Art Deco designs drop you into a world akin to The Great Gatsby, where every corner is dipped in glamour and glitz. This style of architecture and design was born in the Roaring Twenties and danced through the 30s, embracing edgy and modern expression through glass, concrete, and steel. Sleek lines and zig-zags mingle with chevrons, sunbursts, and stylized motifs. From lavish theaters to pastel beachfront buildings, let’s explore 10 stunning examples of Art Deco in the South!
First, a Note on Art Deco and Art Moderne
Art Deco — short for arts décoratifs in French — first appeared in Paris in the 1910s and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s. It touched everything from large structures like cinemas, bridges, skyscrapers, and ships to smaller parts of life like clothing, furniture, and household appliances.
When the Great Depression gripped the country in the 1930s, expensive materials and ornate designs gave way to less costly materials and sleeker, more aerodynamic designs that better represented lean times and technological advances. This ushered in a new iteration of Art Deco called Art Moderne.
Miami Beach Art Deco District
Miami, Florida
Many of the most famous examples of Art Deco in the Southeast are in Florida, so we’ll highlight just a few. When Art Deco was on the rise, so was Miami’s economic prosperity and cultural amalgamation, fueling a flourishing of modern buildings that reflected leisure and luxury.
After Miami’s great hurricane of 1926, the rebuilding efforts naturally leaned into the Art Deco style to reflect the locale’s nautical, extravagant nature. Many original buildings have been saved from destruction since the 1970s thanks to the Art Deco Historic District, which now encompasses more than 800 preserved buildings from the 20s, 30s, and 40s.
Asheville City Hall & S&W Cafeteria
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville, North Carolina, is a fascinating living museum of Art Deco architecture. During the city’s economic heyday in the early 20th century, leaders embarked on a building spree focusing a lot on Art Deco embellishments to show off newfound prosperity. But the Great Depression came along and essentially halted the building frenzy, leaving ample debt and the inability to rebuild or replace the Art Deco bones.
Restoration initiatives ensure that the area’s flourishing tourism scene can still enjoy the Art Deco splendor. Asheville is a treasure trove of Art Deco, but City Hall is its crown jewel.
The Grove Arcade, the Flat Iron Hotel, and the S&W Market are a few other fantastic Art Deco buildings in Asheville to check out.
The Sinclair
For Worth, Texas
The Sinclair Building in Fort Worth is a celebrated piece of Texas’s architectural history that, as legend has it, was won during a poker game. Originally constructed as an office building for the Sinclair Oil Corporation — a significant player in petroleum at the time — the adorned space now houses a boutique hotel in the burgeoning cultural epicenter that is Fort Worth. Both the exterior and interior of the building are striking.
Kress Buildings
Multiple Cities in the South
You’ve likely noticed Kress Buildings dotted all over the South, but a few are long-standing beacons of the Art Deco style. Samuel Kress of the S.H. Kress & Co. department store chain wanted his stores to act as public art that bolstered the community’s architectural beauty. Chief architect Edward F. Sibbert designed dozens of artistic storefronts across America’s downtowns and mainstreets — each one a little different than the next and each showing off a unique array of material, shapes, and imagery.
A few notable Art Deco Kress buildings are in Charleston, Birmingham, Orlando, Memphis, New Orleans, and Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Louisiana State Capitol
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
While the Louisiana State Capitol leans more toward Art Deco’s younger cousin, Streamline Moderne, it deserves some limelight for its Art Deco influences. Controversial governor Huey Long nudged the swift construction of the building between 1930 and 1932. Flying higher than any other U.S. Capitol, the building is 450 feet tall (460 feet to the tip) with 34 floors.
While it still houses Louisiana’s Senate and House of Representatives, the governor’s office, and other administrative procedures, the Capitol welcomes many tourists. Head up to the Observation Deck on the 27th floor for spectacular views of Baton Rouge and the Capitol gardens and lakes below.
Lakefront Airport
New Orleans, Louisiana
Governor Huey Long was busy bringing Art Deco to Louisiana and also commissioned and opened what was then called the Shushan Airport in 1934 in New Orleans. The later-named Lakefront Airport was one of the country’s most exquisite examples of Art Deco architecture and decoration in the golden age of aviation, but history didn’t treat it well. In 1962, it was covered in concrete to serve as a fallout shelter, and Hurricane Katrina all but decimated it in 2005.
The enormous reconstruction project was completed about a decade ago, and the airport is working again. Architecture and aviation buffs flock here for a step back in time, to dine at the restaurant, and to behold the original interiors. Here are the restoration architects explaining more about Lakefront Airport’s historical importance. If you think this story is fascinating, you should also check out the TWA Hotel.
Joel Solomon Federal Building
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Located in Chattanooga’s central business district, the fabulous Art Moderne/Art Deco Joel Solomon Federal Building was completed in 1933 by Reuben Harrison Hunt during the Great Depression as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to bolster employment and optimism through public works projects. Today, it’s both a functional federal facility and a historical landmark that showcases dazzling Art Deco design principles inside and out.
The Riviera Theater
Charleston, South Carolina
The Riviera on Charleston’s famed King Street was designed and constructed in the late 1930s by North Carolina architect Charles C. Benton. Throughout the golden age of cinema, it served the Holy City as its first motion picture theater, but by the 1950s, televisions landed in most homes, and theaters began to shutter. It closed in the 7os but just a few years ago was reopened to the public for the first time in over 45 years as an intimate performance venue hosting acts of all kinds.
Threefoot Building
Meridian, Mississippi
Perhaps the most famous Art Deco building in Mississippi — a state with quite a few examples — the Threefoot Building in downtown Meridian was completed right at the end of the Roaring Twenties. It was named after a family of German immigrants and local merchants whose surname Dreyfuss means “three feet” in German. At 16 stories high, it was the tallest building in Mississippi at the time of its completion and remains a buzzy landmark in its new life as the Threefoot Hotel.
Decorate your next road trip with some Art Deco spotting!
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