Paris 2016 - 16th Arr. - Art Deco Walk & 30s Museum

Our first full day in Paris was focused on Art Deco as we planned a self-guided walking tour through the Boulogne-Billancourt district, where many Art Deco villas and mansions can be found, as well as the Musée des Années Trente, dedicated to art and design of the 1930s.  Boulogne-Billancourt is the suburban commune located just south-west of the 16th arrondissement and is one of the wealthiest areas in France.  We found a route  on the Internet that would weave us through the streets of this neighbourhood, past residential and commercial creations by noted architects such as Le Corbusier, Tony Garnier, Robert Mallet-Stevens and more.

We started our tour at the square adjacent to the Porte de Saint-Cloud metro station, where we passed by two 10 metre-high fountains by Polish-French sculptor Paul Landowski.  Named "Sources of the Seine", the fountains are covered with Art Deco-styled relief carvings featuring animals and nudes, as well as scenes representing cities and regions along the Seine.  Erected in 1932 and originally intended to be made of glass, the fountains are no longer functional for preservation purposes.  Later, we saw a replica of one of these fountains in the Thirties Museum and had a chance to inspect the carvings up close.

The Art Deco visual arts design style was popular in the 1920-early 1940s, featuring simple lines and geometric forms as opposed to its flowery, decorative predecessor, Art Nouveau.  Common elements such as spheres, polygons, chevrons, zigzags, and sunbursts are often arranged in symmetrical patterns, often in groups of three.  The building at 60-62 Rue de la Tourelle has a concrete and red brick façade, oriel bay windows and geometrically shaped iron railings on the concrete balconies.  There are multiple beautiful buildings on Rue du Belvédère (#4, #5, #9, #21) highlighted by concave façades, rounded corners, and windows that range from large glass panes to circular openings. 

As we continued along Rue du Pavillon (#1, #10, #14), Rue Denfort Rochereau (#4-8, #5, #8) and Rue Gambetta (#1, #2, #3, #5, #6), we saw more classic examples of the "Streamline Moderne" style, a later variation of Art Deco which emerged in the 1930s, emphasizing subdued shades of whites or earth-tones offset by dark coloured or bright metal trims, smooth plastic wall surfaces, curving forms, rounded edges and corners, long horizontal lines or grooves in the walls, flat roofs and sometimes nautical elements.  There were more "rounded flatiron" buildings like the one that is across from our apartment, that had a triangular shape but a rounded tip.  In particular, for the villa at 5 Rue Denfort Rochereau, architect Georges-Henri Pingusson was inspired by the shape of a ship, by adding columns of circular porthole windows and a rounded "bow".

It was quite illuminating when we passed an Art Deco building standing next to an Art Nouveau building.  Seeing the two up close and side by side made it even more clear what the differences are between the two styles.  Even though this was a relatively sedate Art Nouveau building compared to some of the extremely decorative ones that we had seen, the patterned façade and ornate railings stood in stark contrast to the smooth white façade and simple railings of the Art Deco building, which also had ocular windows.

The Museum of the Thirties  is dedicated to design styles and trends of the 1930s with a large collection that covers fine arts, decorative arts, industrial arts and architecture.  The museum is fittingly located in the Boulogne-Billancourt district along with so many Art Deco/Moderne masterpieces, and is itself located in a Streamline Moderne gem—the cultural centre Espace Landowski, named after sculptor Paul Landowski who created the fountains we saw earlier.  Several of Landowski's sculptures are on display in the museum, including "The Pugilest" and a seated statue of Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yet-Sen.

We saw some excellent examples of Art Deco sculptures including a nude of Eve eating an apple by Marius Petit (1937).  A large frieze called "Eros ou Femmes et Amour" by Pierre Janniot (1922) depicts typical Art Deco motifs of nudes with long, wavy hair and repeating, geometrical shapes to form Eros' wings and the foliage in the background.  Raymond Delamarre's scaled-down models for sculptures found at the base of an Egyptian monument "La Force et l'Intelligence" convey the impression of motion and speed through the repeated horizontal and vertical lines in the wings and legs.  Located in Ismailia, Egypt, the monument commemorates the successful defense of the Suez Canal by the French and English armies against the Ottoman offensive of 1915.

Most of the paintings in the collection are either stylized portraits or at least depictions of people, as opposed to landscape or still life.  A large mural at the entrance of the museum again features the female nude with long wavy hair.  Some of the paintings that I found most striking include "L'Officier et la Dame" (1932) by Yves Brayer, where the relationship between the menacing officer and the petite blond woman seems rather ambiguous, and "Marie-Rose Guerin devant le Moulinet" (1919) by Louis Billotey, where Marie-Rose's mesmerizing gaze holds your attention.  My favourite painting is the portrait of her husband by Tamara de Lempicka, for its quintessential Art Deco style with traces of cubism, but even more so for the story behind the painting.  The "Portrait of Thadesz Lempicka" (1928) is purposely unfinished as her husband's left hand is sketched in but not painted.  Apparently Thadesz divorced her before the painting was complete, and she retaliated by refusing to finish it.  I searched the Internet for images of some of Tamara's other works such as "Kizette on the Balcony" (1927) and "Portrait of Madame Bush" (1929) where her Cubism influences were even more apparent.

The top floor of the Thirties Museum contains some beautiful examples of Art Deco-styled furniture with streamlined designs emphasizing geometric forms and symmetrical patterns.  Exotic woods such as ebony, burl walnut and ash mahogany are polished often using Japanese lacquer to achieve a hard and shiny, tactile finish and high sheen.  The woods are decorated with stylized inlays of ivory, brass, stained glass, enamel and mother of pearl while other materials such as wrought iron, glass, marble and later on, stainless steel, Bakelite, chrome and plastics have also been used.  Chairs often feature curved lines and are covered with soft leathers or animal skins.  I liked the bed with the built-in night stand and the black and silver glass screen decorated with rectangular geometric patterns.

The biggest surprise and thrill of the museum occurred when we came across models of some of the Art Deco mansions that we saw in person during our self-guided architectural walk.  Emilio Terry's mansion at 5 rue Gambetta features neo-classic columns and was home to singer Edith Piaf in the 1940s.  We easily recognized the iconic "ship" building at 5 Rue Denfort Rochereau, as well as the trio of buildings at 4, 6 and 8 Rue Denfort Rochereau, designed by architects Robert Mallet-Stevens, Le Corbusier and Louis-Raymond Fischer, which complement each other so well that they appear to be all designed by the same person.  It was extremely thrilling to see these models and learn about the buildings that we walked by just a few hours ago.

In the temporary exhibition space just outside of the Thirties Museum was a display of dolls dressed up in historic national outfits from countries from across five continents.  Over 150 dolls were featured from the collection of Hugh Sirvens-Viénot, a resident of the Boulogne-Billancourt area.  Sirvens-Viénot does not consider these dolls as toys, but rather as conveyors of history.  Each doll tells a story and reveals cultural details and customs about its native country.

As we left Espace Landowski to head home, we noticed more beautiful Deco-styled commercial buildings surrounding us including le Centre Commercial les Passages de l'Hôtel de Ville, a department store complex at 5 Rue Tony Garnier.  In fact, this area is aptly noted for its architecture, since in addition to a street being named after Garnier, a famous architect and urban planner whose work we first encountered in Lyon, France, nearby was also a street named Rue le Corbusier.