Tired of all the media buzz about the economy and its doldrums? Want a touch of glamor in your life? Why not revisit ART DECO?

Elegant and glamorous, ART DECO style is commonly said to have been most influential from around 1910 until the outbreak of World War II. While it originated in France, ART DECO became a worldwide trend, affecting all areas of design throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Purely decorative, the eclectic style shaped architecture and industrial design, as well as painting, the graphic arts, and film.

ART DECO’s popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties, but continued strongly in the United States throughout the 1930s. Interestingly, the term ART DECO only came into popular use in the 1960s.

ART DECO influences include the art of Babylon, Assyria, Ancient Egypt, and Aztec Mexico. It also drew on the Machine Age and streamline technologies like modern aviation, electric lighting, the radio, the ocean liner, and the skyscraper.

Surviving examples of ART DECO architecture can be seen in many different locations worldwide. Look for it in bridges, skyscrapers, theaters, and train stations. Here are just a few ART DECO CITIES that you might want to visit.

1. NEW YORK CITY: The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building are two of the largest and best known examples of the style.
2. MIAMI BEACH: Miami is home to some thirty blocks of hotels and apartment houses dating from the 1920s t0 the 1940s. In 1979, the Art Deco Historic District of Miami Beach was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Nearly all the buildings have been carefully restored and painted in their original pastel colors.
3. LOS ANGELES: LA is rich in Art Deco architecture, particularly along Wiltshire Boulevard, a main thoroughfare that experienced a building boom in the 1920s. Notable examples include the Bullocks Wiltshire and Pellissier Building, and the Wiltern Theater.
4. SHANGHAI: At least sixty buildings designed by the Hungarian architect Laszlo Hudec survive in downtown Shanghai. Many of these are Art Deco.
5. CUBA: Havana is home to some of the finest surviving examples of Art Deco art and architecture. The Bacardi Building is particularly noteworthy. The style is expressed in the architecture of residences, businesses, hotels, and in the many pieces of decorative art, furniture, and utensils found in public buildings. Art Deco furnishings also found in many private homes.
6. NEW ZEALAND: Napier was rebuilt in the Art Deco style after being destroyed by earthquake in 1931. It is the world’s most thoroughly Art Deco city. Napier has been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
7. INDIA: Mumbai has the second largest number of Art Deco buildings in the world after Miami.
8. BRAZIL: Art Deco architecture can be found in Goiania as well as in cities like Cipo, Irai, and Rio de Janeiro — especially in the Copacabana. It is also seen in the Brazilian Northeast. The style is widespread in Brazil due to the fast growth and rapid economic changes in the country during the period from 1930-1940.
9. POLAND: After a very successful participation in the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, the Polish Government adopted the Art Deco style as the National Style.  Two whole cities – the port of Gdynia (1926) and the industrial city of Stalowa Wola (1936) were laid out and built as Art Deco cities.  They sustained little wartime damage.
10. AFRICA: Africa’s most celebrated examples of Art Deco were built in Eritrea during Italian rule. Many buildings survive in Asmara, the capital. There are also many buildings in Casablanca. Cities in South Africa also contain examples of Art Deco design.

Don’t you just love the grit of industrial heritage? Well, if you’re one of the growing number of heritage travelers who do, you’ll want to take a trip to the Carrie Furnaces in Rankin, PA, right outside of Pittsburgh. Since the site isn’t open to the public, you’ll need to make arrangements to visit before you go. Contact the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area for information.

I was lucky enough to tour the deserted facility a little over a year ago, in October 2008, and I came away with a lot of questions. First and foremost, are the furnaces industrial heritage, public art, or have they just been vandalized and left to deteriorate? And — is planned redevelopment in keeping with the historical authenticity that the site demands?

The blast furnaces at the Carrie Furnace site were designated  a National Historic Landmark on September 20, 2006. Now they are central to a proposed Homestead Works National Park. However, many question whether the cost involved in preserving the furnaces is prohibitive.  And even preservationists are confused about what to do with the graffiti that many consider public art. For a good look at what I’m talking about see my photographs on FLICKR. (If you have any problems, just search for ‘ordinarystories’.)

Homestead Works is located in the heart of the Monongahela River valley where steel making dominated the landscape for 125 years. Built in 1907, the furnaces towered 92 feet over the river, and produced iron for the ‘Works’ from 1907 to 1978.

A hot metal bridge, built to connect Carrie Furnace to Homestead Works, delivered the molten iron that four generations of steelworkers shaped into the skeletons of skyscrapers, landmarks, and battle tanks.

During the 1920s, 1930s,and 1940s, Carrie 6 and 7 consumed approximately four tons of raw materials comprised of iron ore, coke, and limestone for every ton of iron produced. The cooling system for the blast furnace required over five million gallons of water a day. These furnaces reached their peak production in the 1950s and 1960s when they were producing 1000 -1250 tons of iron a day.

Carrie Furnaces 6 and 7 are extremely rare examples of pre World War II iron-making technology. Since the collapse of the region’s steel industry in the 1970s and 1980s, these are the only non-operative blast furnaces in the Pittsburgh District to remain standing.

Allegheny County purchased the site in 2005 for $5.75 million, saying that it saw in it the potential for a major income generator for nearby communities. The county’s construction plan calls for the establishment of a steel heritage museum to showcase the existing furnaces on a 25-acre section that the federal government already has declared a historical site. The remainder of the site will be open for redevelopment.

Carrie Furnace boasts one of the best urban riverfront land development prospects in the country: 250 acres of underutilized land, including 135 acres of vacant land and a prime riverfront location. The county plans riverfront housing, light industrial manufacturing, and office space.

Under the plan, Carrie Furnaces 6 and 7 will undergo a $78 million stabilization and renovation that would allow visitors to climb a series of walkways around these industrial giants and see at close hand the furnaces that set world records in the production of iron.

Today, Carrie Furnace is marked by abandoned buildings littered with colorful graffiti. Surrounded by overgrown fields, the site is more reminiscent of a cemetery than an industrial powerhouse. Are the plans for its future overly optimistic? More importantly, are they consistent with the hopes and dreams of generations of steel workers? Just what is the Spirit of the Place?

Post written by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe.

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe.

I suppose I shouldn’t broadcast my lack of creative thinking, but I have to admit that, until yesterday morning, I’d never given any thought to heritage animals. So I was a bit shocked to say the least when I read the article in the New York Times titled Rare Breeds, Frozen in Time. The article argues that modern livestock breeds have been weakened by human intervention. Heritage breeds, shaped by natural survival-of-the-fittest forces, tend to be stronger. Their embryos should be preserved and made available in case of food emergency.

The article goes on to say that, in order to preserve the heritage ‘misfits’, a combination farm and scientific facility has been established on the grounds of the SVF Foundation, a 45 acre complex in Newport, Rhode Island. SVF is the only organization in the country dedicated to conserving rare heritage livestock breeds by freezing their semen and embryos, a technique called cryopreservation.

On the estate, about 45,000 semen and embryo samples from 20 breeds of rare cattle, sheep and goats are preserved in liquid nitrogen chilled to minus 312 degrees. Each time the foundation freezes a batch of embryos from a new breed, it thaws a few and transplants them into surrogate mothers as a test. You can learn more about the technique by watching movie clips on the foundation’s website.

“Think of this as a safety valve program,” says Dr. George Saperstein, chairman of the Department of Environmental and Population Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. “If there was a disaster, if something like the potato famine of livestock ever hit, these frozen embryos would be made available, and in one generation we would be back in business.”

NO, HERITAGE TRAVELER!

Due to strict biosecurity protocols, SVF is not open to the public. But, according to the Times, you can visit the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia to learn more about the merits of rare farm animals. “We have to eat these animals to save them,” advocates assert. “Ultimately, food is the reason heritage breeds are important.”

NOW FOR A TOTALLY DIFFERENT APPROACH.

Let’s contrast cryopreservation with the ‘resource management’ approach used to preserve the wild ponies roaming the beaches, pine forest, and salt marsh of Assateague Island.

Assateague Island National Seashore, partly in Virginia and partly in Maryland, provides a natural habitat for over 300 wild ponies. Usually seen in groups of 5-10, legend says that the animals arrived on Assateague’s shores when a Spanish galleon ship with a cargo of horses sank offshore. A Spanish ship wreck discovered recently in the waters off Assateague lends credit to the theory.

Although resource management techniques are different in Maryland than in Virginia, the goal is the same: maintain a healthy population of wild ponies. In Maryland, some female horses annually undergo a contraceptive vaccine administered by a dart gun. this has proven to reduce high pregnancy rates with no harmful side effects. Wild horses in Virginia are part of the Annual Pony Swim started in 1924. Approximately 150 wild horses are rounded up on Assateague the last Wednesday in July. The horses swim across the Assateague Channel to Chincoteague Island where an auction takes place to reduce their numbers on Assateague. After many of the foals are sold, the remaining herd swims back to Assateague.

These  management techniques reduce the impact the horses pose to their natural environment and help provide a sustainable resource for future generations of ponies.

Now it’s your turn to sound off: CRYOPRESERVATION, RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, OR BOTH?

YOU DECIDE!

Send your comments and let us know what you think.

Post written by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe.

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe.