Backyard Project: Designing with the Step Motif and Form

The gabion baskets defining the guest patio edge make a stepped form to echo the  patio paver placement and the house walls.

An image taken during early construction days shows the stepped form of the house envelope.

The stepped line was continued with the shed placement.

I became aware of the stepped motif during a study of the Art Deco design period that happened almost simultaneously throughout many places in the world. It was the first universal design style and used the stepped motif on architecture, garments, interior design, graphic design, product design....

 1920s dress with silk devore burn-out in a stepped pattern.

This NZ Art Deco period house illustrates the stepped form at its simplest.

The side view shows a stepped roof line.

I carried out some tests on different people using flash cards to find out the minimum number of connected lines needed to be recognised as a stepped motif. Result - 4.

While researching an essay on the Art Deco design period I focused on why the stepped motif appealed at this time and was used so extensively. I found the form and motif seemed to give a feeling of being uplifted and instilled hope. 

With the Backyard Project design, I worked with the vertical and horizontal stepped motif forms in the house architecture by mirroring and echoing them in the garden structures. I don't yet know if there is an uplifting feeling in the garden yet because it is still at a busy stage where I am focused on soil building and planting. Maybe by next summer, I will be able to gauge the feeling in the garden. 

Art Nouveau and Art Deco - On the Lookout for Art Styles While Travelling

After flying across the Pacific from New Zealand we endured a 10-hour layover in San Francisco. We occupied ourselves with: finding a short term hotel room - no such place; a shower - closed for renovations; a place to sleep - the meditation/prayer room but that didn't last long because the dark quiet room was intoxicating when in a jet-lagged state and lying on the floor, as opposed to sitting cross-legged, was forbidden.

The many exhibitions within the airport were a welcome distraction and kept us moving.

Curtain panel, c. 1900 - 1910, USA, cotton

The SFO Museum was established by the Airport Commission in 1980 to humanise the airport environment, share some of the unique cultural life of San Francisco, to provide educational services for the travelling public, and to keep jet-lagged people occupied.

Centrepiece, 1900, Loetz, Austria, glass, bronze

We didn't find all 25 galleries but what we did find certainly worked for a while to distract from our basic needs for sleep, personal hygiene attention, and moving the body. 

Jardiniere, 1903, Austria, bronze

When I travel I am always on the lookout for expressions of different art styles in architecture, interior design, and artworks. I am particularly interested in the more recent styles that encompassed more than 2D paintings and sculptures.

The rebellious Arts and Crafts movement at the end of the 19th century in Europe morphing into the Art Nouveau period was the beginning of taking 'art' off the walls and plinths for Europeans.

The motifs on this jardiniere are typical of the period - dragonflies and plants, particularly the stems and leaves caught up in the hair of languid women. 

What do you think of the women with their mouths open forming the feet of the dish?

Octopus Chatelaine c. 1900, William B. Kerr & Co., Newark, New Jersey, silver

I had not noticed the octopus motif being used before but with its curvilinear legs it would have been seen as having great design potential if more designers of the time had been familiar with sea life.

Art Deco shop front in Ngatea, New Zealand

My favourite art style is Art Deco, a style that flourished not only in Europe between the world wars but it was the first style that spread around the world. It may have been halted in Europe once WWII started but it continued to develop elsewhere. I love to find Art Deco gems in unexpected places.

It was the first style to unify people rather than separate them. Art Deco concepts were freeing providing a spring point for many different cultures to interpret.

Another reason why I find the Art deco style so fascinating is that it was the first style that permeated all material culture at all economic levels, from grand hotels to this modest shop front (above), from costly wood inlaid furniture to a mass produced milk jug. Everyone could identify with and express themselves through the style.

Nyonya Baba Culture in the Straits of Malacca - Traditional Garments

Georgetown, the old part of Penang, is a well-preserved UNESCO World Heritage Site. There one can explore a unique culture that began in the 15th century when the Straits of Malacca was one of the busiest shipping routes in the world. Chinese migrated from southern China and settled up and down the Malay coast and into Indonesia. They married the local Malays and over time developed a distinct culture reflected in their houses, clothing, customs and cooking - the Nyonya-Baba culture. Here is a link to a Nyonya's blog where she explains her origins.

The above image is outside an award winning restored Nyonya Baba mansion in Georgetown. It shows the Baba (the man) in typical Western formal men's dress of the day while the Nyonya (the woman) wears the traditional garments of her culture.

An elaborately embroidered blouse is worn over a wrapped sarong.

The sheer fabric is silk crepe or Swiss lawn embroidered with silk thread in satin stitch and long and short stitch. The area around the hips is edged in buttonhole stitch before the centres were cut out to make intricate organic patterns. The blouse is secured with 3 to 5 elaborate, jewel-encrusted pins.

The fitted shape with the long front is typical. It certainly emphasised the wearer's main role in life - to produce heirs.

However, when the woman turns 60, after 5 cycles through the Chinese horoscope, she refits her wardrobe with simpler more boxy garments usually made in heavier more opaque fabrics. 

The under garment has a starched raised collar like the stay of a men's shirt and it is held together with gold studs as found on 19th century western men's formal wear. This shift to clothing elements normally worn by males is interesting. In this matriarchal society, as she ages and becomes a grandmother the woman's role changes from child bearer to being head of her family.  

She still wears her costly pins, kersang, to show her family's position in society. The Nyonya line began with a Malay born woman who owned the land and passed ownership on to her daughters, giving them long-lasting and legal authority. At the same time, the Chinese-born immigrant Baba set up the business and if  he was successful brought wealth to the family - a powerful combination.

A 1930s matron's/grandmother's over garment made from apple green embroidered flowers on lavender Swiss organdy. The 3 pins are circles covered with gold and rubies.

The starched collar of the under garment has gold studs.

A Nyonya Matriarch

The wealthy Nyonyas were expected to master the skills essential for finding a good husband - an effective beauty regime, how to behave in public, and how to run a household. 

Above is a painting on the side of a Georgetown building of 3 Nyonyas having afternoon tea.

In several museums, I did notice it seemed pretty important also to learn how to master bead embroidery because one was expected to make one's own bridal shoes.

Here is a mother teaching her daughter to bead. The daughter's unmarried status is evident by her side-buns hair style. Her married mother wears her hair in a single high bun. Gold, silver and jewelled hair pins, Cucuk Sanggul, are worn in the buns. 

Bead-embroidered shoe fronts still in the frame.

A pair of velvet beaded bridal shoes, embroidered with phoenixes and peonies, made sometime before the 1930s.

A pair of beaded pink and green check bridal shoes made in the 1920s or 1930s. 

This culture was very open to new ideas and trends. Trade ships brought the latest commodities and luxuries from around the world and the wealthy travelled to other countries. Evidence of this can be seen in the Art Deco influenced design this modern bride worked on her beaded shoes compared with the more traditional floral design seen displayed under the shoes.

I must say my family was very patient as I absorbed and documented what we saw in the museums we visited. They would even come and find me if they saw something they thought I might be interested in. I am so fortunate to be fully supported by my family in what I do. 

More Art Deco In Ranfurly?

The funny thing was only the hotel was promoted in the tourist brochures as being in the Art Deco style. With the Spanish styled tiled roof and metal balconies I didn't see it.

The columns were particularly off putting though the font of the hotel name is 1930s.

But once inside the old part I saw this magnificent Art Deco style ceiling that really played with the 'step' form.

3 inter-locking arched mirrors is so AD.

The light fixtures and female figure ornaments where characteristically in the AD style also.

But as far as the outside of the building, I think this rabbit hutch has more Art Deco features.

Art Deco in Ranfurly, New Zealand

When travelling I like to look out for Art Deco architecture and decorative arts.
While in the small town Ranfurly, in the centre of New Zealand's South Island, I came across some fine examples of Art Deco architecture in the main street.

 

 

The stepped roof line was a popular shape in buildings and motifs of that era.

Plain doors made elegant with a few simple lines.

Art Deco or the later Moderne style?

The stepped roof line suggests Art Deco.

Art Deco in Victoria

In 1936, Tweedsmuir Mansions, with 12 apartments, was built on 900 Boulevard Street in Victoria, BC. Today it is a well preserved example of the Art Deco style of architecture. Apart from the yucky textured plaster on the outside many of its typically Art Deco features have been kept.

The whole building is stepped horizontally and vertically.

Concentric half circles were typical. The contemporary sun burst door mat is in keeping with the style.

The 3 lines on the door, both vertical and horizontal, was a popular motif in North America in the later part of the movement. They were known as speed lines or streamlining.

Inside the building there is a framed picture showing drawings of what the rooms looked like in the 30s. This is the living room with its classic Art Deco symmetrical, stepped fireplace.

Step Design is Something New

An interesting feature of step design use during the Art Deco period is that even though the ancient source of the inspiration was so obvious, the art, architecture and fashion garments were celebrated as something refreshingly new.

Here is a silk painting obviously inspired by recent discoveries of ancient buildings found in the jungles of Central America.

A Mayan temple compared with an early Chicago skyscrapper. The architect who designed the building on the right even copied the wide band on the top part of the tower on the left. Both cultures constructed buildings to literally reach up to touch the sky. Both buildings were the tallest, in their day.

Here are some possible sources of inspiration for a silk jacket made by an unknown American designer: the revolutionary Chrysler tower, Aztec temple and an Anastasi basket. All feature step designs that create an uplifting feeling of reaching for the light. Step design could be interpreted as a symbol of optimism and hope. It would be interesting to see if this is so in the work of other cultures that have used the step design element.