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ART DECO SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON

In This Issue:

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News & Notes From the DecoPhiles 3 Deco Discoveries: Oakland‟s Deco Downtown 5

Happy Motoring: America‟s Automobile Museums 13 Cincinnati Coca Cola Plant Repurposed 29

ADSW

Board of Directors

President—Jim Linz

Vice President—Vacant

Treasurer—Lou Simchowitz

Secretary—Vacant

At Large Members:

Linda Lyons

Karyn Jarboe

Silver Spring—Richard Striner

Visit us on the web at

www.adsw.org

Webmaster—Jim Linz

Wanna Be a Member?

Join online at

www.adsw.org

Or call 202-298-1100

And request an

application

Trans-Lux

Trans-Lux is published four times a year

by the Art Deco Society of Washington,

P.O. 42722, Washington, D.C. 20015-

2722. Phone (202) 298-1100.

ADSW is a non-profit organization in-

corporated to foster public awareness

and appreciation of the Art Deco period

through volunteer actions to preserve the

era’s decorative, industrial, architectur-

al, and cultural arts.

Editor/Publisher—Jim Linz

Book Reviews Editor—Vacant

Calendar Editor—Lynda

Schmitz Fuhrig

Contributors: Jim Linz Clive Foss

Trans-Lux is looking for a few good writers. Please submit manuscripts and photographs to Jim Linz, PO Box 221011, Chantilly, VA 20153. Please enclose a self-addressed envelope for return of material. Sub-mission of letters/articles implies the right to edit and publish. ©2012 ADSW

On the Cover: View from the stair-case in the Auburn Cord Duesen-berg Museum, Auburn, Indiana.

http://www.adsw.org

http://www.adsw.org

PAGE 3 TRANS-LUX VOLUME 30 NO. 1

News and Notes from the Deco Philes

FASHION SHOW TICKETS ON SALE The 2012 Vintage Fashion Show will be held Sunday March 25th at The Carlyle Club, 411 John Carlyle Street, Alexandria, Virginia. There is a parking garage under the club as well as street parking. For those using public transportation, the Carlyle Club is a short walk from the King

Street Metro Station on the Blue and Yellow lines. Walking directions from Google maps can be obtained on the ADSW website. Fashion show tickets went on sale January 30th on the ADSW website. Tickets are $25 for ADSW members and $35 for non-members. ADSW is partnering with the Dandies & Quaintrelles for promotion of the fash-ion show. In exchange for listing on the Dandies website and Facebook page, those mentioning the Dandies will receive the ADSW member price. Space is limited so reserve early. Tickets at the door, if seats remain, will be $45. SWEETHEART DEAL ENDS FEBRUARY 14TH ADSW‟s Winter membership drive ends February 14th. Under the Sweetheart Deal, those who join ADSW or renew an existing member-ship, can purchase 1-2 Fashion Show tickets for an additional $10 a piece. Those who join or renew at the contributing or patron level re-ceive two free Fashion Show tickets plus priority seating at the show.

Full details are available on the website www.adsw.org. TWO STEPS FORWARD ONE STEP BACK ON WEB UPDATE Lou Simchowitz has worked diligently for months to secure a contract for replacement of our aged website. Just as he was working out the details on the new website, the web developer stopped answering calls. Lou identified a replacement and we now have a contract to go for-ward. Among the features of the new site will be an integrated event calendar (For an example of the possibilities this offers, take a look at

the Art Deco Society of California calendar.) The new site will also fea-

(Continued on page 4)

http://dandiesandquaintrelles.com/

http://www.adsw.org/event/2012/fashion/index.html

http://www.adsw.org/event/2012/fashion/index.html

http://www.artdecosociety.org/calendar/


ture Google maps to enable us to more fully display the inventory or Art Deco architecture in the Washington area. Facebook and Twitter will also be integrated with the website. EXPO VOLUNTEERS NEEDED Although the Expo is still 4 months away, we are beginning to organize volunteers for the event. Among our needs are cashiers, help managing load in on Friday, June 1 and load out Sunday, June 3rd , help setting up and decorating the Forum for the After Hours Party Saturday, June 2nd,

and assistance in organizing and managing the food service operations. While most of these positions involve work during the Expo, we have an immediate need for individuals to help recruit a food service provider (or develop alternate plans), organize the volunteers and set a work sched-ule, solicit donations of food for the After Hours Party, manage the After Hour Party, solicit donation of door prizes, and sell advertising for the Expo program. If you can help with one or more of these efforts, please contact Jim Linz ([email protected]) or Ira Raskin ([email protected]). THE GREATEST SONGS NEVER HEARD—SHORT NOTICE Pianist Alex Hassan, soprano Kari Paludan, and tenor Doug Bowles pro-vide a free concert Thursday, February 9, 2012, at the Millennium Center Jazz Lounge. The performance is at 6 pm at the Kennedy Center. They will perform a collection of hot, bouncy, and romantic tunes written for Broadway shows that either closed before they opened or had extremely short runs. Songs are by some of America‟s foremost composers. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. NEW LINZ BOOK ADSW President Jim Linz has a new book—Merchant Motors: The Art of R.M. Merchant. Although never publicly displayed, Robert Merchant has created hundreds of automotive designs over the past 50 years. What sets Merchant apart from his contemporaries is that he creates new auto-motive designs that emulate the styles and techniques of the great auto-mobile stylists and illustrators of the 1920s and 1930s—designers like Alan Leamy, Gordon Buehrig, Harley Earl, and Raymond Loewy. Linz pulled together 245 of Merchant‟s favorite drawings for the book. Unlike his first 4 books, Linz self-published Merchant Motors. The book is available from www.Deco-Rations.net.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.Deco-Rations.net


Deco Discoveries:

Oakland’s Deco Downtown

by Clive Foss San Francisco is an obvious place to like and enjoy, an ideal vacation spot, with something for everybody, including decophiles who will find the style of the 20s and 30s everywhere. Across the Bay, easily accessible by sub-way or by a splendid drive over the Bay Bridge, lies a less endearing city, Oakland. Home of the Black Panthers, it has a bad reputation from its high crime rate and neighborhoods where the streets are described as „shooting galleries‟. Nevertheless, it has attractions: a fine museum of California art, the lively Jack London Square by the waterfront and a Chinatown of its own. It offers a special treat for the decophile: a group of colorful build-ings, all within a few blocks of each other. Curiously enough - and bad luck for those concerned - they were all built in the same year, 1931, just as the nation was sinking ever deeper into the Depression. The first stop on a short itinerary gives a hint of delights to come. Although most of its facade has been covered over, the May Bowles building at 1718 Telegraph Avenue has preserved in its upper level a wide band of blue-green terracotta decorated with a jazzy mélange of zigzags, stylized ferns and abstractions.


It was built by a San Francisco architect and engineer, Douglas Dacre Stone (1897-1965), who designed an array of public buildings on the Bay area. The kind of terracotta we see here is the distinctive feature of this neigh-borhood. The material had long been popular in California because it is fireproof (terracotta-clad building survived the post-earthquake San Fran-cisco pretty well), is relatively cheap, its light weight makes it ideal for cladding, and it can be produced in a great variety of colors, some imitat-ing marble or granite. Bright colors were especially favored in the Deco

era, which saw the introduction of a new technique - terracotta veneer, which was cheaper and lighter than the traditional hollow terracotta blocks. It could be attached directly to exteriors or interiors, was easy to clean and suitable for an age of Modernism whose abstract designs could easily be reproduced in low relief. Terracotta makes its most elegant statement on the next corner in a real gem, the Floral Depot, by another San Francisco architect, Albert J. Evers (1888-1977). Its facing of cobalt blue terracotta is highlighted by fine deco elements in silver terracotta running round the cornice of the building and adorning its small tower. Its window frames in stylish aluminum are decorated with zigzags. When the city was really on the skids in the 1980‟s, this building was saved by being put on the National Register of Historic Places.


Next stop, a block away on Broadway is the I. Magnin building, by Weeks and Day, a successful San Francisco firm that operated from 1916 to 1953. This almost cubic building is outstanding for its upper floor cladding of bright blue-green terracotta rising above a base of shining black gran-ite. Unadorned flat pilasters separate the windows whose spandrels bear a Deco décor of sunbursts, zigzags and abstracted floral motifs.


Next door is the star of the show, a building of national as well as local importance -- the Paramount Theatre, whose design overwhelms the viewer. It is the work of the Bay area‟s outstanding Deco architect, Timothy Pflueger (1892-1946), responsible for San Francisco‟s finest Deco highrises, the Pa-cific Telephone building (1925) and Medical-Dental Building, with its strik-ing Mayan motifs (1930). Optimism marked the ground breaking in Decem-ber 1930, with the hope that such a project would break the back of the looming Depression. As it turned out, the Paramount was the next to last of the great movie palaces (Radio City Music Hall, of 1932, was the last). Pflueger employed a team of artists to create one of the most spectacular, consistent and harmonious Deco interiors in the country, a monument of an age that was already passing. The theatre opened with a gala, star-studded show in December 1931 and plans for stage and musical shows as

well as movies. It closed six months later, unable to pay its bills. When it reopened in 1933, the glitz was gone; only movies were shown until anoth-er closing in 1970. Two years later, the Oakland Symphony bought the structure, now included in the Historic American Buildings survey, and car-ried out an extensive restoration. Although dilapidated and dirty, the Para-mount had preserved its décor and much of its furniture, so the restoration could virtually recreate its brief moment of glory. It‟s now used for shows of all kinds. The facade rises 100 feet from the pavement, featuring a sign that couldn‟t possibly be missed and a tile mosaic showing two enormous figures, male and female puppeteers who hold by their strings the many forms of popu-lar entertainment.


Pflueger and artist Gerald Fitzgerald designed it; California‟s most prolific tile and terracotta manufacturer, Gladding McBean (active since 1875 and

still in business), made the tiles.


Inside, you enter an enormous lobby, 50‟ high and adorned with figures of stylized dancing girls and the tall illuminated Fountain of Life. Greens, dark reds and browns dominate the naturalistic decor which continues into the various lounges and the vast auditorium, often following the model of an-cient Greece. The Paramount offers guided tours every other Saturday. Very definitely worth visiting.


Finally, a block and a half away, another terracotta gem, the John Breuner furniture company, descendant of a firm founded in 1856, but now gone.

Albert F. Roller, another San Francisco architect, active all over California, designed it. It is covered with a grayish green terracotta, which bears a lively Deco décor in a frieze around the light pods above the second floor and dwarfing the symbolic figures of furniture workers.


The decoration above the highest windows was once gilded, to make an even stronger impression. This cubic building, which made use of the new machine-made (and undecorated) terracotta veneer, as well as hand-made ceramic with designs and images, was a pride of Gladding McBean. The company described this structure as thoroughly modern, yet with „good style, distinction and dignity„. Gladding McBean‟s work on untraditional Art Deco buildings helped it survive the depression. It was also responsible for the dynamic cladding of three of Los Angeles‟ most outstanding Deco struc-tures: the downtown high-rise Eastern Columbia building (1929), Bullock‟s Wilshire department store (1929) and the diminutive Security First Nation-al Bank (1929), as well as San Francisco‟s Pacific Telephone Building

(1926). This small neighborhood has a lot to offer, but if you have any time left, have a look at the Indian temple extravaganza of the Fox Theatre oppo-site the Bowles building, the downtown Financial Building (1929), the WPA Alameda County Courthouse in the stripped down classicism of 1936, and the Oakland Museum.


Happy Motoring:

America’s Automobile Museums

By Jim Linz

Although the term “Happy Motoring” originated with Esso gasolines, it is an apt title for a series on America‟s automobile museums. In this article I cover four museums—America‟s Packard Museum in Dayton, Ohio, the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan, the Auburn Cord Duesenberg

Museum in Auburn, Indiana, and the National Automobile and Truck Muse-um in Auburn, Indiana. This midwest is rich in automotive history and future articles will cover the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, the Crawford Automobile Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

America’s Packard Museum Located in the original 1917 Citizen‟s Motorcar Company Packard dealer-ship in Dayton, Ohio, America‟s Packard Museum was named one of the top ten museums in the United States in a 1998 issue of Car Collector mag-


azine. The museum was further honored in 2004 when the Society of Auto-motive Historians conferred the James J. Bradley Award to the museum for its efforts to preserve motor vehicle resource materials. Only six other U.S. museums have received the prestigious award.


America‟s Packard Museum was founded in 1992 by Dayton attorney and car collector Bob Signom. Signom restored the original interiors of the Art Deco showroom, service department, and pavilion, receiving the Montgom-ery County Historical Society‟s 1993 award for restoration of a commer-cial building.


That same year, Packard Automobile Classics (The Packard Club) relocated its headquarters from Oakland, California, to the Dayton museum. Although

The Packard Club has since moved its offices to Columbus, Ohio, it remains affiliated with America‟s Packard Museum.


Gilmore Car Museum The Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan, is not the easiest museum to reach, but it is well worth the extra effort and the future looks even brighter. The museum began in 1963 as a single car—a 1920 Pierce Arrow—given to Donald S. Gilmore by his wife. The collection grew quick-ly to include 30 vehicles. Gilmore purchased 90 acres of farmland and had several historic barns dismantled and moved to the property to house his collection. Gilmore‟s wife suggested turning the collection into a museum and a 501(c)3) nonprofit organization was established to operate the museum. The mu-seum opened to the public Sunday, July 31, 1966. Originally, the museum opened to the public only during the warm, summer months. With continued expansion, and the addition of heat, the Gilmore Car Museum is now open


year round, closing only for Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Some buildings remain closed during the winter months. The museum site includes 8 historic barns, a 1928 Shell Oil service station, a 1941 diner, and a small town train station. In addition to the Gilmore col-lection, the museum complex is expanding to include display space for many car clubs. These include the H.H. Franklin Car Club, Cadillac-LaSalle Club, Model A Ford, Lincoln, and Classic Car Club of America. The recently completed space for the H. H. Franklin Car Club includes a recreated fa-çade for the circa 1910 Ralph Hamlin Franklin Motor Company dealership

in Los Angeles.

The Cadillac-LaSalle Club has a temporary exhibit in one of the barns while fundraising is completed for a planned 10,000 square foot building. A design competition is being held among former Automotive stylists to create the museum, perhaps a recreation of a dealership or other historic structure. The Tucker Automobile Company of America chose the Gilmore as the na-tional repository for the Tucker archives. In addition to a 1948 Tucker, the

exhibit includes a recreated Tucker Sales Office. Visitors can even locate a Tucker dealership near their home.


Representatives from national and regional Model A Ford Clubs plan to construct a 12,000 square foot museum designed as a Ford dealership.

Also coming to the Gilmore Car Museum is a Lincoln Motor Car museum.


The Gilmore Museum also houses two major collections of automobile mas-cots. In 2011 a new building opened displaying a small but significant dis-play of motorcycles.

The Gilmore Car Museum also features a bit of local history. The Checker Motorcar Company was established in nearby Kalamazoo, Michigan in


1922. For most of its existence, the company produced vehicles exclusively for use by the Checker Taxicab Company and other taxi companies. Known for their spaciousness and durability, Checkers were in demand throughout the country and Checker began sales to the general public in 1958.

This Checker stretch limo was in the parking lot at the time of my visit.


Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum The Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum is one of the wonders of the Art Deco world. Since its opening in 1974, over 2 million visitors—including visitors from over 40 countries—have toured its 3 floors of spec-tacular automobiles. It has been continually accredited by the American Association of Museums since 1997. Less than 5 percent of museums nation-wide has achieved accreditation.

The museum occupies the original Auburn Automobile Company‟s national headquarters building, beautifully restored and sporting the original facto-ry showroom. The showroom has its original terrazzo floors, chandeliers, and staircase. It‟s hard to decide, however, whether to focus on the building interiors or the building contents. The first floor showroom is filled with the


largest collection of Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg automobiles on public display in the world.


In the second floor galleries more Auburns, Cords, and Duesenbergs are joined by America‟s other elite makes—Packards, Lincolns, Cadillacs, etc.

The second floor also hosts two cars formerly owned by architect Frank Lloyd Wright—a 1929 Cord and a 1952 Crosley.


Yet another gallery traces the history of automobile manufacturing in Indi-ana.

National Automotive and Truck Museum Immediately adjacent to the ACD museum is the National Automobile and Truck Museum located in the former factory buildings of the Auburn Auto-mobile Company. The Service Building, built in 1923, was used for factory service, test drives, and parts distribution. It was built with a lattice arch roof system that pro-vides a 70-foot clear span using 2” x 6” lumber. The 1928-29 L29/Experimental Building, built under E. L. Cord‟s manage-ment, originally intended for construction of the L-29 Cord, was actually used to prepare the L-29 for shipment after they were assembled on the Auburn assembly line. The lower level of the building was used to construct

the first 100 Cord 812s. It was also used to develop prototypes for the designs of Fred Duesenberg, Gordon Buehrig, Alan Leamy, and Herb Snow. The L29/Experimental Building uses Monitor windows to provide maximum natural light and natural air conditioning. When the chains are pulled to open the windows, air is pulled from the side windows through the Monitor windows providing fresh air and a slight breeze. Not as glamorous as the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum next door, the NATMUS is nevertheless worth a visit. Among its features are


An extensive display of pedal cars

Trucks from 1907 to the present, focusing particularly on the McIntyre

Company, which built trucks in Auburn from 1907 to around 1915. Below is a 1911 McIntyre bus.


1962 Divco milk truck. Automobiles, centered around the postwar years, also include interesting prewar cars such as President Herbert Hoover‟s 1929 Cadillac Limousine.


Although NATMUS does not compare to the collection of Auburns, Cords, and Duesenbergs next door at the ACD Museum, it does have models in varying levels of restoration.


NATMUS also includes an extensive gift shop and toy car display.

Museum Locations and Hours America’s Packard Museum 420 South Ludlow St Dayton, Ohio Monday—Friday 12-5; Saturday and Sunday 1-5 Gilmore Car Museum

6865 Hickory Rd Hickory Corners, MI 49060 Open daily 9-5 Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum 1600 South Wayne St Auburn, IN 46706 Open daily 9-5 National Automobile and Truck Museum 1000 Gordon M Buehrig PL Auburn, IN 46706


Cincinnati Coca Cola

Plant Repurposed—Again

In 1937, brothers J. Cromer and William O. Mashburn Jr. hired Cincinnati architect John Henri Deeken to design a new plant for their Coca-Cola franchise. Completed the next year, the plant remained in operation for 44 years both as a bottling plant and as a tourist attraction. Visitors were able to watch the assembly line through the glass wall behind the recep-tionist desk.

Original plans for the building called for a weather beacon to be installed


in the building‟s tower. Use of the weather beacon ended with the Japa-nese attack on Pearl Harbor for fear of providing a beacon for enemy attacks. World War II also affected another of the building‟s features—the murals of Cincinnati‟s Coney Island Amusement Park. Muralist John F. Holmer gave all of the men in the mural Hitler-style mustaches. After Holburn refused the Mashburn brothers demands that the mustaches be removed, another artist was brought in to paint over them.


The building changed hands in the early 1980s and fell into disrepair. The building was purchased by F&W books in 1986. Owner Richard Rosenthal restored the building and supported its placement on the National Register. When F&W moved to new quarters in 2001, Xa-vier University bought the building, restored it, and converted it into its cur-rent use—the University‟s Alumni Center. While Xavier deserves credit for its restoration/repurposing of the Coca Coca Bottling Plant, it deserves scorn for its repurposing of another structure at the entrance to its campus. It demolished the stucco Spanish Style villa

built by silent film star Theda Bara in the 1920s. Reportedly a replica of her Hollywood home, the 12 room mansion included Rookwood bathrooms and a domed dining room. Theda Bara was born in Cincinnati‟s West End, graduating from Walnut Hills High School in 1903. She appeared in 40 films between 1915 and 1920, including “A Fool Was There” in 1915. Her sultry performance in the role as the femme fatale inspired the expression “vamp.” She starred as Cleopatra in 1917. Bara died in 1955. Ten years before it demolished the home Xavier Magazine noted that “both

original bathrooms sport Rookwood tiles in Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, while the larger one has a picture of cherubs and seagulls in raised pattern tiles over the bathtub. Xavier officials said that all historical ele-ments were removed and placed in storage prior to the demolition. The home has been replaced by a vacant lot...but there are plans for a parking lot. “Well, don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you got till it's gone They paved paradise to put up a parking lot” From The Big Taxi by Joni Mitchell (1970).

Documents

ART DECO SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 2012.pdf · by the Art Deco Society of Washington, -2722. Phone (202) ... The new site will also fea- ... created hundreds of automotive designs over