Streamline Moderne

Research

Partly sourced

Build guidance

Recorded in 7 of 8 research dimensions

Origin

From a movement

Also called

Moderne, aerodynamic deco, 1930s streamline

Feel

sophisticated

Scope

Streamline Moderne is 1930s-40s American architecture and industrial design. Aesthetary translates its horizontal lines, round corners and nautical details to graphic surfaces; palette and type are our reading.

Everything should look as though it moves through air. Rounding every corner and running horizontal lines across a form borrows the logic of aerodynamics for objects that never travel, so modernity is expressed as motion at rest.

It refuses

The stepped vertical geometry and applied ornament of Art Deco, and refuses sharp corners.

The costs it accepts

• Ornamental richness
• Verticality
• Distinction from Art Deco at a glance

Who it was for

A viewer who reads streamlining as modern and efficient rather than as styling.

Horizontal speed lines running in parallel across a form, corners rounded without exception, curved and continuous shapes rather than faceted ones, and bands of chrome or aluminium trim on smooth white or pale stucco.

The diagnostic condition is horizontal continuity: the eye is pulled sideways along unbroken curves, and a stepped edge or a dominant vertical belongs to Art Deco.

Art Deco steps and rises; Googie lifts diagonally and shouts at a motorist.

0 Elements linked

No Element is linked to this Aesthetic yet. Each line still opens its gallery.

Layout

• From our catalogue entryComposition: horizontal speed lines; curved forms.

Typography

• Documented · Source attachedStreamline Moderne storefront signs were typically built of individual letters, often in a sans-serif contemporary typeface.
• Documented · Source attachedWalter Huxley was a proponent of the pared-back streamline style; his 1935 ATF typeface Huxley Vertical became one of the most popular ways to give printing this Deco flavour.

Color

• Documented · Source attachedWalls are smooth stucco or concrete, often painted white.

Imagery

• From our catalogue entryImagery: rendered chrome.

Surface

• Documented · Source attachedWalls are smooth stucco or concrete, often painted white.
• Documented · Source attachedIndustrial and new synthetic materials carry the look: chrome, Bakelite and other plastics, aluminium, stainless steel, glass block, tinted structural glass (Vitrolite, Carrara), porcelain enamel, plastic laminates.
• Documented · Source attachedSurfaces are sleek and gleaming: materials gave 'the appearance of newness and sleekness', and surfaces were polished to a gleaming finish.

Interface

• Documented · Source attachedRadius is the style's defining edge treatment: rounded corners and curved surfaces, wraparound and curved glass, curved railings and overhangs.
• Documented · Source attachedBorders are metal bands and trim (aluminium, stainless steel, chrome) rather than ornamental frames.
• Documented · Source attachedA boxy variant without curves exists under the names Moderne or Art Moderne, so rounded radius distinguishes Streamline Moderne specifically.

Motion

• Our readingHorizontal travel at constant velocity. Nothing rises, nothing steps.
• Documented · Source attachedMotion is represented, not performed: horizontal lines and rounded forms are described as creating 'the impression of motion and speed' in static buildings and objects.
• Documented · Source attachedElectric light was built into architectural structure in the style, but no opened source documents animated or moving light.

Motif

• Documented · Source attachedSpeed lines (bands of horizontal piping or grooves) are a recurring mark on buildings, cars and small objects.
• Documented · Source attachedNautical details recur: porthole windows, ship-like railings, curved glass; in France the style was called paquebot (ocean-liner style).
• Documented · Source attachedApplied historical ornament is generally absent; the repeating marks are the speed lines and nautical elements themselves.

Technique

• Documented · Source attachedThe look depended on new building technologies, notably bending structural glass, and on newly developed materials (extruded aluminium, porcelain enamel, glass block).
• Documented · Source attachedStreamlining was based on admiration for industry and speed; contemporary criticism quoted by the Bard Graduate Center called it absurd to borrow forms from unrelated machinery, as with a pencil sharpener streamlined to resemble an airplane.
• Documented · Source attachedPorcelain enamel facing was often laid in a squared pattern on storefronts.

Form

• Documented · Source not yet verifiedExpression is carried by the form itself; applied surface ornament is absent.
• Documented · Source not yet verifiedHorizontal continuity dominates: no vertical or stepped emphasis competes with the horizontal run of the form.

Hierarchy

• Our readingRank by position along the horizontal run — leftmost on the speed line leads. Unusual and native.

Form / motif / surface / technique

• From our catalogue entryForm/motif/surface/technique: rounded corners, curved forms.

Partly sourced. 7 sources attached.

Build guidance: recorded in 7 of 8 research dimensions.

No source attached

Argument, Recognition test

Not researched yet

Summary, Typeface guidance, Overall positions by area, Ornament and contrast scales, Moving it to screen, Source notes. Unresearched is not permission.

Neither is a free hand: an area research has not reached is not permission to decide on the language’s behalf.

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