Art Section III: Jazz Age City Life (ACADEC '25-'26)

What was the democratic dream of Thomas Jefferson?

An agrarian country with a dispersed population

For how long was the life of Americans mostly agrarian?

150 years

What census showed that a majority of Americans lived in cities?

The 1920 census

How many Americans moved from the countryside to urban areas in the 1930s?

6 million

What industrialcities did African Americans move to?

Birmingham, Alabama, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angles, and Chicago

How much did NYC's Black population grow by during the 1920s?

It doubled, from 152,000 to 328,000

What years did the Great Migration occur between?

1915 and 1970

How many African Americans moved out of the rural South during the Great Migration?

6 million

How many immigrants came to America in the 50 years leading up to the Jazz Age?

26 million

In the 1910 census, what percentage of residents in New York were either foreign-born or first-generation children of immigrants?

78.6%

Out of the 15 largest cities in the 1910 census, which cities did not record a majority of their population as immigrants or first-generation?

Baltimore and New Orleans

Why did ratios of foreign-born or first-generation population begin to decline in the 1920s?

Congress was severely limiting the number of applicants who were let in

When were immigration quotas in legislation passed in the 1920s?

1921, 1924, and 1929

What artists in the resource guide were either immigrants or the children of immigrants?

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Tina Modotti, Man Ray, and Alfred Stieglitz

When did the Progressive Era last?

Between the 1890s and the 1920s

What did the Progressive Era do?

Privileged regulation and the intervention of local, state, and federal government into citizens' lives

What issues were reformed in the Progressive Era?

Political corruption, pollution, poverty, and health and safety

What did the Progressive Era unexpectedly see the growth in?

Specialized education and professionalization in fields like medicine and law

What did Ernest W. Burgess and Robert E. Park research at the University of Chicago?

Sociology

Where did Ernest W. Burgess and Robert E. Park conduct their research?

The University of Chicago

What did Ernest W. Burgess and Robert E. Park establish?

The academic discipline of urban studies in the 1920s

What were zoning laws used for?

To manage sprawl, create more orderly and navigable cities, and segregate industrial areas from residential areas to avoid pollution

What could zoning laws control in a building?

The shape, height, type, and capacity

What was the most famous zoning ordinance?

NYC's "setback" law

When was NYC's "setback" law put into effect?

1916

What were officials worried of as buildings were beginning to grow taller?

It would turn avenues into dark, gloomy canyons

What was NYC's "setback" law?

To increase the amount of light reaching streets, buildings had to be "set back" a certain distance from the lot line, and the building's façade had to recede a further distance for each incremental increase in height

What architectural draftsman produced imaginative artistic responses to the "setback" law?

Hugh Ferriss

What was a fashionable marker of modernity and the Art Deco movement?

Pyramidal-type skyscrapers

What did some city leaders use zoning to support?

Forms of racial and class segregation

In what year did the Supreme Court uphold zoning as constitutional?

1926

What percentage of urban Americans lived in a city or neighborhood with zoning laws by the end of the 1920s?

60%

Where was William Van Alen born?

New York

When was William Van Alen born?

1888

Where did William Van Alen study?

The Pratt Institute

What was the Pratt Institute?

A technical college targeted mostly at working-class men

Who founded Pratt Institute?

Philanthropist Charles Pratt

When was Pratt Institute founded?

1887

When did William Van Alen win a scholarship to study at École des Beaux-Arts?

1908

Where is the École des Beaux-Arts?

Paris

What does École des Beaux-Arts mean?

School of the Fine Arts

What did the École des Beaux-Arts teach?

Painting, sculpture, and architecture

What did École des Beaux-Arts' curriculum stress?

Rigorous fundamentals based on classical (Greek and Roman) and Renaissance architectural models

What Beaux-Arts buildings were created by Americans who graduated from École des Beaux-Arts?

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sather Tower at the University of California Berkeley, and Chicago's Union Station

Where is Sather Tower?

University of California Berkeley

What did Beaux-Arts buildings often resemble?

Classical temples

When was the Metropolitan Museum of Art created?

1902

When was Sather Tower created?

1914

When was Union Station created?

1925

When did William Van Alen begin working as a professional architect in NY?

1911

When did William Van Alen secure the commission for the Chrysler Building?

1927

How tall was the Chrysler Building?

1046 feet

What overtook the Chrysler Building as the tallest building in the world?

The Empire State Building

How close was the Empire State Building to the Chrysler Building's creation?

11 months

What innovation allowed skyscrapers to form?

Innovations in steel frame construction, fireproofing, and elevator technology

What did the New York Times write about multi-story buildings by the late 1920s?

They were "to the whole of these United States a symbol, a fashion and a heaven-climbing contest"

What was William Van Alen's first major solo commission?

The Chrysler Building

Who originally requested the Chrysler building?

A real estate developer

What was Walter P. Chrysler's profession?

Automotive tycoon

When did Walter P. Chrysler buy the land and the commission to the Chrysler Building?

1928

What style is the Chrysler Building?

Art Deco

What is Art Deco named after?

A 1925 exhibition named: "Exposition internationale des Arts decoratifs et industriels modernes"

What does "Exposition internationale des Arts decoratifs et industriels modernes" translate to?

International Expo of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts

For what applied arts did Art Deco reflect a new direction?

Furniture, lighting, textiles, jewelry tableware, and metalwork

What was Art Deco's visual style?

Opulent and colorful

What materials from industrial milieu were used in Art Deco?

Plastic, aluminum, and shiny chrome

What were Art Deco works usually filled with?

Repeating patterns, intricate geometric shapes, and novel iconography

What novel iconography did Art Deco usually consist of?

Streamlined trains, gears, and lightning bolts

What did Art Deco appeal to consumers' sense of?

Dynamism, progress, and energy

What kind of American visitors went to the "Exposition internationale des Arts decoratifs et industriels modernes"?

Representatives from department stores and companies that manufactured luxury consumer goods

Who created the "Diplomat" Art Deco style coffee set?

Walter Von Nessen

Who manufactured "Diplomat"?

Chase Brass and Copper Company

When was "Diplomat" manufactured?

1931

What was Jeffrey L. Meikle's profession?

Design historian

What did Jeffrey L. Meikle note about Art Deco?

Within a few months, "exclusive NY stores were already commissioning designs for fabric patterns and ceramics… geometric motifs referred explicitly to such emblems of modernity as automobiles, airplanes, zigzag bolts of electricity, and Manhattan's skyscrapers"

When did Art Deco achieve status as "art"?

1929

How did Art Deco begin to be recognized as "art"?

MOMA put on an exhibition of Art Deco interior design

Why would Art Deco begin to decline?

The Great Depression

What was MOMA's Art Deco exhibition titled?

"The Architect and the Industrial Arts"

What does the Chrysler Building sit on?

A large, two-tiered square base

How many stories does the slender, elegant middle section of the Chrysler Building rise?

30 stories

What are at the corners of the middle section of the Chrysler Building?

8 oversized chrome heads usually described as "gargoyles"

What are "gargoyles"?

Stylized and elongated geometric eagle heads coated with shining sheets of polished chrome

What did luxury cars during the time of Art Deco feature?

Hood ornaments, plated with chrome

What does decorative brickwork on the facade of the Chrysler Building incorporate?

Chevrons

What are chevrons?

Nested V-shapes

What is the Chrysler Building's most glorious feature?

Its "crown"

What is the Chrysler Building's crown?

A massive and gleaming pyramidal form made of 7 arch-shaped tiers

What are the 7 arch-shaped tiers of the Chrysler Building faced with?

Reflective panels of stainless-steel cladding and punctuated by a regular pattern of triangular-shaped windows

What did the Chrysler Building's crown reference?

The Statue of Liberty

What did the Statue of Liberty's crown resemble?

An Egyptian pyramid

Where was Howard Carter from?

Britain

What was Howard Carter's profession?

Archaeologist

Who opened the tomb of Tutankhamun?

Howard Carter

When was the tomb of Tutankhamun opened?

1922

What craze swept Europe and America after 1922?

Egyptomania

What tones did Art Deco love that were a great match for Egyptian luxury materials?

Golds and blues

What did the lobby of the Chrysler Building have?

A colorful patterned marble veneer, a mural on the ceiling celebrating the building's construction, and elevator doors

What did the elevator doors inside the Chrysler Building feature?

A gold, black, and maroon design of flaring foliage inspired by Egyptian aesthetics

Was the Chrysler Building intended to house the headquarters of the Chrysler automattive corporation?

No