Decade

DECADE 1920s Greta Garbo

design profiles lifestyle old news entertainment

WHO WAS THE MYSTICAL ACTRESS?

2

1

2

3

1920s TIMELINE The 1920s was the first decade to have a nickname: “Roaring 20s” or “Jazz Age.” It was a decade of prosperity and dissipation, of jazz bands, bootleggers, raccoon coats, bathtub gin, flappers, and marathon

dancers. But the 1920s was also a decade of bitter cultural conflicts, pitting religious liberals against fundamentalists, nativists against immigrants, and rural provincials against urban cosmopolitans.

1920

Beginning in the 19th century, many people, and especially women, blamed many of society’s problems upon alcohol. On January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Exactly one year later (January 16, 1920), this Amendment went into affect, making the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor illegal and beginning Prohibition in the United States.

1921

On September 5, 1921, at a raucous Hollywood party, Virginia Rappe, a young starlet, became severely ill and died four days later.

The newspapers claimed that popular silentscreen comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle

had raped her and killed her with his weight.

There was little evidence against Arbuckle, but the public was quick to blame him. This was the “Fatty” Arbuckle Scandal.

1922

Medical researcher Frederick Banting and research assistant Charles Best studied the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas of dogs at the University of Toronto. Banting believed that he could find a cure for the “sugar disease” (diabetes) in the pancreas. In 1921, they isolated insulin and successfully tested in on diabetic dogs, lowering the dogs’ blood sugar level. Researcher John Macleod and chemist James Collip then began to help prepare insulin for human use.

1923

Ten years before Hitler came to power in Germany, he tried to take it by force. On the night of November 8, 1923, Adolf Hitler and some of his confederates stormed into a beer hall and attempted to force the triumvirate, the three men that governed Bavaria, to join him in a national revolution. The men of the tiumvirate disagreed. Hitler was arrested three days later and after a short trial, he was sentenced to five years in prison.

1924

On January 25, 1924, the first Winter Olympics kick off in the Alpine village of Chamonix, France. Originally conceived as “International Winter Sports Week,” the Chamonix games

4

were held in association with the 1924 Summer Olympics, held in Paris, and boasted 258 athletes (247 men and 11 women) from 16 nations, competing in a total of 18 events.

1925

Flappers were young women in the 1920s whose dress, hair style, and attitude were much different than the Gibson Girl, the image of the ideal woman just a generation earlier.

Flappers dressed somewhat like a boy; they tightly wound their chest with strips of cloth in order to flatten it and chopped off most of their hair. The waists of flapper clothes were dropped to the hipline. The hem of the skirts also started to rise in the 1920s. At first the hem only rose a few inches, but from 1925 to 1927 a flapper’s skirt fell just below the knee.

1926

With the first publication of the children’s book Winniethe-Pooh on October 14, 1926, the world was introduced to some of the most popular fictional characters of the twentieth century - Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, and Eeyore.

The second collection of Winnie-the-Pooh stories, The House at Pooh Corner, appeared on bookshelves just two years later and introduced the character Tigger. Since then, the books have been published worldwide in over twenty languages.

1927

When The Jazz Singer was released as a feature-length movie in 1927, it was the first movie that included dialogue and music on the filmstrip itself. Before The Jazz Singer, there were silent films. Yet despite their name,

these films were not silent for they were accompanied by music. Often, these films were accompanied by a live orchestra in the theater and from as early as 1900, films were often synchronized with musical scores that were played on amplified record players.

1928

Chewing gum has a history that spans as far back as the ancient Greeks, who chewed the resin from mastic trees. However, it wasn’t until 1928 that Walter Diemer happened upon just the right gum recipe to make the very first bubble gum, a special type of chewing gum that allows the chewer to make bubbles. The invention of the first successful bubble gum is credited to Walter Diemer in 1928. At the time, 23-year-old Diemer was an accountant for Fleer Chewing Gum Company who experimented on new gum recipes in his spare time. Diemer considered it an accident to have hit upon a formula that was less sticky and more flexible than other chewing gums, characteristics that allowed a chewer to make bubbles.

1929

Historical Importance of the Great Depression: The Great Depression, an immense tragedy that placed millions of Americans out of work, was the beginning of government involvement in the economy and in society as a whole. The Great Depression ranged from 1929 to early 1940s.

5

THE METROSEXUAL LOOK IS SO LAST CENTURY Before the internet grooming wasn’t just all about sexual predators but rather about the personal appearance.

6

P

ersonal presentation was more formal in the 1920s than it is today, and men would visit barber shops frequently for hair cutting and shaving. In this decade, barbers in America became more regulated with the forming of the Associated Master Barbers of America and the National Association of Barber Schools.

With the ‘20s often remembered for its shows of affluence and a party lifestyle, fashionable men’s grooming was expected to be impeccable.

The basic look for men was a short hairstyle, left a little longer on the top. The back and sides would be cut neat and close, but not shorn like a military crew cut. With the emphasis on grooming, quality cuts would see the neck tidied with a razor. The longer top was slicked back to stay in place with traditional pomade, such as Murrays. This style was for both younger and older men of all

classes, but the well-off could indulge in frequent visits to the best barbers to ensure their appearance stayed immaculate.

The Flapper era began with the look called “comme le garcon” (or, “like the boy”), straightening and shortening skirts and dresses, slimming figures and—most shocking of all—cutting the hair of the nation’s fashionable young women. Short hair was a big deal: nice girls kept their hair long, as a metaphor for maidenhood. For a woman to chop her hair short was to practically admit she was no longer a virgin. But women went more than a step further than a boyish haircut and tendency to party; they began smoking in public—something no “lady” did. They outfit themselves with silk robes embroidered with vintage inspired floral motifs. They discarded the restrictive girdles and corsets and bound their breasts flat

Smooth

The Bob

Military cut

The Dutch Boy

Many men wore their hair smooth and plastered down, keeping it neatly in place. The hair was often brushed back from the face, and parted on either left or right side. The hair was somewhat longer near the front, shorter in the back, and much shorter or even shaved at the nape.

to achieve an even more “masculine” appearance in their costumes. And they wore lots and lots of makeup.

The bobbed haircut made the nineteen twenties Flapper movement what it was, and sent many young women to their rooms in disgrace “until it grows back!”. The Bob hairstyle was a blunt cut worn halfway between cheekbone and chin. Bangs could be worn cut straight across or swept to one side.

Like the made up face, hair didn’t look “natural”; it was slicked down, glistening with brilliantine. The Shingle, which followed the Bob, cut the hair at the nape in a V-shape, exposing the neck. Shingles were accompanied by marcelled finger waves or spit curls at the temples.

The most drastic version of the Flapper hairdo was the Eton crop, cut very short and close to the head, with a curl plastered tightly above either ear.

In the 1920s, the act of cutting your hair short was referred to as “bobbing.” The bob was introduced to suit the fashionable “cloche” hats worn by women at the time. A bob is a generic short cut that comes in a variety of sub-styles. The typical bob falls just below the ears.

A military haircut was another popular hairstyle. The hair was cut very short, typically less than 1 cm.

Men who were doing sports especially liked this type of haircut as it was more comfortable than longer hair. In addition, most young boys had their hair cut in a similar fashion.

The Dutch Boy style was a striking style made popular by the actress Louise Brooks. The style led to Brooks being referred to as “the girl in the black helmet” because of the the close sharp style of the cut. The Dutch Boy was cut with a squared-off fringe and squared-off bangs that frame the face.

Facial Hair

The Eton Crop

Mustaches and beards were also popular, particularly among older men, though not as much as before.

Some young people wore mustaches to make them look older. However, by the end of the 1920s, popularity of the mustaches decreased. Warner Baxter is sporting the popular pencil stache.

The Eton Crop was named after the famous English public school for boys. This style was a boyish look that left the hair much shorter. It was a close cut all over, leaving the ears exposed. It was designed to emphasize the shape of a woman’s head and focus attention on her face.

7

GET PROPER

OR DIE TRYING Any true gentleman knows that people judges books by their cover.

That’s why you want to look like the most elegant book in the shelf.

An elegant hat

Pomade

Any random douchebag can actually look decent in a proper hat. If you want to appear like a person with a certain amount class you should wear it all the time.

Never leave the house with your hair untouched. You get loads more respect with a proper hairdo. In order to get your hair ready you definatley need pomade.

The pinstriped suit Cigarette case If you still smoke in this day and age, at least do it with style and keep your smokes in a nice looking case.

Single-blade Razors Although less commonly used, these razors can still be found and used by the shaving aficionado. These really fell out of demand with the invention of the safe and disposable razor, but some barber shops still offer singleblade shaves. The real problem is the amount of skill required to safely wield the blade and that fact that, if used improperly, can lead to serious accidents and possibly fatal wounds.

A fine wristwatch Nothing is classier than a quality watch strapped around your muscular wrist.

8

First of all you need to suit up and if you don’t get a pinstriped suit you’ll never be “in”. The look extra classy one could invest in a suit with a vest. A vest with a pocket watch adds a certain amount of manliness to its wearer.

9

HUMAN CANVAS Ink on your skin wasn’t always a fashionable trait for hipsters and other nobodies. During the roaring twenties only criminals and sailors had the guts to decorate their skin with beautiful art.

The birthplace of the American style tattoo was Chatham Square in New York City. At the turn of the century it was a seaport and entertainment center attracting working-class people with money.

Samuel O’Riely cam from Boston and set up shop there. He took on an apprentice named Charlie Wagner. After O’Reily’s death in 1908, Wagner opened a supply business with Lew Alberts. Alberts had trained as a wallpaper designer

and he transferred those skills to the design of tattoos. He is noted for redesigning a large portion of early tattoo flash art.

While tattooing was declining in popularity across the country, in Chatham Square in flourished.

Husbands tattooed their wives with examples of their best work.

They played the role of walking advertisements for their husbands’ work. At this time, cosmetic tattooing became popular, blush for 10

cheeks, coloured lips, and eyeliner.

With world war I, the flash art images changed to those of bravery and wartime icons.

Early tattooing was a slow and painful procedure done completely by hand. Based on Thomas Edison’s automatic printing pen, inventor Samuel O’Riley revolutionized tattooing with his patent for the first electric tattoo machine in 1891. The electric tattoo machine had a needle bar that moved up and down rapidly

and penetrated the epidermis and dermis layers of the skin, creating an abrasion to host the tattoo.

Throughout the 20th century, tattoos experienced a varied history.

About 1900 to 1910, tattoos became the subject of public exhibitions.

Ringling Brothers circus attracted patrons with a display of the body art of Miss Betty Broadbent at a time when tattooing was being forced underground. By World War I, soldiers and sailors frequented New York’s Chatham Square where they bought tattoos of military imagery.

Tattoo studios appeared in towns with military bases during the early decades of the 1900s.

Conversely, tattoos’ popularity was on the decline during World War II because tattoos were again seen as the mark of social outcasts. The clean-cut nature of the 1950s was a

low point for tattoos. In the 1960s, a hepatitis outbreak prompted tattooing to fall out of favor in the United States. For the latter decades of the 1900s, tattoos were unwanted marks of the past.

D

uring the 1920s, with prohibition and then the depression, Chathma Square lost its appeal.

The center for tattoo art moved to Coney Island. Across the country, tattooists opened shops in areas that would support them, namely cities with military bases close by, particularly naval bases. Tattoos were know as travel markers. You could always tell where a person had been by their tattoos and after world war II, tattoos became further denigrated by their associations with Marlon Brando type bikers and 11

Juvenile delinquents. Tattooing had little respect in American culture.

Then, in 1961 there was an outbreak of hepatitis and tattooing was sent reeling on its heels.

Though most tattoo shops had sterilization machines, few used them. Newspapers reported stories of blood poisoning, hepatitis, and other diseases. The general population held tattoo parlors in disrepute. At first, the New York City government gave the tattoos an opportunity to form an association and self- regulate, but tattooists are independent and they were not able to organize themselves.

A health code violation went into effect and the tattoo shops at Times Square and Coney Island were shut down. For a time, it was difficult to get a tattoo in New York. It was illegal and tattoos had a terrible reputation.

an orphan’s road from poverty to luxury, fame and success Fashion designer Gabrielle Chanel, better known as Coco Chanel, was a celebrated style icon in the 1920’s. She was the first couturier in Paris who let women wear pants and sportswear and she replaced the corset with stylish jersey dresses.

Chanel was born on August 19, 1883, in Saumur, France, and her childhood was anything but glamorous. Her father was a peddler and could not raise her by himself, so when her mother died Chanel was put in a catholic orphanage.

The nuns who raised her taught her how to sew, little did they know that is was that skill that would lead to Chanel’s life’s work.

Chanel had a brief career as a singer before she opened her first shop on Paris’s Rue Cambon in 1910 where she started out selling hats.

After adding stores in Deauville and Biarritz she began making clothes.

She quickly became known for her simple yet sophisticated style. As Chanel once said, “luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury”. In the 1920s, she launched her first perfume and introduced the Chanel suit and the little black dress.

Chanel established one of the most influential fashion design houses of all time. Her timeless designs are still popular and many fashion designers today are inspired by her aesthetics.

12

in order to be irr eplacable one must always be differ ent – Coco Chanel

CHANEL’S LEGACY FROM THE TWENTIES 1921

Chanel took her business to new heights when she launched her first perfume, Chanel No. 5.

This perfume was unique at the time because it was derived from synthetic scents which allowed the fragrance to remain on the wearer’s skin longer than the old, “natural” perfumes. The glamour of the perfume was reignited in 1954 by actress and singer Marilyn Monroe. When asked during an interview what she wore to bed, Marilyn simply responded “five drops of Chanel No. 5”.

1925

The Chanel Suit, composed of collarless, boxy jacket and classic, well-fitted, tweed skirt with black trim and gold buttons is now legendary. This look made the fashion label synonymous with class and wealth. Jackie Kennedy loved it and often wore the suits during her time as first lady.

1926

Another revolutionary design in the 1920s was Chanel’s little black dress. In 1926 American Vogue highlighted this dress and predicted it would become “a uniform for all women of taste”. The little black dress is nowadays a “must have” in every womans closet.

13

THE CULTURE THAT SHAPED THE MODERN WOMAN Flappers became the ideal for young women in the 1920s. From the clothes they wore to their attitudes, flappers were youthful, chic, and above all, modern.

reached itself – through lack of taste.” The fun ended with the Great Depression. But many of the freedoms gained by flapper women in the 1920s are taken for granted in the twenty-first century.

Flapper fashion was very distinctive. Women “bobbed” their hair; that is, they cut off their long hair and sported a cheek-length haircut called a bob. Flappers wore simple, straight dresses with knee-length skirts, and they used brightly colored lipstick. Unlike the generation before, flappers rejected the stable, careful life of a wife and mother. Celebrities from starlet Clara Bow to writer Dorothy Parker adopted the fashions and the reckless attitude of the flapper. Flappers shortened their skirts and

American society rejected the Victorian attitudes of the pre–World War I generation in the 1920s. Flappers and their happy-go-lucky lifestyle set the tone for American popular culture. They partied, drank, smoked cigarettes and danced to wild jazz. Scott Fitzgerald, whose writings chronicle the Jazz Age described flappers as “the generation that corrupted its elders and eventually over14

became more honestly sexual than women had ever been before. The wildest excesses of flapperdom were available only to the very rich, but many American women adopted the clothes, and some of the liberties, of the flapper ideal.

They flattened their chests with cloth bindings to make themselves look young and innocent. Flappers have even been blamed for the popularity of skinny models in the late twentieth century.

For all their sense of adventure and freedom, flappers were not seeking equality with men. In fact, the fashion for short skirts and girlish innocence were actually a way of attracting men. Most flappers were married with children, just like their mothers before them, by the 1930s. What did change was women’s freedom to go out and enjoy themselves alongside men. After the 1920s, it became much more common for single women to enjoy drinking, dancing, and even active sex lives. Within a couple of decades, the freedom to play grew into the freedom for women to work alongside men as well.

“It became much more common for single women to enjoy drinking, dancing, and even active sex lives”

STILL INSPIRED BY THE FLAPPER FASHION Flapper dresses were straight and loose, leaving the arms bare (sometimes no straps at all) and dropping the waistline to the hips. Silk or rayon stockings were held up by garters. Skirts rose to just below the knee,

Gucci

allowing flashes of leg to be seen when a girl danced or walked through a breeze, although the way they danced made any long loose skirt flap up to show their legs. To enhance the view, some flappers applied rouge to their

Gucci

knees. Popular dress styles included the Robe de style. High heels also came into vogue at the time, reaching 2–3 inches (5–8 cm) high.

Many designers are still inspired by the flapper fashion.

Gucci

15

Gucci

She was mystical, – she was a star Greta Garbo is arguably one of Hollywood’s greatest stars.

A legendary actress who combined remarkable beauty with a modern spirit and irresistible allure. Greta Garbo remains one of the most fascinating women in history.

16

she was enigmatic

17

G

arbo was a shy daydreamer as a child. She hated school and preferred to play alone. Yet she was an imaginative child and a natural leader who became interested in theatre at an early age. She directed her friends in make-believe games and performances and dreamed of becoming an actress. Later, she would participate in amateur theatre with her friends and frequent the Mosebacke Theater. At the age of 13, Garbo graduated from school, and, typical of a Swedish workingclass girl at that time, she did not attend high school. She would later confess she had an inferiority complex about this.

In the winter of 1919, the Spanish flu spread throughout Stockholm,

and Garbo’s father, to whom she was very close, became ill. He began missing work and eventually lost his job. Garbo stayed at home looking after him and taking him to the hospital for weekly treatments. He died in 1920 when she was only 14 years old.

She began her first job in 1920 as a soap-lather girl in a barbershop.

more lucrative job as a fashion model for PUB. In late 1920, a director of film commercials for the store began casting Garbo in roles advertising women’s clothing. The first film premiered 12 December 1920, and she appeared in several other commercials during the following year. Thus began Garbo’s cinematic career. In 1922, Garbo caught the attention of director Erik Arthur Petschler who gave her a part in his short comedy, Peter the Tramp.

“He was immediatley struck

by Garbo’s magnetism” Eventually, her friends advised her to look for a better job. She then applied for, and accepted, a position in the PUB department store running errands and working in the millinery department. Before long, she began modeling hats for the store’s catalogs. Her success led to a

Garbo in Flesh and the Devil with John Gilbert.

18

F

rom 1922 to 1924, she studied at The Royal Dramatic Theatre’s Acting School in Stockholm. She was recruited in 1924 by the prominent Swedish director, Mauritz Stiller, to play a principal part in his classic film The Saga of Gosta Berling, a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf.

She played opposite Lars Hanson, a well-known Swedish actor. Stiller became her mentor, training her as a film actress and managing all aspects of her nascent career. She followed her role in Gosta Berling with a starring role in the 1925 German film Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street or The Street of Sorrow), directed by G. W. Pabstand co-starring Asta Nielsen.

Accounts differ on the circumstances of her first contract with Louis B. Mayer, at that time vice president and general manager of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM).

Victor Seastrom, a respected Swedish director at MGM, was good friends with Stiller and encouraged Mayer to meet him on a trip to Berlin.

There are two recent versions of what happened next. In one, Mayer, always looking for new talent, had done his research and was interested in Stiller. He made an offer but Stiller demanded that Garbo be part of any contract, convinced that she would be an asset to his career. Mayer balked, but eventually agreed to a private viewing of Gosta Berling. He was immediately struck by Garbo’s magnetism and became more interested in her than in Stiller. “It was her eyes”, his daughter recalled

him saying; “I can make a star out of her”. In the second version, Mayer had already seen Gosta Berling before his Berlin trip and Garbo, not Stiller, was his primary interest. On the way to the screening, Mayer said to his daughter, “This director is wonderful but what we really ought to look at is the girl....

The girl, look at the girl!” After the screening, his daughter reported, he was unwavering: “I’ll take her without him. I’ll take her with him.

“Number one is the girl”. In any case, a contract was drafted that included both of them and after several months, the two set sail for America on the last day of June 1925.From 1922 to 1924, she studied at The Royal Dramatic Theatre’s Acting School in Stockholm. She was recruited in 1924 by the prominent Swedish director, Mauritz Stiller, to play a principal part in his classic film The Saga of Gosta Berling, a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf.

She played opposite Lars Hanson, a well-known Swedish actor. Stiller became her mentor, training her as a film actress and managing all aspects of her nascent career. She followed her role in Gosta Berlingwith a starring role in the 1925 German film Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street or The Street of Sorrow), directed by G. W. Pabstand costarring Asta Nielsen.

Stiller and Garbo, who was then age twenty and unable to speak English, arrived in New York where they remained for three months without any word from MGM. She and Stiller then went to Los Angeles on their own but another three weeks passed with little contact from MGM. During this period, the studio arranged for a dentist to straighten her teeth and made sure she lost weight. Al though she expected to work with Stiller on her first film, she was cast in Torrent (1926), an adaptation of a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, with director Monta Bell. She displaced Aileen Pringle, ten years her senior, and played a vamp opposite Ricardo Cortez.

Torrent was a hit and despite its cool reception by the trade press, Garbo’s performance was acclaimed.

The success led Irving Thalberg, 19

head of production at MGM, to cast her in a similar role in The Temptress (1926), based on another Ibáñez novel. After only one film, she was given top billing, playing opposite Antonio Moreno. Her mentor Stiller, who had persuaded her to take the part, was assigned to direct. For both Garbo (who did not want to play another vamp and did not like the script any more than she did the first one) and Stiller, The Temptress was a harrowing experience. Stiller, who spoke little English, had difficulty adapting to the studio system, and did not get on with Moreno, was fired by Thalberg and replaced by Fred Niblo. Reshooting The Temptress was expensive.

Even though it became one o.f the top-grossing films of the 1926–27 season, with nearlyUS$1 million in receipts, it was, because of its cost, the only Garbo film of the period to lose money.

However, Garbo again got good reviews and MGM had a new star.

Garbo went on to make eight more silent films and, with the exception of Torrent, all of them were profitable and most were highly successful.[54] She starred in three of them with popular leading man John Gilbert.

About their first movie, Flesh and the Devil, silent film expert Kevin Brownlow states that “she gave a more erotic performance than Hollywood had ever seen”. Their on-screen chemistry soon translated into an off-camera romance and by the end of the production, they began living together. The film also marked a turning point in Garbo’s career.

F

ilm historian Mark Vieira writes, “Audiences were mesmerized by her beauty and titillated by her love scenes with Gilbert. She was a sensation”. Profits from her third movie with Gilbert, A Woman of Affairs (1928), catapulted her to top Metro star of the 1928-29 box office season. In 1929, reviewer Pierre de Rohan wrote in the New York Telegraph, “She has a glamour and fascination for both sexes which have never been equaled on the screen”.

Despite her popularity as a silent movie star, the studio feared that her Swedish accent might impair her

A Woman of Affairs

work in sound and delayed the shift for as long as possible. MGM itself made a slow changeover to sound.

Her last silent movie in 1929, The Kiss, was also the studio’s.

During this period, Garbo began to require unusual conditions during the shooting of her scenes.

She prohibited visitors – including the studio brass – from her sets and demanded that black flats or screens surround her to prevent extras and technicians from watching her.

When asked about these eccentric requirements, she said, “If I am by myself, my face will do things I cannot do with it otherwise”. Film historian and critic David Denby argues that Garbo introduced a subtlety of expression to the art of silent acting and that its effect on audiences cannot be exaggerated.

She “lowers her head to look calculating, or flutters her lips”, he says. “Her face darkens with a slight tightening around the eyes and mouth; she registers a passing idea with a contraction of her brows or a drooping of her lids. Worlds turned 20

on her movements”.

With her first talking film, Anna Christie in 1930, she received an Academy Award nomination.

MGM marketers enticed the public with the catch-phrase “Garbo talks!” That same year she won a second Oscar nomination for her performance in Romance. In 1932, popularity allowed her to dictate the terms of her contract and she became increasingly choosy about her roles. Many critics and film historians consider her performance as the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier in Camille to be her finest.

The role gained her a third Academy Award nomination. After working exclusively in dramatic films, Garbo turned to comedy with Ninotchka (1939), which earned her a fourth Academy Award nomination.

In 1941, she retired at the age of 35 after appearing in only twentyeight films. Although she was offered many opportunities to return to the screen, she declined most of them.

Instead, she lived a private life, shunning publicity.

21

22

WHEN THE SILENCE WAS BROKEN Thetransitiontosound-on-filmtechnologyoccurredmid-decade withthetalkiesdevelopedin1926-1927,followingexperimental techniques begun in the late 1910s.

A

lthough various attempts had been made to Another technological advance, in addition to sound, introduce sound, it wasn’t until 1923 that was the use of color. In the earliest years of the industry, a commercially distributed film contained hand-tinting/painting had been tried, but it was largely a synchronised sound track that was impractical, laborious, and unrealistic looking. Another photographically recorded and printed on to the side of process called Kinemacolor used a movie camera and the strip of motion picture film. It would still be seven projector that both exposed and projected black and years before talking pictures gained supremacy and white film through alternating red and green filters. finally replaced the silent era.

In 1915, the Technicolor Motion The first movie theatres were Picture Corporation was founded by pr oduction of Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Comstock, called Nickelodeons, and were “The very basic compared the luxurious The Jazz Singer in and Burton Westcott to develop a picture palaces that followed but advanced system to colorize 1927 did much to more what an aura of magic and mystery, motion pictures. of laughter and tears clung to them! change the industry’s The company’s first color process There, to the sounds of a tinkling per ception of talking was a two color (red and green) piano, Pearl White faced her perils, additive system that used two color Francis X. Bushman caused fluttering pictur es” negatives pasted or printed together. hearts, Theda Bara wrecked homes, The first two-color Technicolor Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle and Mack Sennett production was The Gulf Between (1917), and the first set zany standards, never to be excelled, and a host of commercial, two-color Technicolor feature film made beautiful ladies smiled and wept and were alluring. It was was the six-reel The Toll of the Sea (1922), also noted as a realm of fantastic and childish make-believe situated in the first to use a subtractive two-color process. The first a never-never land called Hollywood, but gradually the feature-length blockbuster color picture using this same whole world came to treasure its heroes and heroines and innovative process was The Black Pirate (1926) with clowns, and to ape them.

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. The movie was a great sucess.

24

FILMED TODAY - SET IN THE 20s The Great Gatsby

The Kings Speech The story of King George VI

Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby’s circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy.

of Britain, his impromptu ascension to the throne and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch become worthy of it. Starring Colin Firth and Geoffry Rush.

Lawless Set in Depression-era

The Aviator A biopic depicting the early

Boardwalk Empire Chronicles the life and

Seabiscuit True story

Franklin County, Virginia, a bootlegging gang is threatened by a new deputy and other authorities who want a cut of their profits.

Starring Tom Hardy and Shia Lebeouf.

years of legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes’ career, from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s.

Starring Lenardo Di Caprio and Cate Blanchet.

of the undersized Depression-era racehorse whose victories lifted not only the spirits of the team behind it but also those of their nation.

Starring Tobey Maguire and Jeff Bridges.

times of Nucky Thompson, the undisputed ruler of Atlantic City, who was equal parts politician and gangster. Starring Steve Buscemi and Kelly McDonald .

25

26

THE DANCE THAT

DEMOLISHED A BUILDING

C

harleston has received the approval of the Dancing Teachers’ Convention, in session recently at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York. Against it was quoted the accusation that its stamping rhythm had caused the disastrous collapse of the Pickwick Club in Boston, whereby forty-four people were killed and many injured.

Following that catastrophe, the Boston building department received a request from the Mayor’s office to issue an edict barring the “Charleston” from public dance-halls. But the extraordinary popularity of the new favorite among dances was not abated, we are told, by its presumed guilt of the Pickwick Club slaughter.

“Practically all dance teachers in New York and other cities of the East,” we read, “are forced to teach the Charleston.” One teacher is quoted as saying that “while 27

she did not greatly relish the Charleston, she thought a modified form of the dance, minus superfluous jazzing, would add life to an occasion,” and that the Charleston “was distasteful to her only as it is danced by very young and overexultant flappers.” In an article syndicated by the International Feature Service we read: From coast to coast the “ Charleston’’ has caught the country swaying to its curious rhythm. No dance, since jazz first came into vogue with the “bunny-hug” and the “turkey-trot,” has created such a furore.

Enthusiasts ecstatically stamp to its syncopated measures, while others, equally in earnest, denounce it. But the controversy that is carried on everywhere concerning this latest mania has failed to stem its tide of popularity. America is “Charleston” mad.

THE SOUND OF THE TWENTIES

Jazz gained popularity in America and worldwide by the 1920s. Nothing quite like it had ever happened before in America. New exuberant dances were devised to take advantage of the upbeat tempo’s of Jazz and Ragtime music.

By the mid-1920s, jazz was being played in dance halls and roadhouses and speakeasies all over the country.

Early jazz influences found their first mainstream expression in the music used by marching bands and dance bands of the day, which was the main form of popular concert music in the early twentieth century.

Meanwhile, radio and phonograph records — Americans bought more than 100 million of them in 1927 — were bringing jazz to locations so remote that no band could reach them. And the music itself was beginning to change — an exuberant, collective music was coming to place more and more emphasis on the innovations of supremely gifted individuals. Improvising soloists, struggling to find their own voices and to tell their own stories, were about to take center stage.

In its early years jazz was considered the devils music by diverse segments of the American public. Vigorous public debate raged between supporters and detracters. A typical exchange took place between music critic Ernest Newman who debunked Jazz in a 1927 magazine article, with a reply soon forthcoming from jazz-king Paul Whiteman who argued that jazz was a genuine musical force - and we know who history shows was correct in his views.

Public dance halls, clubs, and tea rooms opened in the cities. Strangely named black dances inspired by African style dance moves, like the shimmy, turkey trot, buzzard lope, chicken scratch, monkey glide, and the bunny hug were eventually adopted by the general public. The cake walk, developed by slaves as a send-up of their masters’ formal dress balls, became the rage. White audiences saw these dances first in vaudeville shows, then performed by exhibition dancers in the clubs. The popular dance music of the time was not jazz, but there were early forms taking shape in the evolving blues-ragtime experimental area that would soon turn into jazz. Tin Pan Alley composers like Irving Berlin incorporated ragtime influence into their compositions, though they rarely used the specific musical devices that were second nature to jazz.

28

LOIS ARMSTRONG Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an “inventive” trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance.

In his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the cornet and trumpet. The greatest trumpet playing of his early years can be heard on his Hot Five and Hot Seven records, as well as the Red Onion Jazz Babies. The improvisations he made on these records of New Orleans jazz standards and popular songs of the day are unsurpassed by later jazz performers.

The older generation of New Orleans jazz musicians often referred to their improvisations as “variating the melody.” Armstrong’s improvisations were daring and sophisticated for the time, while often subtle and melodic.

He often essentially re-composed pop-tunes he played, making them more interesting. Armstrong’s playing is filled with joyous, inspired original melodies, creative leaps, and subtle relaxed or driving rhythms. The genius of these creative passages is matched by Armstrong’s playing technique, honed by constant practice, which extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet.

In these records, Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what was essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression.

Armstrong’s work in the 1920s shows him playing at the outer limits of his abilities. The Hot Five records, especially, often have minor flubs and missed notes, which do little to detract from listening enjoyment since the energy of the spontaneous performance comes through. By the mid-1930s, Armstrong achieved a smooth assurance, knowing exactly what he could do and carrying out his ideas to perfection.

He was one of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve himself. Armstrong was an avid audiophile. He had a large collection of recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes, which he took on the road with him in a trunk during his later career. He enjoyed listening to his own recordings, and comparing his performances musically. In the den of his home, he had the latest audio equipment and would sometimes rehearse and record along with his older recordings or the radio.

Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday, and 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria’s Empire Room. He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City.

A place to where many jazz lovers travel still today, to pay their regards.

29

DRINK LIKE NUCKY THOMPSON Drink like it’s 1920 with Sidecars and the Tuxedo. In 1919, the 18th Amendment was passed, clearing the way for 13 years of the folly that was Prohibition. The Noble Experiment lasted from 1920 to 1933.

During the prohibiton time, it was illegal to sell alcohol, so people completely stopped drinking. Yeah, right. They actually drank more than ever, even though the cocktails weren’t exactly top notch.

Barkeeps had limited access to good booze, so they used sweeteners and juices to cover up the taste of the

rough hooch. A few cocktails from the era survived, having been lovingly restored in the best mixology joints around the country. Here are 10 of our favorites to sip on while channelling your inner Nucky Thompson from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

OUR 10 FAVORITE PROHIBITION COCKTAILS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

French 75 How can you go wrong with Champagne?

The original recipe, from The Savoy Cocktail Book, published in 1930, calls for gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and some bubbles. A later recipe replaces the gin with Cognac.

Sidecar This one’s a stiff one, made of Cognac, Cointreau and lemon juice, in a 3-2-1 ratio that’s shaken and served up. It’s said to be named for an army captain who liked to be driven to the bar in a motorcycle sidecar. So old-timey.

Mary Pickford Britten also recommends this fun little concoction of white rum, fresh pineapple juice, maraschino liqueur and grenadine, created by Eddie Woelke who like many a bartender during Prohibition fled to Havana, where he was free to shake and stir to his heart’s content.

Ward 8 Also created before Prohibition, it’s easy to see why this one was popular during the Noble Experiment. Rye whiskey, which would have been harsh stuff at the time, is masked with lemon juice, orange juice and grenadine.

Nowadays, better quality rye like Templeton made in Iowa has much improved this drink.

Bacardi Cocktail In his 2008 book, The Essential Cocktail: The Art of Mixing Perfect Drinks, Dale DeGroff writes that the Bacardi Cocktail was the Cosmo of the post-Prohibition era. It was created earlier, though, and wildly popular in Havana, where Americans who could afford to would escape the booze ban.

Southside “It’s known as a Prohibition gem,” says Meaghan Dorman of Raines Law Room a New York speakeasy named for a precursor to Prohibition, the Raines Law, which limited drinking on Sundays. “I’ve read that it was the drink of Al Capone and his gang.” The drink is typically made with gin, lime, mint and simple syrup.

Dubonnet Cocktail Dubonnet which is essentially foritifed red wine made spicy with herbs was used to mask the taste of rotgut gin in this drink, according to Maxwell Britten of Maison Premiere in Brooklyn. But making it with a quality gin, he points out, results in a suave sipper.

Tuxedo #2 Created in the late 1800s, this drink resurfaced during the 1920s. Do the main ingredients gin and vermouth sound familiar?

It’s a cousin of the Martini. Add a dash of maraschino liqueur, bitters and dose of absinthe, and you have yourself a Tuxedo #2.

Bee’s Knees A spoonful of honey, plus lemon and orange juice, would have taken the edge off bathtub gin in this 1920s cocktail. Today’s craft gins lend a much-welcome complexity to this sweet-tart recipe.

Highball A simple brown spirit-and-ginger ale highball was a common order during the era, says Dorman. She recommends mixing your favorite bourbon with one of the craft ginger beers on the market now, like Fever Tree, and adding a twist of lime for a pleasantly spiced refreshment.

– All I need is N 5

32

Al

CAPONE ALPHONSE GABRIEL “AL” CAPONE, THE GANGSTER ICON OF THE 1920s. INVOLVED IN CRIMES SUCH AS SMUGGLING, PROSTITUTION AND MURDER HE WAS ONE OF THE MOST FEARED MEN IN CHICAGO AND IN ALL OF AMERICA.

A

lphonse Gabriel Capone was born in the borough of Brooklyn in New York on January 17, 1899. His parents, Gabriele and Teresina Capone, were immigrants from Italy. His father was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a town about 16 mi (26 km) south of Naples, and his mother was a seamstress and the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the Province of Salerno.

Gabriele and Teresa had nine children. The Capone family immigrated to the United States, first immigrating from Italy to Fiume, Austria– Hungary in 1893, traveling on a ship to the U.S. and finally settled at 95 Navy Street, in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. Gabriele Capone worked at a nearby barber shop at 29 Park Avenue. When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Capone showed promise as a student, but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. He dropped out of school at the age of 14, after being expelled for hitting a female teacher in the face. He worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley. During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor. After his initial stint with small-time gangs that included the Junior Forty Thieves and the Bowery Boys, Capone joined the Brooklyn Rippers and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan. During this time, he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale, a bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. After he inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club, Capone was attacked by her brother, Frank Gallucio, and his face was slashed three times on the left side. These scars gave him the nickname “Scarface.” Yale insisted

34

that Capone apologize to Gallucio, and later Capone hired him as a bodyguard. When photographed, Capone hid the scarred left side of his face saying the injuries were war wounds. Capone was called “Snorky” by his closest friends. On December 30, 1918, Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin, who was Irish Catholic and who, earlier that month, had given birth to their first son, Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone.

As Capone was under the age of 21, his parents had to consent to the marriage in writing. Capone departed New York for Chicago without his new wife and son, who joined him later.

In 1923, he purchased a small house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue in the Park Manor neighborhood on the city’s south side for USD $5,500.

a vast inland territory, and it was well-served by railroads. Yale was a suspect but legal proceedings against him were dropped due to a lack of evidence. Capone was suspected in the murders of Colosimo and two other men. He was seeking a safe haven and a better job to provide for his new family.

The 1924 town council elections in Cicero became known as one of the most crooked elections in the

the closure of all the speakeasies in Cicero for a day as a mark of respect.

Much of Capone’s family settled in Cicero as well. In 1930, Capone’s sister Mafalda married John J. Maritote at St. Mary of Czstochowa, a massive Neogothic edifice towering over Cicero Avenue in the Polish Cathedral style. The Torrio-Capone organization, as well as the SicilianAmerican Genna crime family, competed with the North Side Gang of Dean O’Banion. In May 1924, O’Banion discovered that their Sieben Brewery was going to be raided by federal agents and sold his share to Torrio. After the raid, both O’Banion and Torrio were arrested.

Torrio’s people murdered O’Banion in revenge on October 10, 1924, provoking a gang war.

In 1925, Torrio was severely injured in an attack by the North Side Gang; he turned over his business to Capone and returned to Italy. During the Prohibition Era, Capone controlled large portions of the Chicago underworld, which provided The Outfit with an estimated US $100 million per year in revenue. Capone died in in 1947 in Palm Springs.

“The Outfit with an estimated US $100 million per year in revenue.”

C

apone was recruited for Chicago by Johnny Torrio, his Five Points Gang mentor. Torrio had gone there to resolve some family problems his cousin’s husband was having with the Black Hand and killed them. He saw many business opportunities in Chicago, especially bootlegging following the onset of prohibition. Chicago’s location on Lake Michigan gave access to

Chicago area’s long history of rigged elections, with voters threatened by thugs at polling stations. Capone’s mayoral candidate won by a huge margin and weeks later announced that he would run Capone out of town. Capone then met with his puppet-mayor and knocked him down the town hall steps.

For Capone, the election victory was also marred by the death of his younger brother Frank at the hands of the police. Capone cried at his brother’s funeral and ordered

CAPONE IN MOVIES Boardwalk Empire Boardwalk Empire is a new TV series set in the 1920s. Al Capone is a supporting character in the series played by Stephen Graham. The main character in the series is Nucky Thompson, portrayed by Steve Buscemi. Nucky Thompson was the undisputed ruler of Atlantic City during the 1920s.

De Niro is untouchable

Can Al Capone be funny?

Robert De Niro starred as Al Capone in the 1987s movie The Untouchables. The movie is circuling around Eliot Ness, a federeal agent, with a small hand-picked group of agents sets out to stop Al Capone. With Actors like Robert DeNiro, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia and Kevin Costner, what can go wrong?

Al Pacino portrayed Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy, a character based on Al Capone. Dick Tracy is a movie from 1990 by Warren Beatty who also plays the lead. A comic strip detective finds his life vastly complicated when Breathless Mahoney makes advances towards him while he is trying to battle Big Boy Caprice’s united mob.

35 35

AUTOMOTIVE The car started out in 1919 as still something of a rarity, and ended up, in 1930 well on the way towards ubiquity. In fact, automobile production at the end of this period was not matched again until the 1950s. In the intervening years, most industrialized states built nationwide road systems

with the result that, towards the end of the period, the ability to negotiate unpaved roads was no longer a prime consideration of automotive design. This is a selection of milestones in the area of automotion and car-related culture of the 1920s.

1921

Kirby’s Pig Stand opened in September of 1921 in Dallas, Texas, making it America’s first drive-in restaurant. The restaurant expanded into chains all around the United States in states such as Texas, New York, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, California, and Alabama thus revolutionizing the way Americans eat. A 1927 newspaper advertisement claimed over 5,000 people in Dallas alone had their evening meal at the Pig Stands. It was popular for chicken-fried steak sandwich, fried onion rings, milkshake, pig sandwich and their Texas toast. The scheme of the restaurant consisted of a red-tiled pagoda-like roof set on a rectangular building framed of wood and covered in stucco. The company finally went bakrupt in 2007, having existed for 86 years.

1923

The gasoline additive ethyl made its debut at the Indianapolis 500, boosting octane levels from the 50’s to the 80’s. Founded in 1923 Ethyl Corp was formed by General Motors and Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso). General Motors had the use patent for TEL as an antiknock, based on the work of Thomas Midgley, Jr., and Esso had the patent for the manufacture of TEL. Since the patents affected the marketing of TEL, General Motors and ESSO formed Ethyl Corp; each parent company had a 50% stake in the new corporation.

1923

The 24 Hours of Le Mans was first run on 26 and 27 May 1923, through public roads around Le Mans. Originally planned to be a three year event awarded the Rudge-Whitworth Triennial Cup, with a winner being declared by the car which could go the farthest distance over three consecutive 24 Hour races, this idea was abandoned in 1928 and overall winners were

declared for each single year depending on who covered the farthest distance by the time 24 hours were up. The early races were dominated

by French, British, and Italian drivers, teams, and cars, with Bugatti, Bentley, and Alfa Romeo being the dominant marques. In 1936, the race was cancelled due to general strikes in France, then with the outbreak of World War II in late 1939, the race went on a ten-year hiatus.

36

1924

Bugatti first introduced the Type 35 On August 3 1924. It was phenomenally successful, winning over 1,000 races in its time. It took the Grand Prix World Championship in 1926 after winning 351 races and setting 47 records in the two prior years.

At its height, Type 35s averaged 14 race wins per week.Its version of the Bugatti arch-shaped radiator that had evolved from the more architectural one of the Bugatti Type 13 Brescia, was to become the one that the marque is most known for.

1925

On June 6, 1925 Walter Chrysler founded the Chrysler Corporation when the Maxwell Motor Company was re-organized into the Chrysler Corporation.

Walter Chrysler arrived at the ailing MaxwellChalmers company in the early 1920s. He was hired to overhaul the company’s troubled operations.

1927

After having built and sold more than 15,000,000 Model T’s over a time of 18 years, a modest ceremony on May 26, 1927, marked the formal end of the Ford Model T production. The Model T was replaced by the Model A which quickly became a success just as it’s predecessor. This new Model A was designated as a 1928 model and was, unlike the Model T that was only available in black, available in four standard colors.

1927

On 29 March 1927 englishman Henry Segrave drove the one-off 1000 HP Sunbeam car Mystery to a new land speed record of 203.79 miles per hour (327.97 km/h) thus becoming the first person to

reach a speed over 200 mph (320 km/h) on land. The Sunbeam 1000 HP was the first non-American car to run on Daytona Beach for a land speed record attempt.

1929

This 1929 Mercedes-Benz 38/250 SSK was sold for US$7,4 million at Bonhams Goodwood auction in 2004, making it the 11th most expensive car ever sold at auction. Apart from its looks, it was also a beast on the track. The list of victories at legendary Grand Prix’s around the world is quite extensive, among them is the 1931 Mille Miglia. Supercharged with nearly 300 horsepower and top speed of 120, this was also the fastest car of its day. Notabaly, the SSK was the last car designed for MercedesBenz by Ferdinand Porsche before he left to found his own car company. Apart from the one sold at Bonhams, there is one proudly owned by fashion designer Ralph Lauren.

37

DESIGN

&ARCHITECTURE

During the 1920s it became very popular with minimalistic designs. With design schools like Bauhaus and architects like Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier the 20s still inspires us with to to minimalistic designs.

One designer who was one of “the founding fathers” was Le Corbusier, a swiss designer born in 1887. Le Corbusier, originally Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, became a French citizen in 1930. He is famous for designing buildings in both France and India. One of his most famous designs is Villa Savoye in Paris, France. It was designed

by Le Corbusier and his cousin, , Pierre Jeanneret, in the late 1920’s.

It was originally built as a country retreat on behest of the Savoye 38

family. During World War II, the Jewish Savoye family was sent to concentration camps by the Nazis who took over the house and used it for storage. Nowadays it is open to visitors year-round so if you are in Paris, visit this villa, you’ll enjoy it.

T

he Barcelona Pavillion is a modern architectural building in Barcelona. It was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1928. It was the German Pavilion for the

1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain. The demands for the design came from the Commissioner, Georg von Schnitzler who said it should give “voice to the spirit of a new era”. The Barcelona Pavillion playes, in the same way as the Savoy Villa, a very important part of the modern achitecture. If you visit the Barcelona Pavillion today you will not only see a very modern architecture, you will also get your eyes on some very modern furniture and design. The iconic

Barcelona Chair is a famous piece of furniture. The pavilion was going to be bare, no trade exhibits, just the structure accompanying a single sculpture and purpose-designed furniture (the Barcelona Chair). This lack of accommodation enabled Mies to treat the Pavilion as a continuous space; blurring inside and outside.

However, the structure was more of a hybrid style, some of these planes also acted as supports. A unique feature of this building is the exotic materials.

The Barcelona Pavillion

39

BAUHAUS Probably the most famous and influential school in modern times, the German school of crafts and fine arts, have had lecturers like Wassily Kandinsky, Otto Lindig and Paul Klee. Operating from 1919 to 1933 in three cities in Germany; in Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin the Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design.

The school existed under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930 and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 until 1933, when the school was closed by its own leadership under pressure from the Nazi regime. The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography. The Bauhaus had a major impact on art and architecture trends in Western Europe, the United States, Canada and Israel in the decades following its demise, as many of the artists involved fled, or were exiled, by the Nazi regime. Tel Aviv, in fact, in 2004 was named to the list of world heritage sites by the UN due to its abundance of Bauhaus architecture; it had some 4,000 Bauhaus buildings erected from 1933 and on.

One of the most important contributions of the Bauhaus is in the field of modern furniture design. The ubiquitous Cantilever chair and the Wassily Chair designed by Marcel Breuer are two examples of modern furniture design.

Typical for the Bauhaus design is the strict geometrical shapes.

One person who was in the lead of this style was Piet Mondrian, a very important contributor to the De Stijl movement and he evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism.

Teaching at the Bauhaus was

based on a specific ideology. A summary of the basic ideas in the Bauhaus Manifesto written by Walter Gropius.

Art and technology would blend in with the ideal design. Gropius’s idea was that “the unity of artistic and artisanal training looking back to a unified aesthetic cultural expression ...” Teaching would include many related areas - from architecture to typography. Nowadays the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation offers guided tours through the Bauhaus building as well as excursions to all the other Bauhaus architecture situated in Dessau. You can spend the night like the students did, in studio flats for 35 EUR a night.

40

The Bauhaus School in Dessau

A PIONEER OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was an German-American architect. He was the last director of the Bauhaus.

Along with Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. Two of his European masterworks: the temporary German Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition (often called the Barcelona Pavilion) 41

in 1929 and the elegant Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, completed in 1930. He also designed the Barcelona Chair. When Mies quit as director of the Bauhaus he moved the the U.S. where he worked as a freelance designer and at different designer schools such as the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mies worked from his studio in Chicago for his 31year period in America.

Chrysler Building in New York is a fine example of the Art Deco style during the 1920s.

42

THE FAMOUS BARCELONA CHAIR The Barcelona chair is an internationally acclaimed chair, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. Originally for the German Pavilion, that country’s entry for the International Exposition of 1929, which was hosted by Barcelona, Spain, it gained international acclaim. The frame was initially designed to be bolted together, but was redesigned in 1950 using stainless steel, which allowed the frame to be formed by a seamless piece of metal, giving it a smoother appearance. Bovine leather replaced the ivory-colored pigskin which was used for the original pieces.

The functional design and elements of it that were patented

by Mies in Germany, Spain and the United States in the 1930s have since expired. The Barcelona chair was manufactured in the US and Europe in limited production from the 1930s to the 1950s. In 1953, six years after Reich’s death, van der Rohe ceded his rights and his name on the design to Knoll, knowing that his design patents were expired. A replica costs between $5000 and $7000.

Replica of the Barcelona Chair as a sofa

FRANCE INSPIRES THE WORLD Art Deco is an influential visual arts design style which first appeared in France during the 1920s, flourished internationally during the 30s and 40s, then waned in the post-World War II era.

It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials.

The style is often characterized by rich colors, bold geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation.

Deco emerged from the Interwar period when rapid industrialization was transforming culture. One of its major attributes is an embrace of technology. This distinguishes Art Deco from the organic motifs favored

by its predecessor Art Nouveau.

Historian Bevis Hillier defined Art Deco as “an assertively modern style... that ran to symmetry rather than asymmetry, and to the rectilinear rather than the curvilinear; it responded to the demands of the machine and of new material... and the requirements of mass production.”

During its heyday Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress.

The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco style skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and 43

Lexington Avenue. At 1,046 feet (319 m), the structure was the world’s tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. The construction started in 1928 but was finished in 1930. The Chrysler Building was designed by architect William Van Alen for a project of Walter P. Chrysler. When the ground breaking occurred on September 19, 1928, there was an intense competition in New York City to build the world’s tallest skyscraper. Despite a frantic pace (the building was built at an average rate of four floors per week), no workers died during the construction of this skyscraper.

GADGETS

OF THE DECADE

The 1920s represent an important phase in terms of innovation and inventions. Just try to imagine your life without typewriters, goggles, flashlights and other extremely vital objects... Vital or not, these things look really nice and retro.

USB Typewriter This USB Typewriter circuitry can transform your old manual typewriter into a retrofuturistic marvel. Use a gorgeous vintage typewriter as the computer keyboard for your Mac or PC, or type with ink-on-paper while electronically recording your keystrokes! The USB Typewriter also makes an outstanding keyboard dock for your iPad or tablet PC.

Bakelite flashlight Antique bakelite flashlight from Europe.

Mark 9 rider goggle It´s the perfect choice for classic motorcycle and scooter riders. Its sleek design incorporates silver painted solid brass frames into a soft synthetic leather facemask through hand-stitching.

44

Portable iPhone speaker It´s an old 1920’s Magnavox repurposed as a portable iPhone speaker. The base is hand carved from two walnut scraps. Sound amplification (or more accurately, maximized efficiency) is completely acoustic; the dock is not plugged-in or battery powered and the sound is enough to fill a room. The walnut box is not over-design to highlight the wellaged, patina of the horn.

1920s satnav It was the invention of the future, a tiny machine complete with its own map that would tell motorists which way to go. But the communications satellites that help modern cars locate themselves were still decades away.

Instead, the route-finder for the well-equipped 1920s driver was a wristwatch-style device equipped with minuscule.

Whiskey Decanter Complete a bar collection with a cristal whiskey decanter. Ideal for whiskey and other spirits choose from a variety of decanters.

Great for a bar collection or to be used at parties, dinners and get-togethers, these decanters will serve drinks in an elegant style.

Your neighbours will be extremly jelaous of your beatyful set of glasses. They will probably want to murder and rob you just for fun.

Candlestick Phone Forget digital, let’s go analog. Awesome brushed chrome Crosley 1920s Candlestick Phone is the perfect gift for all those phone calls that’ll take you back to a simpler time.

Alexander Graham Bell would surely be proud.

45

NEXT ISSUE I don’t do drugs.

I am drugs.

- Salvador Dali

JUDY GARLAND FROZEN FOOD SNOW WHITE &MUCH MORE

The Surreal 46

1930s

47

The “Rolleiflex MiniDigi” is a digital camera with the same shape and design as the famous 6x6 twin lens reflex camera with a resolution of up to 3.1 million pixels.

This unique miniature Rolleiflex is added to the successful 8x11mm film and ‘Leica’ digital classic collection camera series from MINOX. 48

Old look. Modern Technology.