The 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes would have enormous influence on European and American architecture of the following decade
This year marks the centenary of the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. In spite of the ‘international’ character of the Exposition, French exhibits occupied two thirds of the site.
Unlike previous international fairs, the emphasis was not on industrial and technological advancements, but on the role the decorative arts industries could play in providing a ‘shop window’ for French goods on the international market. The exhibition also provided a showcase for Paris itself, with the general plan utilising existing vistas to ‘draw’ the city into the exhibition and emphasise its beauty and grandeur.
A predominant style characterised the majority of the buildings, a style that was to have a huge impact on European and American architecture of the following decade and was defined by its contemporaries as ‘jazz-modern’, ‘zig-zag’ or ‘moderne’ – what we now call Art Deco. The 1925 exhibition did not mark the ‘birth’ of this style but presented it for the first time as the language of modernity on the world stage.