The Art Deco is an artistic movement born in the early 1900’s. It is the first architecture-decoration movement of a global nature. The Art Deco style takes its name from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925 but was not actually branded in print until 1966.
“Art Deco” is the abbreviation of “Decorative Arts”, and concerns architecture, more particularly interior architecture decor with its tapestries, stained glass, paintings, ornamental sculptures, cabinetmaking and ceramics. Art Deco is a form of art using symmetry, geometric shapes and straight lines. Art Deco had a strong presence in the early 1900’s.
It was a simple style that went against the popular art nouveau which was so much more rich in its styles. The Art Deco style took off before the First World War going against the scrolls and organic forms of Art Nouveau. It consists of a return to classic rigor: symmetry, classic orders (often very stylized), cut stone (without any picturesque effect). The decor, generally still very present, no longer has the freedom of the early 1900’s.
Art Deco is the first style to have had a world diffusion, created in Belgium and then touching France , Portugal , Spain , North Africa, and all the Anglo-Saxon countries ( United Kingdom , States United and its active “Art Deco” associations, Canada , Australia , New Zealand , India , Philippines , etc. ), as well as the main cities of Vietnam for the initial movement, several Chinese cities such as Shanghai and even Hong Kong, or Japan, for example, for Prince Asaka’s palace in Tokyo.