Moderne

PurplePrice Mag · October 26, 2026 · 3 min read

Moderne is the term used in the 1920s and 1930s for the new "modern" style of architecture, furnishing and objects that we now call Art Deco. At the time the style had no single name: people spoke of style moderne, modernistic or style contemporain. The name Art Deco only caught on much later, taken from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925. Even today, especially in English-speaking countries, "Moderne" refers in particular to the more simplified and geometric version of the style that spread in the United States and Britain.

From Parisian luxury to the machine

In Paris the modern style was born as a luxury art: the furniture of Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, the lacquerwork of Jean Dunand, the glass of René Lalique, with precious woods, ivory and refined craftsmanship. From 1925 onwards, however, the style was increasingly inspired by the new machines, airships, cars and ocean liners, and became more pared down. This is the road that led to Moderne proper: less ornament, more geometry, more metal and glass.

Zigzag Moderne: the skyscrapers

In the United States the first phase, also called Zigzag or Jazz Moderne, was vertical and decorative: stepped motifs, sunbursts, broken bands. Its symbol is William Van Alen's Chrysler Building in New York (1930), for eleven months the tallest building in the world, with its stainless steel spire and, on the façade, eagles and replicas of Chrysler radiator caps. Furniture followed the skyscrapers too: Paul T. Frankl created his stepped "Skyscraper" furniture, and Donald Deskey designed the interiors of Radio City Music Hall.

Streamline Moderne and the "ocean liner style"

In the 1930s, with the Great Depression, the line became horizontal and aerodynamic: this is Streamline Moderne, the architectural sibling of industrial Streamlining. Rounded corners, ribbon windows and portholes, glass-brick walls, flat roofs, chrome fittings and white or pastel colours appeared in stations, terminals, cinemas, diners and hotels. In France it was called style paquebot, "ocean liner style", inspired by the Normandie, launched in 1932 and in service from 1935, whose first-class dining room, lit by columns of Lalique glass, was the largest room afloat. Famous examples include Charles Holden's London Underground stations and the city of Napier, New Zealand, rebuilt in Art Deco and Moderne styles after the 1931 earthquake.

Miami Beach and the legacy

The world's largest collection of buildings of this kind is in the South Beach district of Miami Beach: white and pastel hotels and buildings built mostly between the Depression and the early 1940s, protected as a historic district since 1979. For a long time supporters of the Modern Movement and the International Style regarded Moderne as a commercial, superficial style. Rediscovered in the late twentieth century, today it is loved precisely for its optimism: the idea of a fast, bright future accessible to all.