Industrial design has been an interest of mine ever since I discovered the
Streamlined period that began in America around 1927, created by the
newly named "industrial designers" such as Norman Bel Geddes, Raymond
Lowey, Kem Weber, Buckminster Fuller and others as a way for manufacture's
to sell more products during an economic downturn at that time.
Even though it had evolved from, and was influenced by the much
more geometric Art Deco period, from 1925 though about 1931, the Streamline
style (aka Streamline Modérne when referring to architecture) was simpler,
flatter and had more sensual, curvilinear shapes and forms, instead
of the ubiquitous bias-relief, hard edged, geometrics of Deco.
Art Deco Building - Detail
As an architectural style, to me, Streamlined Modérne echoes
the beauty of the female form (which is probably my attraction to it) and
in America it became a lot more popular than pure, European Art Deco
which been introduced to the world at the Paris Exhibition of 1925.....
....officially entitled the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs
et Industriels Moderns. Other notable features of the Streamline Modérne
style are the rows of uniformly sized and shaped, horizontal windows,
with the only decoration usually being a set of three, horizontal,
"speed lines" here and there or a round, "port-hole" style window
strategically placed just right for a pronounced, yet uniform effect.
That said, after spending more time in San Francisco lately, I
also began to notice lots of other very interesting and historical
architecture as well, and have began to take photos of them too.
This has actually led to researching other architectural styles,
so that I can identify what I'm looking at, and if you keep
checking back you'll start to see some of that work as well.
