We recently installed this art deco gate for clients in Portland.

Copyright 2009 Cobalt Designworks, LLC

Copyright 2009 Cobalt Designworks, LLC

Copyright 2009 Cobalt Designworks, LLC

This was my first time working with the art deco aesthetic, and I must say I’m eager to design more architectural pieces in this style. I love the juxtaposition of modern, clean geometric shapes with rich artistic elements from ancient Egypt and Native America.

Art Deco (excerpted from http://www.decorativearts.com/glossary.html)
Popular decorative design style of the 1920s and 1930s. The name is taken from the exhibitions of Les Arts Decoratifs, where such work was first exhibited. Cubist painting and African and Native American art influenced the development of Art Deco, but the polished, dynamic forms of modern machinery and aircraft were most inspirational. The style is characterized by stepped forms, rounded corners, triple-striped decorative elements, and the use of chromium and black trim. Important practitioners of the style have included (in America) Donald Deskey and Gilbert Rohde. The style was popular for restaurants, theaters, hotels, ocean liners, and Worlds Fair exhibitions, as it did not have the serious theoretical underpinnings that modernism or Bauhaus styles encompassed. The architecture and interiors of the Chrysler Building and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel (both in New York) are good examples of Deco design.

“Art Deco’s ultimate aim was to end the old conflict between art and industry, the old snobbish distinction between artist and artisan, partly by making artists adept at crafts, but still more by adapting design to the requirements of mass-production.”
- Bevis Hillier

To see a related post of this gate in progress go here.