Style Guide: Modern America
"Form, which should be the clean-cut expression of mechanical excellence, has become sensuous and organic."
Modern America
Style Qualities:
Clean, Sleek, Futuristic,
Abstract, Angular
Out with the Old,
In with the New
The Modernistic style made its world debut in Paris at the influential 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (the term "Art Deco" would not be coined until 1966). This fresh and radical style embodied a completely new, forward-looking aesthetic, liberated from all historical precedent.
Inspired by modern industry and emblems of its power and advance — skyscrapers, factories, airplanes, steamships — le style moderne swept America in the late 1920s and '30s, evolving into trends like Streamline Moderne, Machine Age, and eventually Mid-century or International Modern.
Our Modern America collection reflects the stylistic changes in the world of lighting from 1925 to 1960. "Modern" materials like glass, porcelain, and aluminum were being molded into bold new forms — angular, colorful, organic, and sleek. The aesthetics of speed, and eventually spaceflight, were sweeping away all ornamentation. And a finish called Chromium was sending Nickel to the "old-fashioned" dustbin.