Period Evaluation

• It is important to realize that in any given historical period, usually two or more architectural styles enjoyed popularity at the same time. Additionally, it is important to realize that not uncommonly, designers and builders constructed period homes incorporating elements of more than one architectural style. When considering art deco interior design elements, such as window treatments, one needs to know when the style enjoyed popularity and what other styles also had popularity at the time to determine whether the intended home blends well with the art deco style.
  
  

Epoch and Simultaneous Styles

• Art deco enjoyed popularity during the 1920s through 1940. The other two styles builders popularly applied at that time were Arts and Crafts and Edwardian architectural styles. Because of its versatility and modernity, art deco interior design blends well in a home that also has either or both Edwardian or Arts and Crafts elements.
  
  

Art Deco Characteristics

• Art deco was an ahead of its time style in many ways. Some characteristics included geometric shapes incorporated into fabrics and used as design elements, asymmetry in the patterns, a focus on mechanistic processes, influences by other artists's movements such as Cubist, use of new materials for the time such as chrome and plastics, and curved edges for fittings and furniture. Because of art deco's forwardlooking nature, it, more than many interior design styles, blends well in many modern homes as well as homes of the original period.
  
  

Window Treatments: Surrounds

• Stained GlassImage by Flickr.com, courtesy of tanakawho
  
  One can take various approaches to formulating art deco window treatments. One approach focuses on using fabrics that incorporate geometric styles to the window treatment fabrics such as curtains or drapes. Triangles, circles and arcs in draperies and curtains would represent art deco design well. You could also use a vertical blind with a fabric set-in that incorporates these same types of geometrical patterns. With either the blinds or draperies, one can effectively combine them with decorative rods with finials incorporating art deco styling, particularly if one chooses a rod made of something new to the art deco period such as chrome.
  
  

Window Treatments: Architectural

• Additionally, if you want to go beyond just the fabrics and-or blinds and incorporate art deco elements in the window itself, a popular window design element of the art deco period was the use of stained glass in homes. Stained glass windows, which became popular during the Victorian period, remained so right up through the art deco era.