Art Deco Stucco Storefront and Palm Trees, Morro Bay, California
This photo shows the Streamline Moderne design of the parapet of a late Art Deco building in Morro Bay. A polarizer was used to dramatically darken the sky.
Streamline design became popular in the late 1920s and remained so until after World War II. While authorities on style and art focus on its origins in modernism in a generalized way, I feel that the evolution of aeronautic design probably provided much of the inspiration for the flowing horizontal lines of Streamline.
One of my favorite Streamline designs is the Puget Sound ferry Kalakala. Some accounts credit Boeing engineers with her design, and certainly one can see similarities between Kalakala's bridge deck and the cabin of a Boeing B-17.
This building was undergoing extensive interior and exterior renovation when I discovered it, so I don't have any pictures of the entire building, only vignettes of architectural details. To see the Art Deco tower on this building, click here.
