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T he Moderne style found its most complete expression in vehicles. The 1930s were the years of the classic automobile, the luxury train, the first commercial passenger airplane. An iconography grew up around speed. Streamlining reduces air resistance in a meaningful way only at extremely high speeds, but it became a device symbolic of the modern age. With the additional emphasis of wraparound banding it was applied to everything from cameras to building fagades. This aesthetic is reflected in aspects of the interior decor of Rockefeller Center, the most ambitious architectural accomplishment of the decade. Immediately after the Wall Street crash, John D. Rockefeller, Jr, undertook this New York real-estate venture as a personal investment in the future. Between 1930 and 1939 a city within a city was erected on a plot bounded by 48th and 51st streets and Fifth and Sixth avenues. In this complex, the building facing Saint Patrick's Cathedral was designated the "International Building," symbolizing Rockefeller's interest in a world community Officially opened on May 1, 1935, it houses consulates, international firms, and the U.S. Passport Agency In 1978, when Rockefeller Center Inc. began the installation of 28 high-speed automatic elevators to serve the 38-story tower of the International Building, one of the original cabs was carefully dismantled for the Metropolitan by the Westinghouse Elevator Company The elevators benefited from the same attention Rockefeller's team of architects lavished on all public areas of the complex. The design of the cab visually alluded to the mechanical advances that allowed the elevator to travel at record speed. By a process patented as Metylwood, thin sheets of Spanish elm were applied directly to the steel sections that bolted together to form the cab. The veneer, laid on so that the grain ran horizontally, was divided into registers by strips of metal (a copper, zinc, and nickel alloy known as German silver), polished to a satin finish. The back corners of the cab were rounded off to make a continuous wrap. An innovative ventilation system was integrated into the design. In the same spirit as the wall banding, concentric circles of metal delineated a ceiling fan that has come to be standard. Ventilation grilles at floor and ceiling were designed as borders for the wraparound walls. The elevator, exhibited in the Museum, stands as the visual symbol of technological advance, epitomizing the Moderne ideal. (Opposite page) Elevator in the International Building lobby 1978. (Above) Interior of elevator by Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company; cab by W.S. Tyler Co. H. 8 ft. 1 in. Gift of Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Rockefeller Center, Inc., 1979. 110 a-j. (Above right) Entrance to the International Building with the figure of Atlas by Lee Lawrie, about 1937; photograph courtesy of Rockefeller Center Inc. 41
Page 1 and 2: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bull
Page 3 and 4: he Metropolitan Museum's involvemen
Page 5 and 6: he decorative arts of the twentieth
Page 7 and 8: A rt Nouveau, the first decorative
Page 9 and 10: AWc
Page 11 and 12: An early center of Art Nouveau deve
Page 13 and 14: I F avrile glassware, patented in 1
Page 15 and 16: IS Tbearhitcof Hoffmann (1870- 5r)e
Page 17 and 18: *' : :
Page 19: Art Deco, succeeding Art Nouveau in
Page 22 and 23: : --..I- '", "p:- -m *:.i-3Y` _tB :
Page 24 and 25: ,,t 01 8! ; r a% 5 :a ;1- "i 9 Q- I
Page 26 and 27: cquired in 1923, Ruhlmann's fallfro
Page 28 and 29: 22^' !4^"^^ Art Deco style. The ori
Page 30 and 31: i' s aurice Marinot (1882-1960) was
Page 32 and 33: he couturier Jacques Doucet was an
Page 34 and 35: ; /.", 'V 4 / 1/..
Page 36 and 37: The Normandie was the last great ex
Page 38 and 39: I~1mmm I
Page 41: he impact of the 1925 Paris Exposit
Page 45: enmark entered the world market in
Page 48 and 49: - 7 - ~ - - ~ - - - I:~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Page 50 and 51: 1 j 1. hough he refused to teach, W
Page 52 and 53: --, N o movement has had more than
Page 54: Ascientist. Dominick Labino (b. 191

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