If you have a difficult time (as I did) differentiating between Art Deco and Art Nouveau, you might enjoy this article I wrote on it. There are at least four key ways to tell the difference: time of creation, curved lines vs. geometrical shapes, organic vs. machinic themes, and Japanonisme influence.
I actually prefer Art Nouveau personally and wish there were more buildings that adopted the style. It seems like a good pairing for solarpunk architecture.
Otherwise, it’s interesting to me how Bauhaus seems to have aged much worse, probably because it’s more similar to modernism, both of which are origins for the “minimal” aesthetic style that is still prevalent. Looking at an old Art Deco or Art Nouveau building feels like peering into a lost world, while Bauhaus isn’t dramatically different from most of what gets built today.
I don’t mean to sound pretentious but i have a hard time understanding how anyone can have a difficult time differentiating between art nouveau and art deco. The only similarity between the two lies in word “art”.
In that post I explore a few ideas as to why I think this happens. I think it’s more that Art Nouveau gets labeled as Deco.
In general though, both are art movements from roughly the same time period with roughly the same basic principles. For someone unfamiliar with art history, it can be confusing in a way that doesn’t happen with say, Medieval vs. Neoclassical architecture.
I think the source of the issue is that Art Nouveau and Art Deco also both commonly get mixed up with Arts & Crafts (as well as Craftsman and Mission), which is ancestral to them both and shares elements with both -- sinuous organic shapes and hard geometric shapes.
> Otherwise, it’s interesting to me how Bauhaus seems to have aged much worse
Could it be that the most acclaimed expressions of art nouveau were the product of a gilded age, while the bauhaus legacy was mostly enacted during the postwar period where speed of rebuilding was more important that quality of buildings?
There was actually a lot more money put into art deco (which happened post WW1) than art nouveau, but yeah bauhaus and modernism certainly flourished in a resource-scarce post-war environment.
The other big influence is that a lot of the members of the Bauhaus went to the US to teach, and so they influenced many of the midcentury designers that designed and built the post-war world.
A lot of people are old enough to have lived when Bauhaus was ”the modern look.” Hence, it now looks just plain ”old” whereas Art Deco and Noveau look ”classic.”
To me Art Deco seems to range from Kinda Like Art Nouveau all the way to "I can't Believe it's not Bauhaus".
Deco and Bauhaus both seem to sometimes share an excitement towards mass production and materials themselves.
Art Deco shows off luxury and wealth, which is not very far from truth to materials.
With art Nouveau I notice designs more than materials, unless they're simple natural things like wood, not really giving any sense of technical achievement or extravagance in the actual materials.
Bauhaus seems to deliberately design things that would not work without the specific high end materials used, and look out of place if they are scratched, everything is pointing to the raw substance, the craftsmanship, the function, and the level of maintenance, and
the design is just a frame.
Art Deco doesn't do the minimalism thing the same way,
I greatly prefer Art Nouveau, but it seems like both the aesthetic and philosophy of Bauhaus is everywhere.
Maybe there's something missing in my personality since I don't quite feel the appeal of simplicity and valuable materials as strongly as some, while the more philosophical types all seem to love it.
I think part of the mass appeal of Bauhaus might be because it got popular when tech was worse. You couldn't make a cheap CrapBoard thing and veneer it, unless you wanted it to peel in a week. That still happens, but it's possible to reliability do form, function, and material more separately.
Maybe people were tired of crappy goods that broke in a year, and Bauhaus was a way of advertising that you weren't doing that.
Now of course, durability seems random, and sometimes people take superficial Bauhaus elements and use them without the deep quality that it was supposed to be about, and it looks bad from the start and then breaks.
And we've got cheap synthetic materials that can be incredibly strong if you know how to design with them, although unfortunately they do not survive the trash compactor, when people toss them even though they're perfectly good, because people tend to see things without valuable substance as disposable.
Maybe its just me but the art and style movements of the first part of the 20th century (up until the sixties) are somehow more profoundly beautiful (in different ways), wholesome and memorable.
I don't even know what the "modern styles" are supposed to be. Maybe the time of coherent stylistic movements with a well articulated aesthetic is gone?
You pretty much delineated the “modernism” era and the era we are currently stuck in, “post modernism”. From the construction of the Eiffel Tower to WW2, you get rough markers indicating that era.
A great book regarding art in particular is called “The Shock of the New”. There’s also an 8-part (nearly 8 hours long) TV version of it you can find on YouTube.
I sort of have a problem with "post modernism". I'm of the belief that as long as the culture continues to persist we will always be in the modern era.
I see the modern era as directly linked to the machine age.
My thinking is that at this stage design is so democratic and available to anyone that we are in the timeless era. I believe that 'post modernism" was invented by the second generation modernist and critiques as a way to create an artificial distinction.
I think now we have gotten to the point where modern aesthetics are driven by everything the modernists where dealing with the addition of code compliance.
The machine age has become so regulated as to dictate a WAG of 80% the design decisions.
I identify as a modernist.
I will check out the YouTube as I'm hungry for long form design content.
25 already I had a teacher telling we were in post modernism. I also never grasped the definition of it, if it has any. Can we really be that long in a same "era"?
For architecture, modern style seems to be focused on maintaining resale value and/or blending in, depending on whether we're talking about residential or commercial spaces. Post-modern commercialism as a style?
I wonder if this has to do with the fact that people don't live their whole lives in one place as often anymore.
If I think I'm going to live out the rest of my life in my house, I'll want to change it to suit my taste, maybe even multiple times if new artistic styles crop up and I like them better.
If I'm expecting I might need to sell the house in the next five years, I'm going to prioritize having the widest possible potential buyer pool.
What puzzles me (being a casual observer) is that post-modern commercialism does not seem to affect all design domains equally. I would say that e.g. current automobile design seems to have still fairly identifiable style propositions (whether I like them being a different matter).
I wouldn't say sixties necessarily, but I'd agree.
It toned down the glorious excess of the belle epoque, expanded away from classical tradition, but still preserved a timeless sense of balance and harmony. New technological advances also opened up the building, they could become light, dainty.
I'm on the board of an old organization maintaining/running an Art Noveau house from 1906. The interiors haven't been preserved, unfortunately, but in the main hall we've tried to preserve and restore it as much as possible while still keeping it usable for its original function.
The Bauhaus should have included workers housing interiors. Comparable to the Dutch (het scip worker housing), German art informed workers housing and the Bauhaus designed to that market as well as luxe.
Het Schip is Amsterdamse School, which uses a lot of elements of art deco (e.g. rounded brick stone walls), but also tries to keep things simple, yet quality, which feels more Bauhaus.
I recently bought a house from 1918 in Amsterdamse School style and am trying to reflect this in the interior as well (exterior is already beautifully done).
I really like that they called the housing worker's palaces. You can definitely see that in the attention to detail.
I stayed at an art deco hotel in Cambodia years ago. For my brain, it was the most satisfying combination of color, form, detail, and space. I’ll never have the money, but I think living in that type of design would do wonders for my mental health.
Bauhaus and the Athens Charter movement (Le Corbusier) are, to some extent, legitimate and interesting periods.
The problem is that for various historical reasons, mostly related to the second world war and the fast post-war growth the architectural side grew vastly out of proportions.
As a side note, many of the most influential architects of this era were had no formal training in the craft, the tabula rasa approach was quite convenient.
An highly problematic side effect is that the following generation was not properly trained, and they relied on pseudo-philosophical bullshit to obfuscate their lack of architectural skills.
Imitating old architectural styles is rarely a good design, but we lost so much that we'll have to start somewhere.
By the way, this is not the first time it happens in History.
> Imitating old architectural styles is rarely a good design
Why?
Many college campuses in the US are pastiches of medieval european towns. This admiration for older styles in the late 1800s and early 1900s gave this country (and I'd say, even the world) the most wonderful architectural environments, truly beautiful and harmonious environments.
The spiteful iconoclasm of post-WW2 instead gave us the most awful dreck.
I don't disagree with you at all. The 1900 campus building were most likely a new technique called re-enforced brick masonry. They were produced to match the earlier buildings.
The Bauhaus school of thought held the same re-enforced brick masonry techniques could be used to produce the same square footage using less material labor.
Post War Europe was in a race to provide resources before everything fell apart again.
My home town has a treasure trove of Art Nouveau buildings in it's historic city center. It's a very desirable area to live in, so most of those units have been renovated over time. Sadly those renovations almost never respect the original and follow whatever trend of the moment.
One thing i'd like to do is to acquire some of the remaining rare gems that remain (mostly) untouched and restore them to their original glory. I ever wonder if there is room for a business model here, like home flipping but with a side of restoration and preservation.
> Sadly those renovations almost never respect the original and follow whatever trend of the moment.
Not to be trite, but following that line of thinking back then would have prevented the Art Nouveau buildings from existing in the first place - assuming they replaced gothic buildings (or whatever was trendy) when they got built
Readit News
https://onthearts.com/p/art-nouveau-vs-art-deco
I actually prefer Art Nouveau personally and wish there were more buildings that adopted the style. It seems like a good pairing for solarpunk architecture.
Otherwise, it’s interesting to me how Bauhaus seems to have aged much worse, probably because it’s more similar to modernism, both of which are origins for the “minimal” aesthetic style that is still prevalent. Looking at an old Art Deco or Art Nouveau building feels like peering into a lost world, while Bauhaus isn’t dramatically different from most of what gets built today.
In general though, both are art movements from roughly the same time period with roughly the same basic principles. For someone unfamiliar with art history, it can be confusing in a way that doesn’t happen with say, Medieval vs. Neoclassical architecture.
Could it be that the most acclaimed expressions of art nouveau were the product of a gilded age, while the bauhaus legacy was mostly enacted during the postwar period where speed of rebuilding was more important that quality of buildings?
Deco and Bauhaus both seem to sometimes share an excitement towards mass production and materials themselves.
Art Deco shows off luxury and wealth, which is not very far from truth to materials.
With art Nouveau I notice designs more than materials, unless they're simple natural things like wood, not really giving any sense of technical achievement or extravagance in the actual materials.
Bauhaus seems to deliberately design things that would not work without the specific high end materials used, and look out of place if they are scratched, everything is pointing to the raw substance, the craftsmanship, the function, and the level of maintenance, and the design is just a frame.
Art Deco doesn't do the minimalism thing the same way,
I greatly prefer Art Nouveau, but it seems like both the aesthetic and philosophy of Bauhaus is everywhere.
Maybe there's something missing in my personality since I don't quite feel the appeal of simplicity and valuable materials as strongly as some, while the more philosophical types all seem to love it.
I think part of the mass appeal of Bauhaus might be because it got popular when tech was worse. You couldn't make a cheap CrapBoard thing and veneer it, unless you wanted it to peel in a week. That still happens, but it's possible to reliability do form, function, and material more separately.
Maybe people were tired of crappy goods that broke in a year, and Bauhaus was a way of advertising that you weren't doing that.
Now of course, durability seems random, and sometimes people take superficial Bauhaus elements and use them without the deep quality that it was supposed to be about, and it looks bad from the start and then breaks.
And we've got cheap synthetic materials that can be incredibly strong if you know how to design with them, although unfortunately they do not survive the trash compactor, when people toss them even though they're perfectly good, because people tend to see things without valuable substance as disposable.
I don't even know what the "modern styles" are supposed to be. Maybe the time of coherent stylistic movements with a well articulated aesthetic is gone?
A great book regarding art in particular is called “The Shock of the New”. There’s also an 8-part (nearly 8 hours long) TV version of it you can find on YouTube.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFtSvldL7Mh4ismj4BgH33pBR...
Robert Hughes, the art critic who wrote the book agrees with your assessment I believe.
I see the modern era as directly linked to the machine age.
My thinking is that at this stage design is so democratic and available to anyone that we are in the timeless era. I believe that 'post modernism" was invented by the second generation modernist and critiques as a way to create an artificial distinction.
I think now we have gotten to the point where modern aesthetics are driven by everything the modernists where dealing with the addition of code compliance.
The machine age has become so regulated as to dictate a WAG of 80% the design decisions.
I identify as a modernist.
I will check out the YouTube as I'm hungry for long form design content.
They ignore much and use Bauhaus Style as a term. The proper term for architecture from that school is International Style.
A style that was intended to promote world peace through judicious use of materials and lack of culture references.
The reaction to the over meetification of the manufactured world.
Our aesthetic terms are currently going through the final round of testing and we should have something to announce shortly.
If I think I'm going to live out the rest of my life in my house, I'll want to change it to suit my taste, maybe even multiple times if new artistic styles crop up and I like them better.
If I'm expecting I might need to sell the house in the next five years, I'm going to prioritize having the widest possible potential buyer pool.
It toned down the glorious excess of the belle epoque, expanded away from classical tradition, but still preserved a timeless sense of balance and harmony. New technological advances also opened up the building, they could become light, dainty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_kitchen
I recently bought a house from 1918 in Amsterdamse School style and am trying to reflect this in the interior as well (exterior is already beautifully done).
I really like that they called the housing worker's palaces. You can definitely see that in the attention to detail.
It is truly spectacular, and you will never be confused about nouveau vs deco again
The problem is that for various historical reasons, mostly related to the second world war and the fast post-war growth the architectural side grew vastly out of proportions.
As a side note, many of the most influential architects of this era were had no formal training in the craft, the tabula rasa approach was quite convenient.
An highly problematic side effect is that the following generation was not properly trained, and they relied on pseudo-philosophical bullshit to obfuscate their lack of architectural skills.
Imitating old architectural styles is rarely a good design, but we lost so much that we'll have to start somewhere.
By the way, this is not the first time it happens in History.
Why?
Many college campuses in the US are pastiches of medieval european towns. This admiration for older styles in the late 1800s and early 1900s gave this country (and I'd say, even the world) the most wonderful architectural environments, truly beautiful and harmonious environments.
The spiteful iconoclasm of post-WW2 instead gave us the most awful dreck.
The Bauhaus school of thought held the same re-enforced brick masonry techniques could be used to produce the same square footage using less material labor.
Post War Europe was in a race to provide resources before everything fell apart again.
One thing i'd like to do is to acquire some of the remaining rare gems that remain (mostly) untouched and restore them to their original glory. I ever wonder if there is room for a business model here, like home flipping but with a side of restoration and preservation.
Not to be trite, but following that line of thinking back then would have prevented the Art Nouveau buildings from existing in the first place - assuming they replaced gothic buildings (or whatever was trendy) when they got built