10 of the best European cities for art deco design | Travel | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/sep/08/10-best-european-cities-for-art-deco-design
Art deco began in France during the first world war and went on to accompany the age of jazz, Josephine Baker, cocktails, convertibles and talking pictures. While art nouveau had been curvy and nature-inspired, art deco was symmetrical, layered, topped with pyramids, stepped forms and zigzag lines. It was celebrated at Paris’s Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in 1925.
Unable to compete with the extravagant, steel-framed skyscrapers being constructed in the US, European cities developed their own style of streamlined building, with exotic facades combining art-deco geometry with national motifs. Art deco was fun, sophisticated, technological and modern. Inspired by cubism, futurism and the craze for all things ancient Egyptian that followed the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922, it lent a colourful, dynamic look to urban architecture.