print, the now hard-to-find yearbooks have become highly prized by collectors and dealers. Preserving the yearbooks' original page layouts, TASCHEN's Decorative Arts books bring you the authentic experience of each decade's design trends and styles.

With Decorative Arts 1920s, zoom back to the Roaring Twenties, a time of great optimism and technological progress which saw the birth of new materials and styles in building and design. The Art Deco movement, a great departure from Art Nouveau, surfaced in the early 20s, drawing influences from Futurism, Cubism, Neo-Classicism, and Egyptian and African Art. While Art Deco, flaunting excess and luxury, largely dominated the style of the 1920s, another new movement, Modernism, began to make itself known by the end of the decade. For the first time, materials such as concrete, plate glass, and tubular metal were beginning to appear; following the dictum "form follows function," utilitarian simplicity and classic geometry were the Modernists` driving principles, as seen in the work of Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Ludwig Mies van de Rohe, to name a few.

This volume offers a fabulous tour through the groundbreaking innovations of interior design and architecture in the century's wildest decade, from the spirit of the Jazz Age to the cool simplicity of Le Corbusier`s early "machines for living."

The editors: Charlotte J. and Peter M. Fiell run a design consultancy in London specializing in the sale, acquisition, study and promotion of design artifacts. They have lectured widely, curated a number of exhibitions, and written numerous articles and books on design and designers, including TASCHEN`S 1000 Lights, 1000 Chairs, Design of the 20th Century, Industrial Design A-Z, Designing the 21st Century, and Scandinavian Design.