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This seams to me to be a "wet streets cause rain" story. To start, I'd say a large percentage of skyscrapers are not Art Deco, and proposing that architects "a

This seams to me to be a "wet streets cause rain" story. To start, I'd say a large percentage of skyscrapers are not Art Deco, and proposing that architects "always" return to that style seems like an overstatement at best. More importantly though, there's a lot more limitiations in sky scraper design because your working with a long skinny form, which will for regulatory and structural reasons likely have some tapering towards the top. That design languages fits in very well with the long linear forms in Art Deco. It seems to me that the author is reading into that quite a bit, and interpreting designs as being art deco when in fact that's not likely the case. The Petronas Towers, which are referenced at the end of the article were not designed to be art deco, but are an overlay of squares and other islamic motifs [1], with setbacks being necessary for structural reasons. The author also seems to basing this based on a lot of sky scrapers from New York City, which contains more Art Deco than most cities do. You could argue that modern sky scrapers in NY pull more of that influence in because of context, than being something that Architects "always" come back to. 1 - https://www.archute.com/petronas-towers-worlds-tallest-twin-towers-cesar-pelli/ https://www.archute.com/petronas-towers-worlds-tallest-twin-...

throwaway5750 6y ago
I was going to say the same thing - the question seems to have a New York City bias to it. A lot of NYC buildings were built during a period where Art Deco was popular, and some newer buildings have been built to "fit in" to their environment, which has meant adopting the Art Deco style. But is it true that, say, architects in Chinese cities always return to Art Deco? After glancing at photos in image search, it doesn't look like it - Chinese cities are largely modern glass skyscrapers.

throwaway5750 6y ago

I was going to say the same thing - the question seems to have a New York City bias to it. A lot of NYC buildings were built during a period where Art Deco was popular, and some newer buildings have been built to "fit in" to their environment, which has meant adopting the Art Deco style. But is it true that, say, architects in Chinese cities always return to Art Deco? After glancing at photos in image search, it doesn't look like it - Chinese cities are largely modern glass skyscrapers.