This is a book about automotive styling, in particular the streamlined styling that defined what are now known as Airline cars. During the mid-1930s the majority of British car manufacturers and coachbuilders experimented with streamlined styling. This fashion was the result of Art Deco, an international movement that influenced design and marketing in many different industries, and produced some of the most unique and visually exhilarating cars ever produced in Britain. Part One of the book explains and illustrates the Art Deco styling elements that link these streamlined car designs, and describes their development, their commonality, and their unique aeronautical names. The stories of the individual cars, their designers, and their development, are told in Part Two. Here, Barrie Down has collected examples of all the significant British streamlined production cars made between 1933 and 1936, many of them still represented by beautifully restored survivors. The book is well illustrated with over 200 contemporary pictures and colour photographs of existing cars, many of which have never before been published. This book is an instructive and visual feast for all car lovers.

A work about automotive styling, in particular the streamlined styling that defined what are now known as Airline cars. It explains and illustrates the Art Deco styling elements that link these streamlined car designs, and describes their development, their commonality, and their unique aeronautical names.

This is the first full-scale study of the dynamic graphic design created in the three decades before World War II, when economic and political upheaval mixed with the pursuit of modernism and elegance to produce a style that came to be known as Art Deco. Chapters on posters, magazines, commercial design, books, and fashion and costume each feature a portfolio of stunning, often rare illustrations.

A deluxe volume that explores the evolution of the streamlined automotive shape from the 1930s to the 1990s.

Art Deco buildings still lift their modernist principles and streamlined chrome into the skies of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Second Place Winner of the Design and Effectiveness Award of the Washington Publishers The bold lines and decorative details of Art Deco have stood the test of time since one of its first appearances in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925. Reflecting the confidence of modern mentality—streamlined, chrome, and glossy black—along with simple elegance, sharp lines, and cosmopolitan aspirations, Art Deco carried surprises, juxtaposing designs growing out of speed (racecars and airplanes) with ancient Egyptian and Mexican details, visual references to Russian ballet, and allusions to Asian art. While most often associated with such masterworks as New York’s Chrysler Building, Art Deco is evident in the architecture of many U.S. cities, including Washington and Baltimore. By updating the findings of two regional studies from the 1980s with new research, Richard Striner and Melissa Blair explore the most significant Art Deco buildings still standing and mourn those that have been lost. This comparative study illuminates contrasts between the white-collar New Deal capital and the blue-collar industrial port city, while noting such striking commonalities as the regional patterns of Baltimore’s John Jacob Zinc, who designed Art Deco cinemas in both cities. Uneven preservation efforts have allowed significant losses, but surviving examples of Art Deco architecture include the Bank of America building in Baltimore (now better known as 10 Light Street) and the Uptown Theater on Connecticut Avenue NW in Washington. Although possibly less glamorous or flamboyant than exemplars in New York or Miami, the authors find these structures—along with apartment houses and government buildings—typical of the Deco architecture found throughout the United States and well worth preserving. Demonstrating how an international design movement found its way into ordinary places, this study will appeal to architectural historians, as well as regional residents interested in developing a greater appreciation of Art Deco architecture in the mid-Atlantic region.

From rear bumper to the front hood, this work shows the minor masterpieces of design which were once used by all automobile manufacturers (and which helped to make them works of art on wheels) that have since become prized collectibles