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" Come tour the future with General Motors! A transcontinental flight over America in 1960! What will we see? What changes will transpire? "

Conclusion of a 2-part series on Streamline moderne,  In this episode I'll discuss why  it took particular root in Depression-era America, and also discuss how the critics viewed modern art in the 1930s.

Photo credit: Wes Magyar

To explore future:

• Book,   Bush, "The Streamlined Decade", George Braziller Inc, 1075
• Pictures of the Hoover Model 150 by  Henry Dreyfuss
• Pictures of the Oriole gas stove by Norman Bel Geddes
• Picture of the Electrolux Model 30 by Lurelle Van Arsdale
• Good article on Norman Bel Geddes' mechanical horse race and his War Game
• Original color documentary by General Motors on the 1939 Futurama exhibit.  Ride footage commences at minute 8:00
• Good brief video summarising Norman Bel Geddes' career
• Catalogue of 1934 MOMA exhibition "Machine Art"
• Book, Marshall, "Machine Art 1934", University of Chicago Press, 2012
• MOMA diagram shown progression of modern art 1890-1935

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 “The airplane is the symbol of the new age .  A new state of modern conscience. A new plastic vision. A new aesthetic. "

Welcome back to the second season of Talking Modernism, and the first of a 2-part series on Streamline Moderne, the style that is so evocative of Depression era  America.  In this episode I'll be talking about the glamorous world of train travel in the 1930s, and the ground-breaking Pioneer Zephyr,  the first of the streamliner trains.

To explore further :

• Wikipedia on Pioneer Zephyr 
• Book Shafer& Welsh, "Streamliners - History of a Railroad Icon", MBI Publishing, 1997
• Article on the economics of rail travel in America 
• Article on railway dining 
• Wikipedia on the Shienenzeppelin 
• Article on the Fliegender Hamburger train
• Film of the 1938 20th Century Limited:  the most beautiful train ever made? 
• Photos of Mossehaus by Erich Mendelsohn
• Article on the Universum Cinema, also by Mendelsohn 
• PDF copy of Aircraft  by Le Corbusier, 1935
• 1934 film The Silver Streak 

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"I know it when I see it”

Final in a 3-part series on the 1925 Paris exposition and the Art Deco style.  In this episode I explore the origins of the Art Deco style, especially its roots in avant-garde art.  Plus the role of the forgotten giant of fashion Paul Poiret in packaging the avant-garde for the mass market.

To explore future:

• High-level overview of avant-garde art 
• Article on Antonio Sant'Ella 1910 Futurist building designs
• Unesco site, Centennial Hall, 1913, Wroclaw
  Video of Grosse Schauspielhaus , 1919 Berlin
• Article on 1914 Deutsche Werkbund exhibition, Cologne
• Colour video reconstruction of the Glass Pavilion, 1914 Deutsche Werkbund expo
• Article on Paul Poiret
• Article on Corbusier's Pavillion de l"esprit Nouveau, 1925
• World Heritage site on Corbusier's Cité Frugès, 1924

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Photo credit:  Ambassador study-library, designed by Pierre Chareau, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

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"The first impression of the Exhibition is startling. Passing through the silver obelisk-like towers of the Port d’Honneur, one comes at once upon a cubist dream city, or the projection of a possible city in Mars, arisen overnight in the heart of Paris. "

Second in a 3-part series on the 1925 Paris exposition, the "Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne", that sparked a world-wide explosion of the glamorous and much-loved Art Deco style.   In this episode I discuss how Paris battled to regain its position as style leader of the Western world against the challenge of foreign innovators such as the Deutsche Werkbund, culminating in the 1925 Paris Exposition.

To explore further:

• Article on the Thonet Number 14 chair
• Article on the Deutsche Werkbund
• Article on Peter Brehens, one of the founders of the Werkbund
• Article on the AEG Turbine Hall, one the pioneers of modern factory design
• Article of the 1910 Salon d'Automne
• More photos of the Deutsche Werkbund exhibits at the 1910 Salon d'Automne
• Jean Metzinger's Cubist painting Nu a la cheminee
• Comprehensive article by Arthur Chandler on the 1925 Paris Exhibition
• Photos of the 1925 Paris Exhibition
• Film "Paris a Cinq Jours", ("Paris in 5 Days"), silent comedy from 1925.  Contains actual footage of the 195 Paris expo at 40.49 minute mark

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Photo credit:  Thonet Number 14 Chair, thonet.com.au/products/no-14-vienna/

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"Paris is the world, the rest of the earth nothing but its suburbs"

First in a 3-part series on the 1925 Paris exposition, the "Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderne", that sparked a world-wide explosion of the glamorous and much-loved Art Deco style.   In this episode I discuss the genesis of Paris' position as the fashion capital of the world, and also explore early responses of decorative art and design to the challenge of modernity. 

To explore further:

• Article How King Louis IV invented fashion as we know it
• Book "Empire of Things", Frank Trentman
• Article Great Exhibition 1851
• Article  Crystal Palace, with photos
• Article "The Gallery of False Principles" exhibition, 1852
• Article Arts & Crafts movement
• Article Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Arts
• Article British "Modern" style
• Excellent article by Arthur Chandler on 1900 Paris Expo
• Film of the 1900 Paris Expo
• Article on Art Nouveau

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Photo credit:  Crystal Palace relocated to Sydenham, Historic England Archive FF91/00334

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Second in a 2-part series on Tel Aviv's "White City", the world's largest collection of modernist-style architecture.   In this episode I discuss the growth, decline and rediscovery of the White City.  I also discuss the contrasting work of Expressionist architect Erich Mendelsohn 

To explore further:

• Newsreels of Tel Aviv, including the White City period
• Wikipedia on Levant Fair 1932
• Engel House, White City
• Rubinsky House, White City
• Dizengoff Square, White City
• Plan for Alexanderplatz, Berlin, Mies van der Rohe, 1928
• Book White City, Black City, Sharon Rotbard,2005/2015
• Article on German Expressionist architecture
• Einstein Tower, Berlin
• Weizmann Villa, Rehovot
• Book Seizing Jerusalem - The Architectures of Unilateral Unification, Prof Alana Nitzan-Shiftan, 2017

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"From the froth of a wave and a cloud I built myself a white city"

Second in a 2-part series on Tel Aviv's "White City", the world's largest collection of modernist-style architecture.   I discuss how in the 1930s a radical architecture style largely developed in Northern Europe took hold in a new city on the shores of the Mediterranean.

To explore further:

• UNESCO world heritage listing of the White City
• Wikipedia  on the Dreyfuss Affair
•  History of Aliyahs
• The Balfour Declaration
• The Geddes Plan
• Detailed article about the Ha'avarah agreement
• Wikipedia on functionalist architecture.  Interestingly it doesn't mention Tel Aviv
• 1936 Punch cartoon on functionalist architecture- Do tell me you loathe it!

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Photo credit:  Bialik House, 1925 The Times of Tel Aviv

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"On or about December 1910 human nature changed.   All human relations shifted, and when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature.”

Final of a 3-part series based on the book "Rites of Spring:  The Great War and the Birth of the  Modern Age" by Modris Ekstiens,  about the evolution of the modernist spirit in Western Europe.  This episode explores how the modernist spirit developed through the optimism and relaxing of social norms of the "Roaring 20s", through to its final perverted expression in Fascism and Nazism.

To explore further:

• Book overview of 1930s The Dark Valley 
• Film clip Dinosaur sequence in Fantasia (1940)
• Wikipedia on Italian futurist poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
• Book Postliberal Politics: The Coming Era of Renewal

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Photo credit:  Charles Lindbergh, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

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"Now all roads lead to France; And heavy is the tread

Of the living; but the dead; Returning lightly dance"

Second of a 3-part series based on the book "Rites of Spring:  The Great War and the Birth of the  Modern Age" by Modris Ekstiens,  about the evolution of the modernist spirit in Western Europe.  This episode explores how the slaughter of WW1 and continued disruption after the war eroded the values of the Victorian age and hastened the adoption of aspects of modernism

To explore further:

• Photo of Adolph Hitler cheering start of WW1
• Exhibition of modernist war artists
• Book The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End

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Photo credit:  Paul Nash, Menin Road 1918, Imperial War Museum

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"The most discordant composition ever written.  Never has the cult of the wrong note been applied with such industry, zeal, and ferocity"

First of a 3-part series based on the book "Rites of Spring:  The Great War and the Birth of the  Modern Age" by Modris Ekstiens,  about the evolution of the modernist spirit in Western Europe.  In this episode I discuss the tumultuous 1913 premiere of the ballet "The Rite of Spring",  plus the growth of modernistic Germany prior to WW1.

To explore further:

• Article about the scandalous sculptures on Sydney's GPO 1884 
• Wikipedia article on "The Rite of Spring" ballet
• Video of the 2013 centenary performance of The Rite of Spring 
• Oldest recording of the Rite of Spring
• Article by Graham T Allison on the Thucydides Trap.

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Photo credit:  Joffrey ballet 2013 production of The Rite of Spring, NPR