151-579: The Master Apartments , officially known as the Master Building , is a 27-story Art Deco skyscraper at 310 Riverside Drive , on the Upper West Side of Manhattan , New York City . It sits on the northeast corner of Riverside Drive and West 103rd Street. Designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett of the firm Helmle, Corbett & Harrison, in conjunction with Sugarman & Berger, the Master Apartments
302-468: A "pantry" and the entire apartment hotel had an on-site restaurants and maid service. There were to be 390 apartments, with the majority having one bedroom and several having two or three bedrooms. The completed structure had 233 one-room, 63 two-room, and two three-room apartments as well as a penthouse suite of seven rooms. In total, the Master Building was to contain 406 rooms. After the Master Building
453-820: A 20th-century adaptation of a classical subject. Other important works for Rockefeller Center were made by Lee Lawrie , including the sculptural façade and the Atlas statue . During the Great Depression in the United States, many sculptors were commissioned to make works for the decoration of federal government buildings, with funds provided by the WPA, or Works Progress Administration . They included sculptor Sidney Biehler Waugh, who created stylized and idealized images of workers and their tasks for federal government office buildings. In San Francisco, Ralph Stackpole provided sculpture for
604-475: A Buddhist shrine in the shape of a staggered pyramid with a spire on top. Subsequently, plans for the stupa were scrapped in favor of an additional three stories. Helmle, Corbett & Harrison teamed with another architectural firm, Sugarman & Berger. Henry Sugarman , of the latter organization, advised in the building's design and supervised interior construction work. An article in the New York Times said
755-507: A New York City historic district designated in 2015. The surrounding neighborhood largely contains brick-and-limestone row houses and apartment structures built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Master Building was designed by Harvey Wiley Corbett of the firm Helmle, Corbett & Harrison, in conjunction with the firm Sugarman & Berger. The building was developed for artist Nicholas Roerich and his financial patron, Louis L. Horch. The skyscraper's first three floors originally held
906-451: A balcony. The seats have red and purple upholstery, a color scheme repeated on the stage curtains. The stage itself wraps around to the left and right walls; it was enlarged at some point after the Master Building opened. The auditorium's balcony level has been modified several times over the years. The 103rd Street lobby contains a lounge on the left (west) and a concierge desk to the right (east). The concierge desk dates to 1996 and contains
1057-605: A broadly applied stylistic label in 1968 when historian Bevis Hillier published the first major academic book on it, Art Deco of the 20s and 30s . He noted that the term was already being used by art dealers, and cites The Times (2 November 1966) and an essay named Les Arts Déco in Elle magazine (November 1967) as examples. In 1971, he organized an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts , which he details in his book The World of Art Deco . In its time, Art Deco
1208-411: A company, Manhattan Master Apartment Associates, to convert it to a housing cooperative . The conversion was completed in 1988 when that company transferred control to a new organization, Master Apartments, Inc. At that time it was described as having 335 apartments on 28 floors served by four elevators. Buyers were permitted to finance up to 90% of the purchase price and 28% of the monthly maintenance fee
1359-474: A corn-stalk motif. The floors are made of terrazzo tiles with geometric patterns, while the walls contain a crown molding composed of 90-degree angles. On the north wall is a bank of three elevators; the elevators' aluminum doors contain geometric motifs, similar to those on the first-floor window grills. The elevator bank is separated from the rest of the lobby by a colonnade of four columns. Between each column, bronze-colored octagonal light fixtures hang from
1510-457: A corporation, Master Building, Inc., in which he was president. The corporation was appointed to plan and construct a skyscraper to replace the mansion in which the museum, institute, and outreach center were located. The architect was Harvey Wiley Corbett , of the architectural firm Helmle, Corbett & Harrison. Plans filed in January 1928 called for a 24-story apartment hotel, topped by a stupa –
1661-531: A departure from) the undulating Art Nouveau style of Hector Guimard , so popular in Paris a few years earlier. Grasset stressed the principle that various simple geometric shapes like triangles and squares are the basis of all compositional arrangements. The reinforced-concrete buildings of Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage, and particularly the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées , offered a new form of construction and decoration which
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#17328839675961812-544: A disagreement between Horch and the Roeriches, the museum was closed and the Roeriches unsuccessfully sued to regain control of the Master Apartments. Louis Horch's wife Nettie also controlled some aspects of the building and its organizations during this time, but by 1958, the Horches' son Frank became the building's manager. During the 1950s and 1960s, people moved out of the surrounding Manhattan Valley neighborhood. Consequently,
1963-477: A floral chair with a parrot design for the hunting lodge of art collector Jacques Doucet . The furniture designers Louis Süe and André Mare made their first appearance at the 1912 exhibit, under the name of the Atelier français , combining polychromatic fabrics with exotic and expensive materials, including ebony and ivory. After World War I, they became one of the most prominent French interior design firms, producing
2114-627: A group devoted to expanding appreciation of non-objective art that had been formed in 1937. The show included more than 300 oils, watercolors, pastels, collages, drawings, constructions, and sculpture. That year it also began hosting exhibitions held by the New York Society of Women Artists, a group that had been founded in 1926 to promote the work of avant-garde women artists. Other 1939 shows included contemporary works by artists from Poland, documentary photographs of child laborers by Lewis Hine , an international exhibition of works by women artists, and
2265-711: A large display of Pan-American art. Over the next few decades the museum would specialize in exhibitions by members of artists' groups. In addition to the two already named, these included the Silvermine Guild of Artists (a Connecticut summer art colony), the Manhattan Camera Club, the Photo-Engravers' Art Society, the Brooklyn Society of Artists, the Artists Equity Group, and USCO (a collective from
2416-411: A low, dark ground to a gleaming, white pinnacle, gives the building a dynamic quality. The play of sunlight on the many hues will make the building a beautiful spectacle of changing colors." Other ornamentation was limited to brick patterns on the base and spandrel panels, as well as architectural terracotta on the parapets of each setback. The Master Building's two main entrances, at the centers of
2567-455: A magician, yet can I lead you upward upon the ladder of Beauty beheld only in dreams. Wafting to you the fragrance from the mountains of Tibet, We bring the message of a new religion of the pure spirit to humanity. It is coming; and you, united here in search of light, bear the precious stone. To you is revealed the miracle of creating harmony in life. It will reveal to the world a new Teaching. Images: Art Deco Art Deco , short for
2718-468: A modernist look. At its birth between 1910 and 1914, Art Deco was an explosion of colours, featuring bright and often clashing hues, frequently in floral designs, presented in furniture upholstery , carpets, screens, wallpaper and fabrics. Many colourful works, including chairs and a table by Maurice Dufrêne and a bright Gobelin carpet by Paul Follot were presented at the 1912 Salon des artistes décorateurs . In 1912–1913 designer Adrien Karbowsky made
2869-517: A museum, a school of the fine and performing arts, and an international art center, operated by Roerich and his wife Helena . Horch largely funded all three organizations. The Master Building is 28 stories tall, though contemporary media referred to it as having 24 stories. The building is cited as being 443 feet (135 m) tall. According to the Master Building's first manager, only three other residential structures in New York City were taller:
3020-481: A nominal position as Louis and his lawyer prepared most of the corporation's correspondence and its filings. She also probably helped her husband decide to provide more than one million dollars toward achieving the Roeriches' spiritual and cultural ambitions. She met with the Roeriches and their other supporters in making plans for the Roerich Museum, Master Institute, Corona Mundi, and the other organizations housed in
3171-458: A painting by Jean Dupas . The interior design followed the same principles of symmetry and geometric forms which set it apart from Art Nouveau, and bright colours, fine craftsmanship rare and expensive materials which set it apart from the strict functionality of the Modernist style. While most of the pavilions were lavishly decorated and filled with hand-made luxury furniture, two pavilions, those of
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#17328839675963322-399: A part in the resurgence of decorative arts, as French designers felt challenged by the increasing exports of less expensive German furnishings. In 1911, SAD proposed a major new international exposition of decorative arts in 1912. No copies of old styles would be permitted, only modern works. The exhibit was postponed until 1914; and then, because of the war, until 1925, when it gave its name to
3473-486: A single-room, all-in-one studio at 314 West 54th Street to a mansion he bought on the site where the Master Building would later be constructed. Horch's wife, Nettie Horch, was a friend of Frances Grant who directed the Master School for the Roeriches. Nettie and Louis were patrons of the arts and ardent believers in art education as an indirect means of promoting harmony among the peoples of the world. They were attracted to
3624-587: A style which flourished in Europe between 1895 and 1900, and coexisted with the Beaux-Arts and neoclassical that were predominant in European and American architecture. In 1905 Eugène Grasset wrote and published Méthode de Composition Ornementale, Éléments Rectilignes, in which he systematically explored the decorative (ornamental) aspects of geometric elements, forms, motifs and their variations, in contrast with (and as
3775-596: A trust mortgage with the Chatham Phenix National Bank and Trust Company . Prospective purchasers of the bonds were told that Horch and an associate guaranteed payment of principal and interest personally and that the income from rentals was expected far to exceed expenses, including both interest costs and amounts to be committed to the sinking fund. Also in June 1928, the Longacre Construction Company
3926-429: A two-thirds interest to British Commercial Property Investments and a one-third interest to London Merchant Securities . Hilton and the hotel's owners agreed to end the chain's management of the hotel in 1964, though the contract continued through 1967. Western International Hotels assumed management on June 2, 1964, renaming the property The Savoy Plaza , without the original hyphen. The owners announced plans for
4077-508: A well-rounded education in the arts and also to "open the gates to spiritual enlightenment" through culture. The mansion where it was located also housed the Roerich Museum, containing many of the thousands of paintings Roerich had created, and Corona Mundi, which arranged for exhibitions of paintings by Roerich and international artists. In 1925, while the Roeriches were engaged in a long period of travel in Central Asia , Horch began to acquire
4228-646: Is Tamara de Lempicka . Born in Poland, she emigrated to Paris after the Russian Revolution . She studied under Maurice Denis and André Lhote , and borrowed many elements from their styles. She painted portraits in a realistic, dynamic and colourful Art Deco style. In the 1930s, a dramatic new form of Art Deco painting appeared in the United States. During the Great Depression, the Federal Art Project of
4379-409: Is cantilevered in front of either entrance. Recessed within each portal are three-part transoms with sidelights made of blue leaded glass . Each sidelight consists of several small rectangular panes with metal motifs resembling corn stalks. The central pane of both portals had originally been made of blue glass, but these were replaced with clear glass at some point after they were vandalized. Near
4530-476: Is no canopy in front of this door. A fourth entrance is at the northern end of the Riverside Drive elevation and formerly led to a restaurant. This doorway also has a tripartite transom, though the sidelights are made of metal. Originally, the transom had been made of blue glass, which also suffered vandalism and was replaced with metal. The main entrance on Riverside Drive is flanked by three bays of windows;
4681-734: Is the Christ the Redeemer by the French sculptor Paul Landowski , completed between 1922 and 1931, located on a mountain top overlooking Rio de Janeiro , Brazil. Many early Art Deco sculptures were small, designed to decorate salons. One genre of this sculpture was called the Chryselephantine statuette, named for a style of ancient Greek temple statues made of gold and ivory. They were sometimes made of bronze, or sometimes with much more lavish materials, such as ivory, onyx , alabaster, and gold leaf. One of
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4832-482: The Empire State Building , Chrysler Building , and other buildings from the 1920s and 1930s are monuments to the style. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression , Art Deco gradually became more subdued. A sleeker form of the style, called Streamline Moderne , appeared in the 1930s, featuring curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces. Art Deco was a truly international style, but its dominance ended with
4983-524: The Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Parallel with these Art Deco sculptors, more avant-garde and abstract modernist sculptors were at work in Paris and New York City. The most prominent were Constantin Brâncuși , Joseph Csaky , Alexander Archipenko , Henri Laurens , Jacques Lipchitz , Gustave Miklos , Jean Lambert-Rucki , Jan et Joël Martel , Chana Orloff and Pablo Gargallo . The Art Deco style appeared early in
5134-689: The Savoy-Plaza Hotel , the Park Central Hotel , and the Ritz Tower . Upon its completion in 1929, the Master Building was the tallest structure on Riverside Drive. It is still the avenue's tallest residential building, surpassed only by the Riverside Church on 120th Street. The northern section of the building contains a three-story wing. The Master Building has a shallow setback above the second story on its eastern elevation , as well as above
5285-545: The Woodstock, New York art colony and Garnerville, New York ). The museum was organized as a unit of the Master Institute of United Arts . As it had previously done, the institute gave art classes, provided studio space, and sponsored lectures, concerts, poetry readings, art clinics, and other cultural events. Porter served as the museum's director through the 1940s. He was succeeded by Nettie Horch, who had been in charge of
5436-484: The Works Progress Administration was created to give work to unemployed artists. Many were given the task of decorating government buildings, hospitals and schools. There was no specific Art Deco style used in the murals; artists engaged to paint murals in government buildings came from many different schools, from American regionalism to social realism ; they included Reginald Marsh , Rockwell Kent and
5587-582: The city's suburbs . As a consequence, the museum and cultural center lost their audience and in 1971 they were forced to close. Their holdings were donated to Brandeis University and cultural initiatives such as the Master Institute Chorus, founded in 1960, either folded, or, as in the case of the chorus, became affiliated with other organizations, such as the New Amsterdam Singers . The Horches' daughter, Oriole, became advisory consultant for
5738-430: The École royale gratuite de dessin (Royal Free School of Design), founded in 1766 under King Louis XVI to train artists and artisans in crafts relating to the fine arts, was renamed the École nationale des arts décoratifs ( National School of Decorative Arts). It took its present name, ENSAD ( École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs ), in 1920.. The actual term art déco did not appear in print until 1966, in
5889-501: The 103rd Street and Riverside Drive elevations, both contain double-height portals. The 103rd Street entrance provides access to the residential lobby, with a pair of metal-and-glass doors directly in front of the sidewalk. The Riverside Drive entrance, which formerly led to the Roerich Museum, is approached by a short flight of steps and contains one metal-and-glass door on either of the portal's reveals. Both entrances have brick portals. which are laid in courses of headers A metal canopy
6040-400: The 103rd Street entrance and restoring the first-floor iron grilles. In addition, the elevator doors in the lobby were renovated, and a new front desk was installed. The terracotta and brickwork on the facade was restored in 2004, and the auditorium doors were replaced in 2009. After renovations were finished in 2005, the number of two- and three-bedroom units was increased dramatically, due to
6191-891: The 1912 Salon d'Automne was entrusted to the department store Printemps , and that year it created its own workshop, Primavera . By 1920 Primavera employed more than 300 artists, whose styles ranged from updated versions of Louis XIV , Louis XVI , and especially Louis Philippe furniture made by Louis Süe and the Primavera workshop, to more modern forms from the workshop of the Au Louvre department store. Other designers, including Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Paul Follot, refused to use mass production, insisting that each piece be made individually. The early Art Deco style featured luxurious and exotic materials such as ebony , ivory and silk, very bright colours and stylized motifs , particularly baskets and bouquets of flowers of all colours, giving
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6342-550: The 1920s, and its furnishings were sold in 1925. Harry S. Black, owner of the Plaza, bought the Savoy Hotel, consolidated the block, and demolished it to commission a newer companion to the older establishment from the architects of the Plaza. The 33-story, 420-foot (130 m) skyscraper Savoy-Plaza Hotel was designed by McKim, Mead & White , built at a cost of $ 30 million, and opened on October 1, 1927. Hilton Hotels acquired
6493-424: The 1920s, the look changed; the fashions stressed were more casual, sportive and daring, with the woman models usually smoking cigarettes. American fashion magazines such as Vogue , Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar quickly picked up the new style and popularized it in the United States. It also influenced the work of American book illustrators such as Rockwell Kent. In Germany, the most famous poster artist of
6644-545: The 1920s. The art movement known as Cubism appeared in France between 1907 and 1912, influencing the development of Art Deco. In Art Deco Complete: The Definitive Guide to the Decorative Arts of the 1920s and 1930s Alastair Duncan writes "Cubism, in some bastardized form or other, became the lingua franca of the era's decorative artists." The Cubists, themselves under the influence of Paul Cézanne , were interested in
6795-415: The 1920s. Art Deco's development of Cubism's selective geometry into a wider array of shapes carried Cubism as a pictorial taxonomy to a much broader audience and wider appeal. (Richard Harrison Martin, Metropolitan Museum of Art) Art Deco was not a single style, but a collection of different and sometimes contradictory styles. In architecture, Art Deco was the successor to (and reaction against) Art Nouveau,
6946-950: The 1925 Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes ( International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts ) held in Paris . Art Deco has its origins in bold geometric forms of the Vienna Secession and Cubism . From its outset, it was influenced by the bright colors of Fauvism and of the Ballets Russes , and the exoticized styles of art from China , Japan , India , Persia , ancient Egypt , and Maya . During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance and faith in social and technological progress. The movement featured rare and expensive materials, such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. It also introduced new materials such as chrome plating , stainless steel and plastic. In New York,
7097-524: The 19th century were considered simply artisans. The term arts décoratifs had been invented in 1875 , giving the designers of furniture, textiles, and other decoration official status. The Société des artistes décorateurs (Society of Decorative Artists), or SAD, was founded in 1901, and decorative artists were given the same rights of authorship as painters and sculptors. A similar movement developed in Italy. The first international exhibition devoted entirely to
7248-421: The 3rd to 14th stories, the fenestration is composed of windows separated by wide and narrow piers. The corners of the building were outfitted with windows wrapping around the edge at a 90-degree angle. These were the first such windows in a skyscraper in New York City. The corner windows were originally folding casement windows , though most of these have since been replaced by "Chicago-style windows". The rest of
7399-633: The Art Deco aesthetic, when transposed from the canvas onto a textile material or wallpaper. Sonia Delaunay conceives her dress models in an abstract and geometric style, "as live paintings or sculptures of living forms". Cubist-like designs are created by Louis Barrilet in the stained-glass windows of the American bar at the Atrium Casino in Dax (1926), but also including names of fashionable cocktails. In architecture,
7550-512: The Crossroads (1933) for 30 Rockefeller Plaza featured an unauthorized portrait of Lenin . When Rivera refused to remove Lenin, the painting was destroyed and a new mural was painted by the Spanish artist Josep Maria Sert . Sculpture was a very common and integral feature of Art Deco architecture. In France, allegorical bas-reliefs representing dance and music by Antoine Bourdelle decorated
7701-471: The El Dorado ), which were all built following a change to the zoning regulations in 1929. The building has a brick exterior that was deep purple in its lower stories, originally tapering to white at the tower. Over the years, the pinnacle has weathered to a light gray color. Harvey Wiley Corbett said the coloration gave the skyscraper a "feeling of growth". He said: "This colored brick exterior, which rises from
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#17328839675967852-746: The French Arts décoratifs ( lit. ' Decorative Arts ' ), is a style of visual arts, architecture , and product design , that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s (just before World War I ), and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s. Through styling and design of the exterior and interior of anything from large structures to small objects, including how people look (clothing, fashion, and jewelry), Art Deco has influenced bridges, buildings (from skyscrapers to cinemas), ships, ocean liners , trains, cars, trucks, buses, furniture, and everyday objects including radios and vacuum cleaners. Art Deco got its name after
8003-533: The Institute was free of debt and, due to its status as an educational organization, was tax-exempt. In 1935, the receivership ended and control over the Master Building and the cultural organizations it contained was turned over to the Master Institute of United Arts, Inc. with Horch as its president. At this time, Horch arranged for the Institute to give a five-year mortgage for $ 1,674,800 to the entity that managed
8154-438: The Institute's cultural events since the building opened. She was assisted by her daughter, Oriole, who took over direction of the museum and cultural events in the late 1960s. In addition to running the museum, Nettie had a large role in running the Master Building as a whole; however, the exact division of responsibilities between Nettie and her husband is unclear. She was secretary of the corporation, although this may have been
8305-402: The Master Apartments' museum and cultural center closed by 1971, their holdings dispersed elsewhere, although the building's auditorium was still used for cultural events. After Louis's death in 1979, the building was bought by real estate investor Sol Goldman , who converted it to a housing co-operative over the next decade. Further renovations, which were completed in 2005, resulted in many of
8456-427: The Master Building, closed the cultural institutions it contained, and severed them and their associates from everything connected with the building and its contents. Horch countered that the Roeriches had improperly attempted to countermand his decisions as building owner and director of the cultural organizations it contained. He said they had shown bad faith when they asserted that they alone could receive and interpret
8607-610: The Master Building. She was active as president of the Roerich Society and, after its demise, directed the Riverside Museum for many years. In 1958, Louis Horch made his son Frank manager of the building. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Manhattan Valley neighborhood (then known as Bloomingdale), where the Master Building is located, saw its culturally-oriented middle class renters depart. Many of them may have bought houses in
8758-510: The Mexican painter Diego Rivera . The murals were Art Deco because they were all decorative and related to the activities in the building or city where they were painted: Reginald Marsh and Rockwell Kent both decorated U.S. postal buildings, and showed postal employees at work while Diego Rivera depicted automobile factory workers for the Detroit Institute of Arts . Diego Rivera's mural Man at
8909-399: The Roerich Museum was formerly housed there. The cornerstone is at ground level, embedded into the building's southwest corner. It has an all-black irregular shape stepped like the building. On it are inscribed the year 1929 and a symbol designed by Roerich consisting of a circle enclosing three dots together with a monogram. The monogram, showing the letter R within the letter M, stands for
9060-402: The Roerich Museum. The circle and the three dots are the symbol of Roerich's Banner of Peace . He once said the circle represents eternity and unity and the dots the triune nature of existence. On another occasion he said the symbol has two meanings: in one interpretation, the circle represents the totality of culture and the dots are art, science, and religion (or philosophy), while in the other,
9211-405: The Roeriches and their associates attempted to obtain an injunction to prevent these actions. When the attempt failed, they sued Horch to regain what they believed to be their rightful authority to participate in the operation of the building and its component organizations. This case was settled on February 9, 1938, in favor of Horch. George Frankenthaler, the referee who decided the case, found that
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#17328839675969362-411: The Roeriches never possessed the authority they claimed. Horch alone administered the corporation that had the building constructed, ran the organizations that it housed, and obtained all the needed financing. In addition, he donated more than a million dollars of his own money, while the Roeriches and their associates had contributed no funds at all. Regarding allegations of deception, he found Horch to be
9513-454: The Roeriches' attempt to exert unilateral control over their affairs had caused them to "contemplate, review and think of matters in a new light." These letters explain actions that Horch took on June 5, 1936, to sever relations between the Institute and the other cultural organizations housed at the Master Building and discharge all their employees. The employees who occupied rent-free apartments were told to vacate immediately. In February 1936,
9664-556: The Soviet Union and Pavilion de L'Esprit Nouveau , built by the magazine of that name run by Le Corbusier, were built in an austere style with plain white walls and no decoration; they were among the earliest examples of modernist architecture . In 1925, two different competing schools coexisted within Art Deco: the traditionalists, who had founded the Society of Decorative Artists; included
9815-544: The Soviet Union, Konstantin Melnikov ; the Irish designer Eileen Gray; the French designer Sonia Delaunay; and the jewellers Georges Fouquet and Jean Puiforcat . They fiercely attacked the traditional Art Deco style, which they said was created only for the wealthy, and insisted that well-constructed buildings should be available to everyone, and that form should follow function. The beauty of an object or building resided in whether it
9966-485: The United States during the Great Depression. The Federal Art Project hired American artists to create posters to promote tourism and cultural events. The architectural style of Art Deco made its debut in Paris in 1903–04, with the construction of two apartment buildings in Paris, one by Auguste Perret on rue Benjamin Franklin and the other on rue Trétaigne by Henri Sauvage. The two young architects used reinforced concrete for
10117-507: The United States in 1929, and reached Europe shortly afterwards, greatly reduced the number of wealthy clients who could pay for the furnishings and art objects. In the Depression economic climate, few companies were ready to build new skyscrapers. Even the Ruhlmann firm resorted to producing pieces of furniture in series, rather than individual hand-made items. The last buildings built in Paris in
10268-454: The United States, where, during the World War, he designed posters to encourage war production. The designer Charles Gesmar became famous making posters for the singer Mistinguett and for Air France . Among the best-known French Art Deco poster designers was Cassandre , who made the celebrated poster of the ocean liner SS Normandie in 1935. In the 1930s a new genre of posters appeared in
10419-447: The adept handling of the transitions between the base and tower, "as square and chamfered corners established a sprightly syncopation against the more thunderous beat of the central masses." Learn to approach Our Heights pure of heart. Our Ray will shine upon you and exalt your daily life. You carry stones for the raising of My new Temple. Teach others My Word, and wisdom will flourish; And a new Temple will be raised. Do not regard Me as
10570-429: The apartment building, and in 1928 he secured a bond to fund its construction. As built, the building's lower floors consisted of a museum ; a school for the fine and performing arts; and an international art center. The building opened in 1929 to generally positive acclaim, but it went into foreclosure in 1932, and Horch's tax-exempt corporation acted as the Master Building's receiver from 1934 to 1935. Following
10721-411: The apartments were rented and some 300 students had signed up to take classes at the Institute. However, both rentals and student fees were soon depleted, and the nonprofit corporation that ran the building was unable to meet its payments. On April 6, 1932, this organization was sued for nonpayment of taxes and sinking fund payments due on the mortgage bonds. At that time, it was alleged that the building
10872-602: The beginning of World War II and the rise of the strictly functional and unadorned styles of modern architecture and the International Style of architecture that followed. Art Deco took its name, short for Arts Décoratifs , from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925, though the diverse styles that characterised it had already appeared in Paris and Brussels before World War I . Arts décoratifs
11023-500: The best-known Art Deco salon sculptors was the Romanian-born Demétre Chiparus , who produced colourful small sculptures of dancers. Other notable salon sculptors included Ferdinand Preiss , Josef Lorenzl , Alexander Kelety, Dorothea Charol and Gustav Schmidtcassel. Another important American sculptor in the studio format was Harriet Whitney Frishmuth , who had studied with Auguste Rodin in Paris. Pierre Le Paguays
11174-421: The building (now organized as the Riverside Drive & 103d Street Corporation) at five and one-half percent interest. Horch, who had remained a devoted follower of the Roeriches since his acceptance of their spiritual quest as his own in 1923, started to fall out with them, for unclear reasons. The Roeriches maintained that Horch's motives were base: through guile and deception, they said, he had taken control of
11325-511: The building and the institute take their name primarily from Master Morya , a non-corporeal spiritual leader from whom Helena Roerich received guidance via automatic writing. A secondary source of the name was Roerich himself who was revered as a theosophist master, able to interpret the wisdom of ancient gurus to modern man. The Master Institute of United Arts came into being in 1920 as the Master School of United Arts. It struggled to survive until, in 1922, Louis Horch financed its transfer from
11476-413: The building or room. The themes were usually selected by the patrons, not the artist. Abstract sculpture for decoration was extremely rare. In the United States, the most prominent Art Deco sculptor for public art was Paul Manship , who updated classical and mythological subjects and themes in an Art Deco style. His most famous work was the statue of Prometheus at Rockefeller Center in New York City,
11627-402: The building that did not produce rental income—that is, the museum, institute, and other cultural spaces—should be converted to apartments, but Horch successfully countered that the cultural spaces were an asset that generated a substantial tax exemption and that, in normal times, they led to higher rental rates from the existing apartments than would comparable apartments. He also pointed out that
11778-404: The building to Frank and Oriole, and Louis and Nettie Horch moved to Florida. Frank was murdered during a 1975 robbery. The Bloomingdale area did not return to prosperity until the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the city as a whole experienced an economic rebound. As high-paying white-collar employment in financial institutions and other service industries replaced long-departed blue-collar jobs in
11929-432: The ceiling. The Riverside Drive lobby has a limestone floor and baseboards . The side walls contain two sets of double doors leading to commercial spaces. The center of the Riverside Drive lobby contains a grand limestone staircase, which leads to the second floor. A single flight rises from lobby level to an intermediate landing, where two upper flights run in the opposite direction from the lower flight. The balustrades of
12080-542: The circle symbolizes the endlessness of time and the dots are the past, the present, and the future. The cornerstone contains a 400-year-old casket from the Rajput dynasty of northern India. Made of iron with inlays of gold and silver, the casket contains photographs taken during the Roeriches' expedition to Central Asia. It is also said to contain Jacob's Pillow or the Stone of Scone . On
12231-485: The clear contrast between horizontal and vertical volumes, specific both to Russian Constructivism and the Frank Lloyd Wright - Willem Marinus Dudok line, becomes a common device in articulating Art Deco façades, from individual homes and tenement buildings to cinemas or oil stations. Art Deco also used the clashing colours and designs of Fauvism, notably in the work of Henri Matisse and André Derain , inspired
12382-605: The collection at Brandeis. The building's auditorium continued to present concerts, plays, readings, and lectures in the 1940s and into the 1950s. From 1961 through 1989 the Equity Library Theater leased it for productions showcasing the talents of New York actors. As chair of Bloomington Conservation Project, Horch and the Master Institute of United Arts led an effort to improve deteriorated housing by converting single-family brownstone buildings into rent-subsidized apartments. In 1970–71, Louis transferred partial ownership of
12533-459: The combination of the building's original studio apartments. The larger layouts attracted more families to the cooperative community. In the early 21st century, the lobby has been restored, hallways remodeled, and amenities increased, including larger storage areas, a bike room, and an improved laundry facility. During that time, the auditorium continued to host lectures about art, architecture, urban planning, archaeology, history, and travel. The lobby
12684-481: The commands of the supreme being whom they all worshiped. On June 8, 1935, he wrote Helena Roerich to say he feared that the Roeriches had lost confidence in himself and his wife Nettie. Then, on July 13, 1935, Nettie wrote Helena of her and Horch's "fourteen years of complete devotion in heart and in deed" and of their enduring "loyalty and selfless sacrifice" over that period. She reaffirmed their "flaming devotion" which they continued to hold in their hearts. And she said
12835-628: The decorative arts, the Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna , was held in Turin in 1902. Several new magazines devoted to decorative arts were founded in Paris, including Arts et décoration and L'Art décoratif moderne . Decorative arts sections were introduced into the annual salons of the Sociéte des artistes français , and later in the Salon d'Automne . French nationalism also played
12986-432: The demanded conversion would be expensive (about $ 100,000). In June 1932, the foreclosure case ended, with Horch being named one of two receivers tasked with clearing the building's debts. In 1934, Horch arranged to have Master Institute of United Arts, Inc., the educational corporation he had created in 1923, take over responsibility for the building from the organization he had previously used to run it. He did this because
13137-631: The designs of Art Deco textiles, wallpaper, and painted ceramics. It took ideas from the high fashion vocabulary of the period, which featured geometric designs, chevrons, zigzags, and stylized bouquets of flowers. It was influenced by discoveries in Egyptology , and growing interest in the Orient and in African art. From 1925 onwards, it was often inspired by a passion for new machines, such as airships, automobiles and ocean liners, and by 1930 this influence resulted in
13288-536: The dominant architectural style became the International Style pioneered by Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe . A handful of Art Deco hotels were built in Miami Beach after World War II, but elsewhere the style largely vanished, except in industrial design, where it continued to be used in automobile styling and products such as jukeboxes. In the 1960s, it experienced a modest academic revival, thanks in part to
13439-447: The earliest Art Deco landmark in Paris, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées , in 1912. The 1925 Exposition had major sculptural works placed around the site, pavilions were decorated with sculptural friezes, and several pavilions devoted to smaller studio sculpture. In the 1930s, a large group of prominent sculptors made works for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne at Chaillot. Alfred Janniot made
13590-433: The eastern end of the 103rd Street elevation is a third entrance, with three pairs of doors leading to the building's auditorium. Two sets of doors are made of paneled glass, while the remaining pair is a metal service door. Above each of these doors are patterned brick panels, composed of diagonally-oriented courses of headers. The central door is topped by a paneled-glass transom with blue leaded-glass sidelights, though there
13741-442: The facade is divided into bays, each with a single one-over-one sash window per floor. These windows were replaced in the 1970s and again in 1990. The bays of the facade are generally grouped into pairs, except for the outermost bays of each elevation, which are grouped as single bays. Each different grouping of bays is separated by a wide pier, and the bays in each grouping are divided by a narrower pier. The spandrel panels between
13892-601: The façade of the new San Francisco Stock Exchange building. In Washington D.C., Michael Lantz made works for the Federal Trade Commission building. In Britain, Deco public statuary was made by Eric Gill for the BBC Broadcasting House , while Ronald Atkinson decorated the lobby of the former Daily Express Building in London (1932). One of the best known and certainly the largest public Art Deco sculpture
14043-452: The fireplace in the Maison du Collectionneur exhibit at the 1925 Exposition, which featured furniture by Ruhlmann and other prominent Art Deco designers. His murals were also prominent in the décor of the French ocean liner SS Normandie . His work was purely decorative, designed as a background or accompaniment to other elements of the décor. The other painter closely associated with the style
14194-489: The first modern reinforced-concrete apartment building in Paris on rue Benjamin Franklin in 1903–04. Henri Sauvage , another important future Art Deco architect, built another in 1904 at 7, rue Trétaigne (1904). From 1908 to 1910, the 21-year-old Le Corbusier worked as a draftsman in Perret's office, learning the techniques of concrete construction. Perret's building had clean rectangular form, geometric decoration and straight lines,
14345-467: The first mortgage bond issue, $ 64,500 of a second mortgage, and made up the rest from a loan he made. Some of the construction workers received awards for "superior craftsmanship" in April 1929, and additional workers were honored that August. The Master Building opened on October 17, 1929. Press reports emphasized the opportunity for people to rent apartments in a building devoted to the arts and drew attention to
14496-557: The first time in Paris residential buildings; the new buildings had clean lines, rectangular forms, and no decoration on the façades; they marked a clean break with the art nouveau style. Between 1910 and 1913, Perret used his experience in concrete apartment buildings to construct the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, 15 avenue Montaigne . Between 1925 and 1928 Sauvage constructed the new Art Deco façade of La Samaritaine department store in Paris. Savoy-Plaza Hotel The Savoy-Plaza Hotel
14647-622: The furniture designer Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand , the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, and designer Paul Poiret; they combined modern forms with traditional craftsmanship and expensive materials. On the other side were the modernists, who increasingly rejected the past and wanted a style based upon advances in new technologies, simplicity, a lack of decoration, inexpensive materials, and mass production. The modernists founded their own organisation, The French Union of Modern Artists , in 1929. Its members included architects Pierre Chareau , Francis Jourdain , Robert Mallet-Stevens , Corbusier, and, in
14798-497: The furniture for the first-class salons and cabins of the French transatlantic ocean liners . The vivid hues of Art Deco came from many sources, including the exotic set designs by Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes , which caused a sensation in Paris just before World War I. Some of the colours were inspired by the earlier Fauvism movement led by Henri Matisse ; others by the Orphism of painters such as Sonia Delaunay ; others by
14949-423: The future trademarks of Art Deco. The décor of the theatre was also revolutionary; the façade was decorated with high reliefs by Antoine Bourdelle , a dome by Maurice Denis , paintings by Édouard Vuillard , and an Art Deco curtain by Ker-Xavier Roussel . The theatre became the venue for many of the first performances of the Ballets Russes . Perret and Sauvage became the leading Art Deco architects in Paris in
15100-459: The graphic arts, in the years just before World War I. It appeared in Paris in the posters and the costume designs of Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes, and in the catalogues of the fashion designers Paul Poiret. The illustrations of Georges Barbier , and Georges Lepape and the images in the fashion magazine La Gazette du bon ton perfectly captured the elegance and sensuality of the style. In
15251-627: The hotel in January 1957 through an exchange of stock with Savoy-Plaza, Inc. Hilton opened a Trader Vic's within the hotel on April 14, 1958, in a space formerly occupied by the Red Coach Inn. On December 31, 1958, the full merger of Savoy-Plaza, Inc. and Hilton Hotels Corporation became effective, and the hotel was renamed the Savoy Hilton . Hilton sold the hotel to Webb & Knapp, Inc. in May 1962, for $ 25 million. That November, Webb & Knapp resold
15402-553: The hotel's demolition on August 21, 1964, leading to a significant public outcry and protests. On December 16, 1964, the owners announced that the hotel would be replaced by a 48-story office tower, designed by Edward Durell Stone to house the Eastern headquarters of General Motors . The hotel remained open through the 1964 New York World's Fair , finally closing in October 1965. It was demolished in late 1965 and early 1966 and replaced with
15553-555: The idea of strengthening the concrete with a mesh of iron rods in a grill pattern. In 1893, Auguste Perret built the first concrete garage in Paris, then an apartment building, house, then, in 1913, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées . The theatre was denounced by one critic as the "Zeppelin of Avenue Montaigne", an alleged Germanic influence, copied from the Vienna Secession . Thereafter, the majority of Art Deco buildings were made of reinforced concrete, which gave greater freedom of form and less need for reinforcing pillars and columns. Perret
15704-470: The industrial sector, real estate speculators found that they could profit from new condos and co-ops either by replacing old buildings or by renovating them. Following the death of Louis in 1979, the Horch family sold the Master Building to a real estate investor, Sol Goldman , who was then the city's largest private landlord. Goldman continued to operate the building as rental apartments until 1982 when he formed
15855-442: The innermost bay is separated from the two outer bays by projecting piers . The main entrance on 103rd Street is flanked by four bays; the inner three bays are separated from the outer bay by projecting piers. On both elevations, the first-story windows contain metal grilles in front of them. Below the first-story windows, the brickwork is laid in headers. The southwest corner of the first and second stories does not have windows, since
16006-538: The left bank, and along the banks of the Seine. The Grand Palais, the largest hall in the city, was filled with exhibits of decorative arts from the participating countries. There were 15,000 exhibitors from twenty different countries, including Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the new Soviet Union . Germany was not invited because of tensions after
16157-491: The lots surrounding the mansion to construct the Master Building. The Roeriches' extensive travels were almost entirely funded by Louis Horch. As is common when assembling adjacent lots for a single purpose, he used dummies as purchasers. In doing this he followed a pattern he had established in providing an organizational structure for the Master Institute when he installed the Roeriches and their close associates as nominal shareholders and corporate officers. In 1928, Horch formed
16308-487: The more creditable witness. Not long afterwards, Horch closed the Roerich Museum, which subsequently moved to a new location at 319 West 107th Street in 1949. In the Roerich Museum's former space, Horch established the Riverside Museum. He became president of the new museum and appointed Vernon C. Porter as its director. Open to the public free of charge, the new museum was devoted mainly to exhibitions of contemporary art by American artists. At its opening in on June 4, 1938,
16459-530: The movement known as Les Nabis , and in the work of symbolist painter Odilon Redon, who designed fireplace screens and other decorative objects. Bright shades were a feature of the work of fashion designer Paul Poiret , whose work influenced both Art Deco fashion and interior design. The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1910–1913), by Auguste Perret , was the first landmark Art Deco building completed in Paris. Previously, reinforced concrete had been used only for industrial and apartment buildings, Perret had built
16610-434: The museum showed modern American paintings and work by Native Americans as well as Tibetan art objects that Roerich had given to Horch. The American artists included Stuart Davis , Yasuo Kuniyoshi , Jack Levine , Marsden Hartley , George Luks , John Sloan , Philip Evergood , Reginald Marsh , Charles Burchfield , and Rockwell Kent . In 1939 the museum began hosting the annual exhibitions of American Abstract Artists ,
16761-637: The new style were the Museum of Public Works by Auguste Perret (now the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council ), the Palais de Chaillot by Louis-Hippolyte Boileau , Jacques Carlu and Léon Azéma , and the Palais de Tokyo of the 1937 Paris International Exposition ; they looked out at the grandiose pavilion of Nazi Germany, designed by Albert Speer , which faced the equally grandiose socialist-realist pavilion of Stalin's Soviet Union. After World War II,
16912-494: The northeastern corner of Riverside Drive and 103rd Street, across from Riverside Park . It is situated on a nearly square land lot with an area of 13,518 square feet (1,255.9 m). The lot has a frontage of 115 feet (35 m) along Riverside Drive and 120 feet (37 m) along 103rd Street, with an indentation in the northeast corner. The building is part of the Riverside-West End Historic District,
17063-552: The one-bedroom studios being combined into two- and three-bedroom units. These renovations attracted more families and made the building more luxurious by both quality-of-life and purchase-price measures. The Master Apartments was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. The Master Building is at 310 Riverside Drive in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City . The building occupies
17214-507: The period was Ludwig Hohlwein , who created colourful and dramatic posters for music festivals, beers, and, late in his career, for the Nazi Party. During the Art Nouveau period, posters usually advertised theatrical products or cabarets. In the 1920s, travel posters, made for steamship lines and airlines, became extremely popular. The style changed notably in the 1920s, to focus attention on
17365-521: The planned building was to be "New York's first skyscraper art gallery", while an art critic for the Washington Post called it "a shrine of art with a truly American architectural expression." On June 15, 1928, Horch arranged for the American Bond and Mortgage Company to underwrite a bond of $ 1,925,000 to cover costs. The bonds, which were linked to the price of gold , were certificates held under
17516-423: The product being advertised. The images became simpler, precise, more linear, more dynamic, and were often placed against a single-color background. In France, popular Art Deco designers included Charles Loupot and Paul Colin , who became famous for his posters of American singer and dancer Josephine Baker . Jean Carlu designed posters for Charlie Chaplin movies, soaps, and theatres; in the late 1930s he emigrated to
17667-517: The products, all the major Paris department stores, and major designers had their own pavilions. The Exposition had a secondary purpose in promoting products from French colonies in Africa and Asia, including ivory and exotic woods. The Hôtel du Collectionneur was a popular attraction at the Exposition; it displayed the new furniture designs of Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, as well as Art Deco fabrics, carpets, and
17818-425: The rapid growth of the Institute's cultural ideal of united arts, over seven years, from being housed in a single classroom to moving to a skyscraper. However, many reports did not describe religious factors, with one source saying that "the institution had nothing to do with cults and only with culture." The Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred only weeks after the building was completed. At that time more than 80% of
17969-505: The relief sculptures on the façade of the Palais de Tokyo. The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris , and the esplanade in front of the Palais de Chaillot, facing the Eiffel Tower, was crowded with new statuary by Charles Malfray , Henry Arnold, and many others. Public Art Deco sculpture was almost always representational, usually of heroic or allegorical figures related to the purpose of
18120-450: The salon passed through the full-scale model. The façade of the house, designed by Duchamp-Villon, was not very radical by modern standards; the lintels and pediments had prismatic shapes, but otherwise the façade resembled an ordinary house of the period. For the two rooms, Mare designed the wallpaper, which featured stylized roses and floral patterns, along with upholstery, furniture and carpets, all with flamboyant and colourful motifs. It
18271-545: The simplification of forms to their geometric essentials: the cylinder, the sphere, the cone. In 1912, the artists of the Section d'Or exhibited works considerably more accessible to the general public than the analytical Cubism of Picasso and Braque. The Cubist vocabulary was poised to attract fashion, furniture and interior designers. In the Art Décoratif section of the 1912 Salon d'Automne, an architectural installation
18422-513: The spiritual quest in which the Roeriches were engaged and participated in sessions during which Helena Roerich would receive instructions from Master Morya (or other esoteric beings) and Nicholas Roerich would record them on scrolls of paper that were later transcribed into a series of texts, the Leaves of Morya's Garden . Their teachings became the core of a spiritual and cultural movement known as Roerichism . The Master Institute aimed to give students
18573-475: The staircase consist of angular limestone blocks, set at 90-degree angles. At the second story was the museum, which has since been divided by glass partitions and converted into offices. The upper stories contained an apartment hotel complying with New York City tenement laws. This was done because apartment hotels were not subject to tenement-law height restrictions. Conversely, units within apartment hotels could not have individual kitchens; instead, each unit had
18724-464: The style called Streamline Moderne . The event that marked the zenith of the style and gave it its name was the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts which took place in Paris from April to October in 1925. This was officially sponsored by the French government, and covered a site in Paris of 55 acres, running from the Grand Palais on the right bank to Les Invalides on
18875-568: The three-story wing on its northern elevation. Above the 14th story, the building sets back further into an irregularly massed "transitional" section with several setbacks, which rises to the 21st story. The octagonal tower rises above the transitional building. The single pinnacle contrasts with the multiple twin-towered buildings on Central Park West (namely the Century , the Majestic , the San Remo , and
19026-472: The title of the first modern exhibition on the subject, held by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, Les Années 25 : Art déco, Bauhaus, Stijl, Esprit nouveau , which covered a variety of major styles in the 1920s and 1930s. The term was then used in a 1966 newspaper article by Hillary Gelson in The Times (London, 12 November), describing the different styles at the exhibit. Art Deco gained currency as
19177-502: The war; the United States, misunderstanding the purpose of the exhibit, declined to participate. The event was visited by sixteen million people during its seven-month run. The rules of the exhibition required that all work be modern; no historical styles were allowed. The main purpose of the Exhibit was to promote the French manufacturers of luxury furniture, porcelain, glass, metalwork, textiles, and other decorative products. To further promote
19328-457: The whole family of styles known as "Déco". Parisian department stores and fashion designers also played an important part in the rise of Art Deco. Prominent businesses such as silverware firm Christofle , glass designer René Lalique , and the jewellers Louis Cartier and Boucheron began designing products in more modern styles. Beginning in 1900, department stores recruited decorative artists to work in their design studios. The decoration of
19479-491: The windows on different stories are composed of dark and light bricks. The contrast between the bricks gives the appearance of four vertical lines in each spandrel panel. The building's setbacks, which double as terraces for the apartments, begin above the 14th story. Each setback contains terracotta cresting; the color of the cresting varied based on how high up the terrace was. Some sections of terracotta cresting are gray, while other sections are yellow and orange. The building
19630-471: The writings of architectural historians such as Bevis Hillier. In the 1970s efforts were made in the United States and Europe to preserve the best examples of Art Deco architecture, and many buildings were restored and repurposed. Postmodern architecture , which first appeared in the 1980s, like Art Deco, often includes purely decorative features. Deco continues to inspire designers, and is often used in contemporary fashion, jewellery, and toiletries. There
19781-571: Was a 33-story hotel overlooking Central Park at Fifth Avenue and East 59th Street in Midtown Manhattan , New York City . It opened in 1927 and was demolished in 1965. The original Savoy Hotel at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street opened in June 1892, following the opening of the neighboring Plaza Hotel in 1890. The original 12-story Savoy was designed by architect Ralph S. Townsend, for landowners including New York Supreme Court Justice P. Henry Dugro . The old Savoy continued to expand into
19932-483: Was a brilliant publicist for modernist architecture; he stated that a house was simply "a machine to live in", and tirelessly promoted the idea that Art Deco was the past and modernism was the future. Le Corbusier's ideas were gradually adopted by architecture schools, and the aesthetics of Art Deco were abandoned. The same features that made Art Deco popular in the beginning, its craftsmanship, rich materials and ornament, led to its decline. The Great Depression that began in
20083-499: Was a distinct break from traditional décor. The critic Emile Sedeyn described Mare's work in the magazine Art et Décoration : "He does not embarrass himself with simplicity, for he multiplies flowers wherever they can be put. The effect he seeks is obviously one of picturesqueness and gaiety. He achieves it." The Cubist element was provided by the paintings. The installation was attacked by some critics as extremely radical, which helped make for its success. This architectural installation
20234-482: Was a prominent Art Deco studio sculptor, whose work was shown at the 1925 Exposition. He worked with bronze, marble, ivory, onyx, gold, alabaster and other precious materials. François Pompon was a pioneer of modern stylised animalier sculpture. He was not fully recognised for his artistic accomplishments until the age of 67 at the Salon d'Automne of 1922 with the work Ours blanc , also known as The White Bear , now in
20385-553: Was also a founder of the Wiener Werkstätte (1903–1932), an association of craftsmen and interior designers working in the new style. This became the model for the Compagnie des arts français , created in 1919, which brought together André Mare , and Louis Süe , the first leading French Art Deco designers and decorators. The emergence of Art Deco was closely connected with the rise in status of decorative artists, who until late in
20536-435: Was also a pioneer in covering the concrete with ceramic tiles , both for protection and decoration. The architect Le Corbusier first learned the uses of reinforced concrete working as a draftsman in Perret's studio. Other new technologies that were important to Art Deco were new methods in producing plate glass , which was less expensive and allowed much larger and stronger windows, and for mass-producing aluminium , which
20687-434: Was also used as an art gallery. Further work on the facade was completed in 2012, and the Master Apartments was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. The Landmarks Preservation Commission report on the building praises its "successful employment of sculptural massing, vertical emphasis, and the minimal, yet elegant, use of surface ornamentation and historically-inspired detailing." Critics have praised
20838-405: Was being mismanaged, the principal evidence offered being the provision of free living quarters to the Roeriches and their followers. Horch successfully contested the suit, partly on a technicality and partly by explaining that the 20 rooms occupied rent-free were used by management as partial compensation to employees of the corporation. Representatives of the bondholders had argued that the parts of
20989-430: Was completed in 1929 as the tallest building on Riverside Drive. It was the first skyscraper in New York City to feature corner windows and the first to employ brick in varying colors for its entire exterior. The Master Apartments' name derives from the Master Institute of United Arts, an art institute founded in 1920 by Nicholas and Helena Roerich . Wealthy financier Louis L. Horch began purchasing lots in 1925 to build
21140-592: Was converted into a housing cooperative in the 1980s, many of the one-bedroom units were combined. Although "Master Building" is the name that appeared on official documents, the structure has long been known as Master Apartments or The Master. From 1939 onward newspaper advertising used both names constantly. One 1939 ad listed "The Master. Choice 1, 2 room suites, serving pantries, full hotel service, all rooms outside; from $ 50 month unfurnished; few furnished, $ 65 month. Popular price restaurant. Home of Riverside Museum. Concerts, lectures, recitals free to residents." Both
21291-730: Was copied worldwide. In decoration, many different styles were borrowed and used by Art Deco. They included pre-modern art from around the world and observable at the Musée du Louvre , Musée de l'Homme and the Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie . There was also popular interest in archaeology due to excavations at Pompeii , Troy , and the tomb of the 18th dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun . Artists and designers integrated motifs from ancient Egypt , Africa , Mesopotamia , Greece , Rome , Asia, Mesoamerica and Oceania with Machine Age elements. Other styles borrowed included Futurism , Orphism, Functionalism , and Modernism in general. Cubism discovers its decorative potential within
21442-528: Was exhibited known as La Maison Cubiste . The façade was designed by Raymond Duchamp-Villon . The décor of the house was by André Mare . La Maison Cubiste was a furnished installation with a façade, a staircase, wrought iron banisters, a bedroom, a living room—the Salon Bourgeois , where paintings by Albert Gleizes , Jean Metzinger , Marie Laurencin , Marcel Duchamp , Fernand Léger and Roger de La Fresnaye were hung. Thousands of spectators at
21593-558: Was first used in France in 1858 in the Bulletin de la Société française de photographie . In 1868, the Le Figaro newspaper used the term objets d'art décoratifs for objects for stage scenery created for the Théâtre de l'Opéra . In 1875, furniture designers, textile, jewellers, glass-workers, and other craftsmen were officially given the status of artists by the French government. In response,
21744-508: Was given the general contract for the building's construction. The cornerstone was laid on March 24, 1929. Prominent politicians participated in the cornerstone-laying ceremony and among messages read from prominent Americans was a letter from Albert Einstein in which he praised the cultural goals of the building's directors. The building was originally planned to cost $ 1.7 million (equivalent to $ 30,200,000 in 2023). Horch spent $ 2,497,164 for land and construction costs. He used $ 1,790,500 of
21895-470: Was no section set aside for painting at the 1925 Exposition. Art deco painting was by definition decorative, designed to decorate a room or work of architecture, so few painters worked exclusively in the style, but two painters are closely associated with Art Deco. Jean Dupas painted Art Deco murals for the Bordeaux Pavilion at the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition in Paris, and also painted the picture over
22046-417: Was perfectly fit to fulfil its function. Modern industrial methods meant that furniture and buildings could be mass-produced, not made by hand. The Art Deco interior designer Paul Follot defended Art Deco in this way: "We know that man is never content with the indispensable and that the superfluous is always needed...If not, we would have to get rid of music, flowers, and perfumes..!" However, Le Corbusier
22197-409: Was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show , New York City, Chicago and Boston. Thanks largely to the exhibition, the term "Cubist" began to be applied to anything modern, from women's haircuts to clothing to theater performances." The Cubist influence continued within Art Deco, even as Deco branched out in many other directions. Cubism's adumbrated geometry became coin of the realm in
22348-404: Was tagged with other names, like style moderne , Moderne , modernistic or style contemporain , and was not recognized as a distinct and homogenous style. New materials and technologies, especially reinforced concrete , were key to the development and appearance of Art Deco. The first concrete house was built in 1853 in the Paris suburbs by François Coignet. In 1877 Joseph Monier introduced
22499-631: Was tax deductible. In 1988, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) began considering whether to designate the Master Building as a city landmark. The building was designated as such on December 10, 1989. The following year, the LPC approved the installation of new aluminum windows with baked-enamel finishes, which resembled the design of the previous windows. The firm of Antonucci and Lawless conducted further renovations in 1996, adding wheelchair-accessible doors at
22650-422: Was to house a large and a small auditorium, two art libraries, conference rooms, and studios, in addition to three cultural institutions. These were all located on the first three floors. The building's steel superstructure was in the core, and the corners lacked columns, which were present in other buildings of the time. The auditorium is used by a church as of 2016. It has 300 seats across an orchestra level and
22801-577: Was used for building and window frames and later, by Corbusier, Warren McArthur , and others, for lightweight furniture. The architects of the Vienna Secession (formed 1897), especially Josef Hoffmann , had a notable influence on Art Deco. His Stoclet Palace , in Brussels (1905–1911), was a prototype of the Art Deco style, featuring geometric volumes, symmetry, straight lines, concrete covered with marble plaques, finely-sculpted ornament, and lavish interiors, including mosaic friezes by Gustav Klimt . Hoffmann
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