Streamline Moderne Architecture

Art Deco designs, turned on their side and smoothed out

« All Arche-tecture | Last Updated 2022

If you come across a building that seems like it could pass for a retro ocean liner – curved edges, polished surfaces, long horizontal lines, and an Art Deco flair – you’re almost certainly looking at a piece of Streamline Moderne architecture, and there’s a good chance the resemblance is intentional. That’s because as the 1920s turned into the 1930s, the design world become increasingly obsessed with a singular technological advancement – aerodynamics – and streamlined design found its way into everything from that era, even mundane and stationary objects like refrigerators, lamps, toasters and of course buildings. Ocean liners, whose curving hulls gracefully carved through the waves, were perfect exemplars of that refined sleekness (especially as they were given their own further streamlining during the ‘30s, like the SS Normandie for example), and hence were often used as sources of inspiration, even lending details like porthole windows, chrome railings, masts, and sails.

Aerodynamic sleekness gave the Depression-era public something modern to distract them, but it also coincidentally served as a perfect analogy for what “modern” architects were continuously trying to do throughout the 1900s – strip away anything that would impede forward movement of the discipline. Extraneous detail was one big thing that figuratively and literally prevented architecture from being more streamlined. Art Deco, the first of the modern styles, started the trend of simpler, more minimal design that carried over into Streamline Moderne’s even smoother and more polished surfaces. But while Art Deco kept one foot in the past, incorporating influences from erstwhile civilizations into its abstract details, Streamline Moderne was the first to overcome the second perceived drag on architectural advancement – references of any kind to past styles.

In this way, Streamline Moderne architecture was the crucial steppingstone towards the International Style which was already brewing in Europe. From this point on, until the rebellion of postmodernists at the end of the century, architects would use minimal forms and only look forward for inspiration, never back. For a brilliant decade, Streamline Moderne architecture made a huge mark on the world of transportation – gas stations, train terminals, diners, port buildings and the new concept of motor hotels, or motels – creating a legacy well beyond its relatively short-lived lifespan.