House styles 1940s

1940s interior design - the 8 most popular looks

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pam kueber - March 8, 2010, Updated: August 28, 2021

What are the key elements of 1940s interior design and decorating style? What colors, shapes, patterns and “feel” did we generally see in 1940s homes? And why? Based on the advertising illustrations and magazine articles that I’ve seen from the period, starting around 1946 to about 1953, what we typically call 1940s interior design had eight general characteristics.

Eight styles of 1940s home interior design:

Innocent
Sentimental
Sunny
Sanitary
Patriotic
Traditional-colonial revival
Hollywood glamour
Streamline Deco Jazz age

I write about each one of these design ideas in more detail below.

Special thanks to: Bradbury & Bradbury, which made this slide for me. It also showcases one of their 1940s reproduction wallpapers.

Disclaimer up front: I don’t have a degree in this – I’m a passionate observer, who is still “putting all the pieces into place. ”

Recovering and rebuilding after World War II dramatically affected 1940s interior design and the size of 1940s homes

In the immediate wake of the war’s end, there was a tremendous housing shortage. I’ve read that we needed to get 6 million homes built as quickly as possible. And I’ve even seen references indicating that the government was concerned that if we didn’t deal with the housing (and jobs) situation quickly enough, America’s young men would become restless and political – in a bad way. So, we built houses as fast as we could. Usually: Very small houses by today’s standards, no more than 1,000 s.f.

I also swear I’ve read somewhere that there were prohibitions on building more than one indoor bathroom at some point… I need to find the source.

Also, in terms of design, in this immediate postwar period, the “look” still tended to be similar to that of the late 1930s and wartime period. There had also been material shortages during the war, so manufacturers had put all their new-design work on hold. A good example: After the war, when Heywood Wakefield retooled its factories to again produce furniture, its Riviera line was really just the same, but with new handles, as the Rio line produced earlier.

Because of the shortage and ramping up from 1946 until 1953, these years are generally viewed at more “40s style” than “50s style.” (In his terrific book Populuxe, Thomas Hine looks at the 1953-1963 years, which were more exuberant.) So what did the 1946-1953 interior design look like? Here is additional explanation of the eight characteristics:

Innocent 1940s interior design:
When I look at some 1940s interior design and decor, I see a real sweetness. We still were a nation in which the masses did not have a lot of material affluence. No clutter, far less excess. Thanks to Kohler for this 1949 image from their archives, which, with its soft hand-painted illustration gets at the warmth and sentimentality of the period.
Sentimental 1940s interior design:
When the war ended, the nation was immensely grateful to have their men and women all back home. It had been five years of tremendous sacrifice. I see a lot of ads like this one, that celebrate the simple pleasures in life. Wallpaper is sweet, flowery. In fact, there was A LOT of wallpaper in 1940s interior design — it’s an essential!
Sunny 1940s colors:
Kind of same as above. There was so much to be grateful for, that we did not necessarily need “more stuff” to be happier. One other thought is that we still were a nation with a lot of farmers and apartment dwellers – the spaces were small, money was tight, and as a result, interiors and their decorative appointments were simpler.
Sanitary 1940s kitchen design:

White kitchen cabinets, or wood. Remember, we still were a nation concerned about vermin and disease, including polio. When your kitchen is white, you can see the dirt and crumbs — and get rid of them.
Patriotic 1940s decorating style:
I see a lot of red-white-blue kitchen color combinations in the kitchens of 1940s homes. I also see richer colors – full-on primary colors and jewel tones – than in the later 1950s pastel period. I’ll attribute this to carryover 1930s preferences and to the influence of Hollywood, but there may have been other factors — there often are, often related to technological innovation.
Traditional Colonial Revival 1940s furniture and interior design:
My mom, who grew up in the 1940s, says the furniture was all dark wood where she lived in Pennsylvania – the influence of Europe, she recalls. Of course, we also had Heywood Wakefield blonde – but we also had colonial maple from Heywood Wakefield, Cushman, Willett and scores if not hundreds of small regional manufacturers. The more I explore the history of interior design – of all eras – the more convinced I become that: We are a traditional nation.
Hollywood glamour 1940s decorating style:
Think Nick and Nora and the Thin Man. We did not get television until 1949… before that, our idols were often very glamorous. Remember women’s clothes from the 1940s – their hats and tailored suits and gloves and bags and hose, the whole very put-together thing? That’s the look I think of for 1940s bedrooms and living rooms – formal, very put together. In other rooms, we also may see large prints used on wallpaper and barkcloth pinch pleats, often tropical.
Streamline – deco – jazz age 1940s high-contrast color schemes:
In 1940s homes through to 1953, I think I see more high-contrast bathrooms. That is: black bullnose (or dark green or maroon bullnose, depending on the field tile color). These high-contrast color schemes are a carryover look from the streamline jazz age era.

Post-1953, the bullnose is less likely to be black and more likely to be the same color or a similarly toned contrast color, e.g. pink and mint, pink and robin’s egg, etc.

Which 1940s interior design style is

your favorite?

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1940s Interior Home Design

Lee Wallender

Lee has over two decades of hands-on experience remodeling, fixing, and improving homes, and has been providing home improvement advice for over 13 years.

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Updated on 07/05/20

Public Domain Mark 1.0

Home design in the 1940s, especially in the kitchen, represented a rapid shift. Older styles and materials were quickly replaced. New ideas took hold, and the kitchen was transformed.

Because of World War II restrictions, it would not be until the late 1940s and into the 1950s that many of these new materials found their way into home design. Chiefly, the rationing of metal adversely affected the production of steel kitchen cabinets.

Home design styles in the 1940s straddled the 20th century. On the one hand, kitchens were still fairly small. Linoleum was still widely used as a floor covering. Colors often hovered in the range of pastels. Iconographic shapes like scallops, sweeps, and curves were common. Unfinished pine was a favored inexpensive wood often used for kitchen cabinets. These were touches that hearkened back to an earlier, more innocent age before the war.

On the other hand, the sleek styles that would characterize the Jet Age period of the late 1950s and 1960s, while still on the horizon, would begin to occasionally show up. Large tempered plate glass found its way into higher-end homes. Some of these curves and scallops began to straighten out. Lines and planes were common.

01 of 08
1940s Home Design: a Transitional Period
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In this 1946 kitchen design, linoleum is the star since it is from a publication called Portfolio of Room Interiors, produced by Armstrong World Industries Inc. Three types of linoleum are combined to form this floor.
02 of 08
Curved Floorplan for 1940s Kitchen
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This uniquely designed kitchen works off of an oval shape to facilitate workflow. Sink, stove, and refrigerator are all within easy reach. Base cabinet open shelves help the cook locate and retrieve pans. Shades on the right side pull together to close off and hide part of the kitchen.
03 of 08
Blue 1940s Kitchen Full of Linoleum
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In this kitchen, linoleum is used not just for the flooring, but for the sink surround and countertops. Rarely is linoleum found on kitchen countertops, even in the 1940s. Yet the designer noted that linoleum here would be "clatterproof, easy to clean, and resistant to stain." Even the scalloped swags near the ceiling were cut from linoleum.
What You Should Know About Linoleum Flooring for Kitchens
04 of 08
1940s Home With a Knotty Pine Bathroom
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This bathroom from 1946 has been done in a Colonial style with knotty pine, scallops, and Shaker-inspired fabrics. Knotty pine was often used in kitchens at the time, but was not often found as an element in bathrooms. The rectangle to the very left of the picture, right above the magazine rack, is a medicine cabinet.
05 of 08
Regency Moderne 1940s Bathroom
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This 1940s bathroom is the epitome of modern and sophisticated. It is a Hollywood Regency, or Regency Moderne, style made on the cheap with linoleum flooring and other inexpensive materials.
Much of the furniture is made of furniture-grade plywood. Plywood as a design element is popular once again. In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, higher grade plywood was often used to make nightstands, beds, cabinets, and chairs. Edges would be rounded off with a router, sanded down, and lacquered to help smooth them down.
The shower is enclosed in a glass cabinet and with a curtain at the door.
06 of 08
1940s Dining Room
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This 1940s dining room style is up for interpretation. The crenelated, appliqued gold pattern along the table cloth has a definite Grecian flavor. Yet the room designer calls this crenellation a "Chinese fret design." In any case, this dining room's purple-on-gold bold color scheme catches the eye and makes for lively conversation.
07 of 08
1940s Children's Bedroom with Nested Beds
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The custom linoleum lets us know the bedroom belongs to none other than Tom, Dick, and Larry. At that time, it was possible to order customized linoleum flooring with special name plate inserts from the Armstrong factory.
To save space in this children's bedroom, these three beds become one. In the morning, the middle bed slides under the tall bed, and the short bed slides under the other two beds.
Shelves behind the beds are staged proportionate to the height of each bed.
A movable ladder helps the children access the upper cabinets.
08 of 08
1940s Home Foyer Design
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In a period when books frequently lined the walls of homes, this 1940s home has a solid wall of books along the staircase. It's a classic look with bright, bold-statement splashes of red against blue that help catch visitors' attention the very moment they enter the home.
What Is Modern Architecture?

Interior of a mid-century house from 1940

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

This mansion, built in 1940, is located in one of the most prestigious areas of Madrid, El Viso. Previously, there was social housing for workers and civil servants. The houses for them were built under the project of the architect Rafael Bergamin (Rafael Bergamín), their architecture has features of the international style - with laconic geometry and flat roofs, painted in different colors.

Canteen. Table, Ethnicraft. Chairs, vintage. Carpet, IKEA. Lamps, design, Arne Jacobsen, Louis Poulsen. On the wall is a triptych by Iker Ochotorena.

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

Living room. Brass coffee table, e15. The wooden table and table lamp are made according to the sketches of the author of the project.

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

Iker Ochotorena, head of the OOAA Arquitectura studio, captivated by the color of the architecture, sought to preserve the individuality of the historical building both outside and inside. The architect abandoned the abundance of decor, relying on items that reflect the aesthetics of the mid-century. Most of the furniture in the interior was produced in the 1950s and 1970s in Sweden, France and Italy and bought at flea markets and antique shops.

Sofa, Brigitte. Floor lamp, designed by Agurcho Iruretagoyena.

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

The living space of the house is a series of consecutive rooms: a dining room, a small fireplace room and a living room. Here, vintage sofas and armchairs with clear silhouettes sit side by side with designer lamps and coffee tables, as well as carpets with geometric patterns. The 'warm' texture of the wood and linen and velvet upholstery in rich, earthy tones stand out against the crisp white walls and ceilings, creating an environment that is both sober and luxurious, emphasizing the building's origins.

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

Hall. Table, antique, 19th century. Table lamp, Maison Barbier. The mirror is made according to the sketches of the authors of the project.

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

The bedroom is located on the second floor and can be accessed via the original 1940s staircase. The interior of the room with white walls and an old sideboard maintains the overall minimalist style of the interior, and the picture turned upside down gives the atmosphere a special charm.

Bedroom. Buffet, vintage, 1950s.

Photo: Pablo Sarabia

Bedside table, designed by André Sornay. Floor lamp AJ, design by Arne Jacobsen, Louis Poulsen.

photo: Pablo Sarabia

Ar-deco and style parallelism in the architecture of 1930s

The interwar period was a true flowering of art and architecture around the world - it was the "Jazz Age", the "Age of Skyscrapers" and the "Age of the 1925 Exhibition in Paris".[1] So by the name of the "International Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Art Industry", held in 1925 in Paris, or rather in connection with the 40th anniversary of its discovery, the term "art deco" entered art history since the 1960s and assumed, first of all, a chronological generalization of the monuments of the interwar period.

The high-rise buildings built in American cities at the turn of the 1920s and 30s became the culmination of the development of the Art Deco style. However, stylistically they were extremely diverse. Such were even the buildings of one architect, R. Hud, F. Crete, etc. The decorativeness of skyscrapers could take a variety of forms - from the geometrization of historicism and plastic fantasy, to authentic neo-archaic or extreme, abstract asceticism. And yet, skyscrapers 19The 20-30s appear as a solid, recognizable style. What they had in common was a characteristic combination of neo-Gothic "ribbed style" and neo-archaic ledges.[2] And for the first time this ribbed-ledged style was demonstrated by Saarinen's project at the Chicago Tribune competition in 1922. The building was eventually built according to the project of R. Hood in authentic neo-Gothic, dating back to the towers of Rouen. However, after the competition, Hood follows Saarinen, in 1924 in New York, he creates an art deco masterpiece - the Radiator Building. It became the first, available to New York architects, the embodiment of the transformation of architectural form. It was a rejection of the authentic reproduction of motifs (in this case, Gothic), and at the same time a new understanding of tradition. The aesthetics of geometrized historicism (Art Deco) was presented.

Varying ribbing and sloping, Art Deco architects sought to reproduce one image that struck everyone - Saarinen's project at the Chicago Tribune competition in 1922. Moreover, this new aesthetic appears in Saarinen's work as early as the 1910s, starting with the famous tower of the station in Helsinki . In 1922, Saarinen sensationally combined neo-Gothic ribbing with neo-archaic ledges, such would be the archetype of the Art Deco skyscraper. This is how high-rise buildings in American cities and the projects of B.M. Iofan - the Palace of Soviets, the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry in Moscow, the USSR pavilions at international exhibitions 1937 and 1939 It was the master's answer to the Rockefeller Center building just built by R. Hood in New York. And it was in the ribbed style (art deco) that a whole series of works by domestic masters of the 1930s was conceived, such are the projects and buildings of the 1930s - A.N. Dushkin, I.G. Langbard A.Ya. Langman, L.V. Rudnev, KI Solomonov, DF Fridman, DN Chechulin and others.

The Palace of Soviets, designed by BM Iofan (1934), was to become a Moscow masterpiece of the ribbed style (art deco). This is how the project of the American architect G. Hamilton (who received one of the first prizes at the competition of 1932 d), and the final image, designed in 1934 by a group of B.M. Iofan, V.A. Shchuko and V.G. Gelfreikh. The Palace of the Soviets was supposed to be the tallest building in the world (415 m), and surpass the newly built Empire State Building (380 m). Competition in height demanded competition in style. And it was the ribbed style that made it possible to effectively and quickly solve the facade of a grandiose height.[3] The design of the Palace of Soviets in the form of a ribbed skyscraper was the clearest evidence of the development in the USSR of its own version of Art Deco, and the Palace of Soviets became the pinnacle of this style.

1. Project of the Palace of Soviets, arch. B.M. Iofan, 1934

Courtesy of Project Baikal

2. Design of the Chicago Tribune building, arch. E. Saarinen, 1922

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

The ribbed style of high-rise buildings of the 1930s could be analyzed beyond the etymology and semantics of the term "art deco". Already the competition for the Chicago Tribune building in 1922, breaking the monopoly of historicism, for the first time showed all possible options for a skyscraper - both retrospective and designed in art deco (fantasy-geometrized). Nevertheless, the use of the Paris Exposition style in the decoration of American skyscrapers linked the two phenomena, and in many studies gave the towers 1920-30s style definition. However, the architecture of the interwar period appears not as a single style, but as a parallel development of several trends and groups. Such was the stylistic picture in the interwar years both in the USA, and in the USSR and Europe (Italy), it can be imagined as a kind of “stranded wire” of various trends and ideas. And in this heyday of Art Deco resembles the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the diversity of the trends of the Art Nouveau era.

And for the first time, the key techniques of the Art Deco style - the geometrization of historicist forms and the fascination with the archaic - are still noticeable in a whole series of monuments created before the exhibition 1925 in Paris. Such are the buildings of L. Sullivan and F. L. Wright, the mortar-shaped towers of E. Saarinen of the 1910s and the first New York skyscrapers in the Art Deco style - the buildings of the Barlay-Vezier Building (R. Walker, from 1923) and the Radiator Building (R Hood, 1924), as well as the well-known works of J. Hoffmann (Stoclet Palace, 1905) and O. Perret (Champs Elysees Theatre, 1911) and others. Such was the range of early Art Deco monuments.

3. Unity Temple in Chicago, arch. F.L. Wright, 1906

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

4. Stoclet Palace in Brussels, arch. J.Hoffman, 1905

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

Art Deco appears not only as a ribbed style, but as the development of several trends. And common in this variety of American skyscrapers was a powerful neo-archaism, compositional and plastic. And although in Europe and the USSR such towers were not erected in the 1930s, nevertheless, here the key techniques of Art Deco - the geometrization of historicism forms and a passion for archaism - found their architectural embodiment. Such was, for example, the use of the neo-Egyptian cornice-fillet in the works of I.A. Golosov, D.F. Fridman and L.V. Rudnev.[7] A similar cornice in Moscow could be seen even in the house of A.M. Mikhailov (architect A.E. Erichson, 1903), and its source was the ancient temples of Egypt and Ancient Rome (the tomb of Zechariah). In London, the building of Adalaide House (architect T. Tait, 1924) was completed with a similar neo-Egyptian cornice. This is how the residential buildings of I.A. Golosov on Yauzsky Boulevard and the Garden Ring, the building of the Rudnev People's Commissariat of Defense on Arbatskaya.[8] Such stylistic parallels are able to fix the term "art deco".

5. Adelaide House in London, arch. T. Tait, 1925

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

6. Building of the Higher School of Trade Unions, arch. I.A. Golosov, 1938

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

The search for an alternative to the classical order began in the 1910s, and the pan-European nature of this phenomenon was due to the classical heritage common to the masters and the rejection of its canons. So in the monumental creations of L.V. Rudnev covered with caissons one could see an example of the so-called. totalitarian architecture. However, similar specimens can also be found in Europe, such as, for example, the building of the Zoological Institute in Nancy (architect J. André, 1932). And the plastic techniques of this style - a geometrized order and coffered windows appear for the first time in the practice of European masters 1910-20s. Such were the works of O. Perret (Theater of the Champs-Elysées, 1911) and the proposals of J. Vago at the competitions of the Chicago Tribune (1922) and the League of Nations (1928). Having become a characteristic technique of I.A. Golosov in the 1930s, the motif of a rectangular portal, frames can be found in buildings in both London (the building of the Daily Telegraph, architect T. Taite, 1927), and Milan (the building of the Central Station, U. Stacchini, 1915- 31). Similar geometrized details and façade techniques seemed to be in the USSR the realization of a certain “proletarian aesthetics”, but they can also be found in European practice 1920-30s. So the style of the House of Culture of the Pravda publishing house in Moscow (1937) echoed the Italian buildings of the Mussolini era, for example, the post office in Palermo (1928) or the Palace of Justice in Latina (1936). Such was the phenomenon of stylistic parallelism between domestic and foreign practice in the 1910s and 1930s, and it can be seen in a whole series of examples.

7. The building of the Academy of the Red Army named after M.V. Frunze, arch. L.V. Rudnev, V.O. Munts, 1932-37

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

8. Building of the Zoological Institute in Nancy, arch. J.Andre, 1932

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

9. Chicago Tribune building competition design, arch. J.Vago, 1922

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

10. Project of the People's Commissariat of Defense on Arbatskaya, arch. L.V. Rudnev, 1933

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

US skyscrapers became a symbol of the era of the 1920s and 30s, but order architecture was also involved in the art deco orbit. So the pavilions of the 1925 exhibition in Paris were extremely diverse, and if the first of them influenced the style of American skyscrapers, then the latter embodied a new interpretation of the order. The staircase of the Grand Palais at the exhibition in Paris in 1925 (architect Ch. Letrosne) was designed with an elongated ant order and, going back to the innovations of Hoffman and Perret, undoubtedly formed the style of the library. V.I. Lenin. The bas-relief frieze of the portico of Schuko echoed another pavilion of the exhibition - the House of the Collector P. Patu.

Thus, the interwar international interest in the order of the 1910s, embodied in the pavilions of the 1925 exhibition in Paris, allows us to consider the works of I.A. Fomin and V.A. architects Mussolini), not only as a national phenomenon, but as a manifestation of a large wave of stylistic changes - the geometrization of the architectural form. And it began its action before and in addition to the revolution of 1917, such is the warrant in the works of J. Hoffmann, G. Tessenov, P. Behrens and O. Perret. Geometric order 19The 10-30s was ascetic, that is, it was no longer close to the classical tradition, but to the harsh archaism and abstraction of modernism. And it is precisely this duality that emphasizes its similarity to Art Deco techniques.

11. Theater of the Champs Elysees, O. Perret 1911

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

12. V.M. Molotov., architect M.L. Zilbergleit. 1939

Provided by Project Baikal magazine

This transformation in the spirit of Art Deco was varied – from luxurious (library named after V.I. Lenin) to ascetic (Dynamo house). However, this group of monuments also had the most important unifying principle - the rejection of the classical order canon and often even monumentality itself, the introduction of fantasy-geometrized details. So numerous buildings in Italy of the Mussolini era were solved, pavilions built in Paris for the exhibition of 1937[11] The pinnacle of Leningrad Art Deco was the work of E.A. Levinson. The interstyle geometrized order allowed the masters 1920-30s express their time and give an answer to the innovations of early Art Deco.

The style of the interwar period widely applied the innovations of the 1900s-10s - an order dating back to the archaic without bases and capitals, as well as Hoffman's fluted pilasters of the 1910s. In the 1930s, such architecture, created at the intersection of art deco and neoclassicism, began to develop actively both in the USA and in the USSR. It suffices to compare the Lefkowitz building in New York (architect W. Hogard, 1928) with the Moscow STO building (architect A.Ya. Langman, 1934). The style of the same library. V.I. Lenin in Moscow (1928) echoed the two Washington buildings of F. Crete, the Shakespeare Library (1929) and the Federal Reserve Building (1935) created in the same years.

The construction of the Palace of Soviets skyscraper was interrupted by the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, and no other ribbed towers were built in Moscow in the 1930s. However, it is impossible to deny the existence of the ribbed style (and hence Art Deco) in the USSR. Shortly before and immediately after winning the Palace of the Soviets competition, the style of Hamilton and Iofan was implemented in a whole series of buildings located in the very center of Moscow.[12] It is reminiscent of the Central Post Office Building in Chicago (1932) works by A.Ya. Langman - the house of the service station (since 1934) and the residential building of the NKVD workers with channeled blades, as well as the building of the State Archive (1936) and the Metrostroy House (1934), and D. F. Friedman in the 1930s was the author of a whole series of projects and buildings in the ribbed style.[13] Such were the pointed ribs of the NKVD corps (A.Ya. Langman, 1934) and the automatic telephone exchange of the Frunzensky district (K.I. Solomonov, 1934), the flattened blades of the People's Commissariat of the Ground Forces (L.V. Rudnev, from 1939), and precisely such Moscow buildings help reconstruct the likely impression of Iofan's Palace of Soviets.

13. Automatic telephone exchange of the Frunzensky district K.I. Solomonov, 1934

Courtesy of Project Baikal

14. State Archive of the Russian Federation, Vokhonsky A.F. 1936-38

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

Soviet architecture of the 1930s and 50s was not stylistically monolithic, so the pre-war era contained a significant Art Deco component. However, neoclassical, neo-renaissance also received support from the authorities. The style of I.V. Zholtovsky was academic, and one might say old-fashioned, but modern, similar to the neoclassical style of the United States, designed to reach the heights of European culture. There were similar motives in the USSR, only Iofan had to surpass the towers of New York, Zholtovsky - the ensembles of Washington.

Zholtovsky's house on Mokhovaya was one of the most notable monuments of the Moscow neo-Renaissance school. However, in the master's buildings one can feel not only reliance on a powerful Italian culture, but also familiarity with the experience of the United States (for example, the grandiose City Hall building in Chicago). And therefore, in the context of winning the competition of the Palace of the Soviets version of Iofan, as a model of world architectural fashion, Zholtovsky needed to emphasize not only the Palladian roots of his style, but also overseas ones. An example for the Moscow neo-Renaissance school is American architecture 1900-10s, Park Avenue development in New York, by McKim Mid White. The architecture of the USA provoked, convinced the customer of the artistic effectiveness of his neoclassical choice.

The architectural rivalry with US skyscrapers had a significant impact both on the style of BM Iofan's Palace of Soviets and on Moscow high-rise buildings at the turn of the 1940s and 50s. And so their facade techniques were called upon to compete not only with the national heritage, but with the world. So the high-rise building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs became the most expressive and close to the Art Deco style. And initially designed without a spire, it exactly coincided in height with its overseas counterparts - the neo-Gothic skyscrapers of the Gulf Building in Housten and the Fisher Building in Detroit. The characteristic combination of neo-Gothic ribbing and neo-Aztec tectonism, the hypertrophy of fantasy-geometrized details speaks of the fact that the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs belongs to Art Deco. So the symbiosis of different traditions - motifs of pre-Petrine Russia and neo-Gothic ribbing, neo-archaic ledges and neo-classical elements, partially already embodied in the skyscrapers of the United States, formed the style of post-war high-rise buildings.

15. The building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Smolenskaya Square, V. G. Gelfreikh, M.A. Minkus, 1948-53

Courtesy of Project Baikal magazine

Thus, it is the term "art deco" that allows us to record examples of stylistic parallelism observed in Soviet and foreign architecture both before the start of the Great Patriotic War and after its end. And only in such a coordinate system, not in isolation, but in a broad global context, the merits and advantages of pre-war domestic architecture are palpable. Revealed stylistic parallels in architecture 19The 1930s are not surprising, but similar to how the world architectural styles of other eras – baroque, classicism, eclecticism and modernism – were embodied in Russia. So the art deco style also acquired a domestic version.

Two styles - neoclassical and art deco - formed the artistic range of the 1920s and 30s around the world, they dominated international architectural practice. Such was the style of the exhibitions in Paris in 1925-1937, the buildings of the 1930s in New York and Washington, Rome, Leningrad and Moscow. And it was she who allowed Soviet architects to achieve and surpass the accomplishments of pre-revolutionary and foreign architecture by their own means - neoclassical and art deco style techniques.

[1] The skyscrapers of New York and Chicago were the triumph of Art Deco, but during their heyday their style received other names that did not take root. Contemporaries called Art Deco architecture “zigzag modern” and even “jazz modern”, [11:7]

[2] commonality of certain architectural techniques of a group of projects and buildings. In the 1920s and 30s, the classical order was replaced by fluted pilasters and flat vanes without bases and capitals, elongated, narrow ribs and other pointed Neo-Gothic forms. So, along with flattened reliefs, ribbing became the main architectural technique of Art Deco America.

[3] That is why Iofan, who worked on the project of the Palace of Soviets as the tallest building in the world, took as a basis the style of already built American skyscrapers. However, the import of architectural images also required the import of construction technologies. Related to this was a trip to the United States in 1934 by Soviet architects, winners of the DS competition. Foreign experience was also studied in the design of the Moscow metro. As Yu.D.Starostenko points out, in the early 1930s, the chief architect of the Metroproject, S. M.Kravets, was sent abroad to get acquainted with the experience of building a metro.[8:126]

[4] Recall that the foreign architecture of the 1920-30s. was known to domestic masters both from foreign magazines and from the journal Architecture Abroad, published in the USSR, and separate articles in Architecture of the USSR. Already in 1935, VK Oltarzhevsky returned from the USA, in the period from 1924 he studied and worked in New York.

[5] According to A.V. Bokov, Moscow metro stations, including Sokol, Dynamo, Airport, Mayakovskaya, Palace of Soviets (now " Kropotkinskaya). A similar position is expressed by I.A. Azizyan, T.G. Malinina, Yu.D. Starostenko [3:89, 6:254-255, 8: 138]

[6] Within the framework of Art Deco architecture, several independent trends can be counted. This, as S. and T. Benton and G. Wood point out, is the difference between Art Deco and traditional historical styles. As B. Hillier and S. Escritt write, the Art Deco style strove to be "luxurious and ascetic, archaic and modern, bourgeois and mass, reactionary and radical. " (10: 112) (12: 16)

[7] The Soviet version of Art Deco was also diverse. So, according to V.L. Khait “the Moscow version of Art Deco was most clearly manifested in the works of V.A. Shchuko, I.A. Fomin, L.V. Rudnev, B.M. Iofan, D.F. Fridman, D.D. A. Golosova. [9:219]

[8] So the authors of the architectural guide "Architecture of Moscow 1920-1960" attributed the following monuments to the Soviet version of Art Deco - the building of the Library. V.I. Lenin, Danilovsky department store, cinema "Rodina", buildings of the Academy of the Red Army. M.V. Frunze and the People's Commissariat of Defense on Arbat Square, D.D. Bulgakov's residential building on the Garden Ring. See [3]

[9] Note that both ribs, fluted pilasters and flat blades, and coffered windows, as Art Deco techniques of the 1910s and 30s, were popular after the Second World War. And they became characteristic facade motifs of monuments 1970s both in the USA and in the USSR.

[10] This duality is the complexity of the style of the 1920s and 30s. Art Deco, as noted by S. and T. Benton and G. Wood, was an era of a wide artistic spectrum, which included both examples of “modernized historicism” and “decorated modernism”. [12:245]

[11] V.L. Hite. [9:221]

[12] According to A.V. Bokov, “Iofan and Hamilton look at the competition of the Palace of Soviets as representatives of the same company” [2: 89]

[13] Recall that the innovations of the 1910s, the experience of German expressionism and American art deco A.Ya. Langman saw it live while studying in Vienna in 1904-11 and having visited Germany and the USA in 1930-31.

[14] Note that researchers of Soviet architecture of the 1930s are no longer trying to use such generalizations as "Stalin's Empire style" or "totalitarian architecture". After all, as I.A. Azizyan, the term "Stalin's Empire" carries a deliberately negative value assessment of the architecture of the 1930s-50s. [1:60] While, spiritual and creative atmosphere 19The 1930s was extremely complex, dramatic and, nevertheless, capable of creating real art. The pre-war era was full of the desire for self-realization and utopian dreams that arose in spite of censorship and repression. Here is how A.I. Morozov - "The revolutionary utopia gave impetus to the art of cynical propaganda aggression, and the art of pure faith, and art, in its own way, as it were," speaking pain. ". [7: 83]

References:

1. Azizyan I.A. Art Deco Otherness in Russian Architecture // Architecture of the Stalin era: Experience of historical reflection M.: KomKniga, 2010.
2. Bokov A.V. About Art Deco. // Project Russia. - 2001. - №19
3. Bronovitskaya A.Yu., Bronovitskaya N.N. Architecture of Moscow 1920-1960 "Giraffe", M., - 2006.
4. Zueva P.P. Skyscrapers in New York 1900-1920. // Architecture and construction RAASN. - No. 4. -2006.
5. Art of the modernist era. Art Deco style. 1910-1940 / Collection of articles based on the materials of the scientific conference of the Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Arts. Rep. ed. T.G. Malinina. M.: Pinakothek. 2009.
6. Malinina T.G. style formula. Art Deco: origins, regional variants, features of evolution. – M.: Pinakoteka, 2005.
7. Morozov AI, The end of utopia. From the history of art in the USSR in the 1930s. - M.: Galart, 1995.
8. Starostenko Yu.D. Art Deco of the Moscow metro in the 1930s-1940s // Problems of design - 3. // Collection of articles of the Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts. 2005
9. Khait V.L. "Art Deco: Genesis and Tradition" // About architecture, its history and problems. Collection of scientific articles / Foreword. A.P. Kudryavtsev. - M .: Editorial URSS, 2003
10. Hillier B., Escritt S. Art Deco Style - M .: Art - XXI century, 2005.
11. Bayer P. Art Deco Architecture. – London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1992.
12. Benton C. Art Deco 1910-1939 / Benton C. Benton T., Wood G. – Bulfinch, 2003.
13. Borsi F. The Monumental Era: European Architecture and Design 1929-1939 Rizzoli, 1987
14.

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