Art Deco – Building Style of the 1920s and ’30s

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Rachael Unsworth in profile

For my first virtual lecture of 2025 I joined Leeds City Walking Tours, though obviously on this occasion I walked very little.

The presentation was by author and geographer Dr Rachael Unsworth, and it focused on the Art Deco architectural style of the interbellum period.

Art Deco was dubbed some some as the most glamorous style of the 20th century. It stood in stark contrast to the misery and gloom of the First World War. It had its antecendents in both the Beaux Arts and Bauhaus movements – the latter, Unsworth notes, has proven extremely influential on other artistic and architectural movements ever since despite not being very long-lived in its own right.

The Art Deco movement is traditionally traced back to the 1925 Paris Exposition, though the actual term “Art Deco” is a retronym not properly established until the 1960s. It overlapped with Modernism and was notable for sticking to some of the established rules of the preceding Classical period (especially regarding the overall shape of a building) while radically changing its ideas about materials and ornamentation. The decorative flourishes of this fashion focused on bold geometric shapes and the Greek Key symbol (of which Unsworth pointed out a few examples). It also saw the widespread adoption of Portland Stone, steel frames, reinforced concrete, “Crittal windows”, chrome fittings, vitrolite and fluorescent lights.

Dr Unsworth listed some of the “architectural lynchpins” of Art Deco – Charles Reilly, Robert Atkinson, Thomas S. Tait, Howard Morley Robinson – then some rapid-fire examples of the Art Deco buildings themselves. As you would expect from the name of her organisation, these were mostly focused on Leeds.

Particular attention was given to the university, where she brought up the anecdote of the Parkinson Building which was faced with Portland Stone at the front but ordinary brick at the lesser-seen back, because the latter was 4% cheaper. There were also some examples closer to (my) home, such as the Dorothy Perkins building in central Hull.

Unsworth closed out by noting the paradox of Art Deco – it was used as a component of national identity in some countries but stood for internationalism in others. It also stood for peace and democracy at the same time as standing for the power of dictatorships. The League of Nations headquarters in Geneva had the same aesthetics as the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

She had hinted at the start of the lecture that this topic had particular salience at the moment. I had no idea what she meant.

FURTHER READING

Art Deco style is popular again, a century after its heyday – Associated Press

Update Regarding Government Photography

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Over the course of last year I and other contributors furnished Wikimedia Commons with a large number of photographs taken from the Number 10 Flickr account.

These uploads were legally justified under the declaration on the account’s About page which said all photographs were released under the Open Government Licence. After enough photographs had been uploaded this way, a dedicated licence tag was created for it.

Late last year a deletion request was raised over a shot I had uploaded of Prince Louis of Wales at Trooping the Colour. This let to a rather long and complicated discussion over the validity of our interpretation of the government’s many varied and often contradictory statements regarding its intellectual property.

Eventually someone raised a Freedom of Information request over the matter. The Cabinet Office replied, confirming that the OGL was the licence applicable.

I am glad that this dispute has been resolved with reasonable speed and look forward to harvesting a great many more such photographs in the future. I only wish C. Smith had worded the question a little more broadly so it covered all departments of His Majesty’s Government instead of just one.

January Heraldic News

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Nearly one month into the new year a few updates on the state of British heraldry have emerged.

Yesterday the College of Arms published the 77th edition of its newsletter. As usual most of the contents were things already made known through other sources some months ago (though an official confirmation is welcome), such as the new rendering of the British royal achievement and the revised Australian royal banner.

Three new grants of arms to private citizens from last year were revealed. The only one with a Wikipedia page was Randolph Marshall Bell, an American diplomat. The list of appearances by heralds included the Georgian Group, whose journals will be added to my large backlog of reading material. Description was given of the transfer of arms from the long-defunct Borough of Berkamsted to its successor parish.

On a similar note, progress is being made on plans by the Greater London Authority to acquire the arms of its quasi-predecessor, the Greater London Council, which fell into disuse when that body was dissolved in 1986. The present authority, established at the turn of the millennium, has so far been non-armigerous. I wonder if there will also be a push to adopt a new civil flag for the London region, as for the past few decades that role has been unofficially filled by the banner of the defunct council’s abeyant arms, in a manner which may no longer be permissible once said arms return to official use.

Today the Heraldry Society released another blog post, this time by Chartered Information Technology Professional Paul D Jagger, discussing the history of heraldry on the internet as well as the parallels between blazon and programming languages.

Joy to the Web, the Lords Have Come

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To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the broadcasting of proceedings from the chamber of the House of Lords, that house’s YouTube channel has uploaded a series of lengthy extracts from said first broadcast – Wednesday, 23rd January 1985.

Said day is noteworthy for including the maiden speech of the 1st Earl of Stockton, aged 90.

Truth be told I had seen some of these clips years earlier – including Stockton’s speech – as they were uploaded by the amateur channel Coljax Parliament. I assume these were originally recorded with a home VHS system from the live television broadcast. Still, it is nice to have these on the official channel. I hope that this is not a one-off and that Parliament will take to uploading more of its old archive footage, since ParliamentLive.TV only goes back to 2007 and footage earlier than that is restricted to what can be found on British Pathé or C-SPAN.

As the press release notes, Parliamentary cameras are now remotely operated and, while picture quality isn’t perfect, the colours and lighting tend to be reasonably well balanced. The early footage had the camera operators just behind the bar of the house, operating manually. This makes for better angles and movement (I daresay it looks almost cinematic, rather than like CCTV footage.) but there is an awful lot of Black Crush between peers’ jackets and the background shadows. I had originally thought this to be a result of compression and degradation in Coljax’s tapes, but it now seems it was like that in the master footage too, which is a pity.

Turning Back the Clock

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Yesterday the Presidency of the United States of America changed hands for the third time in eight years. Certain of the modern innovations, such as the changing of the websites, are now feeling routine. This time, at least, Trump seemed to have a whole new website design ready, in contrast to his first term in which he reused the template from Obama’s for the first year and a half. I note that “trumpwhitehouse” is still used as the name for the archived site (and social media accounts) from his first term. It remains to be seen how the new ones will be archived come 2029.

The 2017 inauguration ceremony played out in essentially the standard format, albeit sullied a little in retrospect by the 45th President’s bizarre assertions about the size of his crowd relative to the 44th’s. It might have been feared that such statistics might become a subject of long-running competition and controversy, but by chance they have been inapplicable to the inaugurations of both 2021 and 2025 for opposite reasons: Biden’s inauguration was still held on the steps of the capitol but had the few attendees spread far apart and no public audience at all due to a combination of hygiene measures for the ongoing pandemic and security restrictions following the recent riots. Trump’s readeption, but contrast, was moved indoors and had hundreds of guests packed like sardines due to the extreme low temperatures.

Another important distinction is that the outgoing leader attended the event and recognised his successor – despite there being no favour to return in that regard.

I was also a little confused by the timing – the transition of power takes effect at noon (translating to 5pm in British time). This is observed to the second in terms of websites, but the ceremony itself pays little heed. I recall that in the inaugurations of 2017 and 2021 the President-elect finished taking the oath and began making speeches from behind the lectern several minutes before his predecessor’s term had actually ended. This time noon struck slightly before the new incumbents took their oaths. It was a little ironic that Vance’s promise referred to “the office on which I am about to enter” even though looking at the clock he had already entered it about forty seconds prior.

The ceremony included a performance of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Some may say that Dixie would be more appropriate given the cultural alignment of so many of Trump’s supporters. I thought that the singing style of this particular arrangement sounded a bit Russian, though it probably wasn’t a deliberate allusion this time.

One of the less overtly-political joys of new presidencies is the redecoration of the oval office, akin to the unveiling of a new Starfleet bridge or TARDIS console room. I know of no phenomenon remotely equivalent in any other country. In this case there was little cause for excitement as the 47th President’s office is back to looking almost exactly as it did for the 45th. It helps, of course, that the 46th didn’t change the drapes or the wallpaper in between. Presidential transitions also seem to be developing tetrennial tradition of moving the bust of Winston Churchill from one part of the White House so that Nicholas Soames can be interviewed about the Special Relationship, thus providing certain newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic with editorial material for the next few days.

Something Forgotten in the State of Denmark

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A stir was caused in the heraldist community a few days ago when it emerged that His Majesty King Frederik X had made some changes to his coat of arms. This actually happened on 20th December but somehow the news did not spread until the new year.

As with the British royal arms, the Danish royal arms are arms of dominion representing both the incumbent monarch in person and the Danish realm as a corporate entity.

The crown, mantling, pavillion, supporters and sundry other elements of the full achievement have remained the same, but there has been a noticeable remarshalling of the escutcheon itself – with the quarterings moved around.

The quarters of the old version were:

  • First and fourth – Or three lions passant in pale Azure crowned and armed Or langued Gules nine hearts Gules – for continental Denmark.
  • Second – Or two lions passant in pale Azure armed Or langued Gules – for the former province of Schleswig.
  • Third – Azure party per fess in base per pale in chief three crowns Or (for the Kalmar Union) in dexter base a ram passant Argent armed and unguled Or (for the Faroe Islands), in sinister base a polar bear rampant Argent (for Greenland).

The shield as a whole is surmounted by a cross Or fimbriated Gules (referencing the Danish flag) on which in turn is placed an inescutcheon Or two bars Gules (for the former Duchy of Oldenburg).

In the new version, the Schleswig arms are moved down from the second quarter to the fourth, with the repetition of continental Denmark being deleted.The Faroe ram is then moved to the second quarter and the Kalmar crowns are deleted as well, leaving the Greenland bear with the third quarter to itself. The cross is also now made pattée, meaning it is flared at the ends.

The new arrangement is considerably simpler on the eye then the old one, with a more equitable distribution of space to each important element. The change is reminiscent of that which happened to Britain’s royal arms in 1801 when, on the coming into force of the unification of the Kingdom of Ireland with the Kingdom of Great Britain, George III’s arms were changed to have England, Scotland and Ireland quartered in the manner which remains to this day while Hanover (not part of the political union) was moved to an inescutcheon and the historic claim to the recently-eliminated French throne was abandoned.

In the Danish case there has been no recent constitutional change to prompt the remarshalling of Greenland, Faroe and the metropole, while the deletion of reference to the Kalmar Union is particularly long-delayed as the union itself ended in 1523. The Oldenburg inescutcheon could have been changed as well since – having inherited the crown through his mother – Frederik is not agnatically a member of that dynasty but rather is of the House of Monpezat. This is represented in the arms of some of the younger sons descended from Margrethe II, but not those directly in line to the throne.

Note on the Decease of Britt Allcroft

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Hilary Mary Allcroft, commonly known as Britt, was the television producer and director responsible for turning The Railway Series into Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. She was at the helm of the franchise from 1984 to 2003, overseeing its first seven series and the film Thomas & the Magic Railroad. She also created the companion series Shining Time Station for the American market and in early years was part of the production team for Blue Peter.

Directly or indirectly, to this day she remains a commanding influence in the childhoods of many millions in the United Kingdom and around the world. Though no longer in charge of the franchise for more than twenty years she remained a grandee until her death and – however controversial some of her adaptation decisions may have been – her presence was much appreciated by the surrounding community.

Her death occurred on Christmas Day, but was not made public until today. Her family arranged for the first announcement of her demise – preceding any newspapers – to be given by the filmmaker Brannon Carty, in whose documentary An Unlikely Fandom she had recently appeared.

I was not aware of the death of director David Mitton when it happened, nor even born yet when Wilbert Awdry himself passed away. I hope it will be many years before his son Christopher dies.

Farewell Britt, your presents were much appreciated.

UPDATE (4th January)

The aforementioned Brannon Carty has also uploaded his interview with BBC Radio 5.

Checking up on the Blog

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As this website approaches the tenth anniversary of its launch, I took the opportunity to look over the statistics which WordPress records for me. This site is not run for profit, but it is nice to feel that my publications are appreciated.

The view counts for each calendar year are as follows:

  • 2015 – 0053
  • 2016 – 0415
  • 2017 – 1289
  • 2018 – 0987
  • 2019 – 1469
  • 2020 – 2571
  • 2021 – 2800
  • 2022 – 2882
  • 2023 – 2300
  • 2024 – 4664

The first two entries don’t really count as the site didn’t exist until October and there were no meaningful posts on it until March. The third may be artificially inflated as many of the views will have been me checking posts myself to check that they’d uploaded properly. The readership exhibited steady growth from 2019 onwards, albeit with a bit of a dip (not sure why) in 2023. Last year raised the bar substantially, as the previous record was broken by the end of September.

Regular readers (if there are any) may also notice that some changes have been made to the way the blog is organised: Every now and again I go through my old posts deciding which categories and tags are needed based on regularity of use, abandoning some which are no longer needed. Today I have converted many of the most used tags into categories (with many posts inevitably being in more than one) and collapsed most of the menu options into one. I have also invented a few new tags for recurrent subtopics. I hope it makes more sense this way.

UPDATE (4th January)

Four days into the new year I’ve already reached 61 views, thus exceeding 2015’s record.

UPDATE (29th January)

Four weeks into the year I’m on 416, thus exceeding 2016.

Public Domain Day 2025

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As another December concludes, another batch of books, films, songs and paintings goes out of copyright.

This year’s categories are works in Britain (and countries with similar laws) the last of whose authors died in 1954, and works from the United States which were first published in 1929.

Last year the jewel of the public domain crown was Steamboat Willie, the first film to feature Mickey & Minnie Mouse. This year it is The Karnival Kid, the first film in which the mouse speaks. Also in the 1929 United States category are the first Marx Brothers film The Cocoanauts and the final Buster Keaton film Spite Marriage. Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu also make their first appearances in sound films.

Annoyingly there are some noteworthy works from that year originating outside the United States, which are now public domain there but will remain copyrighted in their home countries for some decades, such as Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail and Hergé’s early Tintin cartoons. We do, however, get the first cartoons of Popeye the Sailor Man and Tarzan. We also get the surprisingly-old song Singin’ in the Rain.

Relatively few prominent British authors entered the public domain this year, the most recognisable ones being James Hilton and Francis Brett Young. Also dying that year was the computer scientist Alan Turing, whose most famous publication was his namesake mathematical proof. Of course, many of these works will conversely not be public domain in the United States, so their proliferation over the internet will still be limited.

Here We Go Again

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As the minutes tick down until the end of December, I find myself once again resetting and archiving the talk page for my Wikipedia account, which I have already done on ten occasions before.

Some people think of time as a straight line, others as a circle. I have come to compromise by thinking of time as helical. The turn can be conceived of as lasting, hours, days, months, years or even centuries. Sitting at my computer desk now, ready to perform the same routine again, I find that the manoeuvre is ready in my muscle memory. It almost feels as if mere minutes have passed since I did this on 31 December 2023, or 2022, or 2021…

Conversely, events from earlier this year – such as the general election or the D-Day commemorations – feel a lifetime away. Perhaps the cycle of the seasons is to blame; by July it can be easy to forget the feeling of cold and darkness, and by January equally hard to remember the feeling of warmth and sunlight. Habits, timetables, wardrobes all change accordingly so that we almost inhabit two different selves with little knowledge of each other.

Christmas intensifies this effect, given the disappearance and reappearance of the same decorations each year, as well as the propensity of television and radio to endlessly rerun the same seasonal songs and specials. What’s more, Christmas is often a bit between, when work and school temporarily shut down. Once the rush of shopping for Christmas Day itself concludes, we find ourselves in the awkward denouement, the anticlimactic final week of the year when nothing much happens, which gives us time to reflect. It can all be a bit disorienting and existential, really.

What a strange phenomenon it is that memory and perception should vary in this way – over and over there will be weeks, days or even individual hours which feel excruciatingly long, yet somehow the year as a whole can go in no time at all.