Streamline Moderne: Airstream on the Mac

Airstream on the Mac, photo by Brian Gudas Photography.

Yesterday I posted about Knapp’s Office Centre in Lansing. With its smooth contours and glass brick, the building is considered an excellent example of an design & architectural style known as Streamline Moderne which is a late variant of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s. It can be referred to by either name alone and emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements.

As the depression decade of the 1930s progressed, Americans saw a new aspect of the Art Deco style emerge in the marketplace: Streamlining. The Streamlining concept was first created by industrial designers who stripped Art Deco design of its fauna and flora in favor of the aerodynamic pure-line concept of motion and speed developed from scientific thinking. As a result an array of designers quickly ultra-modernized and streamlined the designs of everyday objects. Manufacturers of clocks, radios, telephones, cars, furniture and numerous other household appliances embraced the concept with open arms.

The venerable Airstream is of course an iconic example of this style and Brian’s shot of an Airstream on the Mackinac Bridge captures that style perfectly. Check it out bigger and in his his slideshow.