WASHINGTON DECO: Art Deco Design in the Nation's Capital

Here at last is an authoritative, readable, and eye-catching book on Art Deco design in the Nation's Capital. During the era of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the glass blocks, aluminum, and Vitrolite of Art Deco, along with its sleek, zigzag, streamlined designs, merged with the austere neoclassical style of government buildings to create a unique synthesis. Beyond the federal enclave, the spirit of Art Deco spread outward as far as the suburbs in hundreds of stylish apartment buildings, restaurants, cinemas, banks, warehouses, and stores. Basing their scholarly research on an inventory-survey of more than 400 structures, Hans Wirz and Richard Steiner show how Washington architects such as Alvin Aubinoe, George T. Santmyers, and John Joseph Earley - whose polychrome process of concrete mosaic was a work of genius - made notable contributions to Art Deco design, some examples of which are only found in this city. Washington Deco is an invaluable book for general readers as well as for students, historians, historic preservationists, and real-estate appraisers and developers. Residents of Greater Washington are likely to find some surprises among the often unnoticed and overlooked examples of a rich and unique legacy.