Start Your Day the “Deco” Way.

6 Replies
Setting the breakfast table with Fiestaware and Riviera makes for a colorful start to the day.

Setting the breakfast table with Fiestaware and Riviera makes for a colorful start to the day.

I enjoy collecting 1930’s kitchen items and I love to use them. Before going out on a day of antique hunting, I will start by making a 1930’s style breakfast.

 

Big brother, little brother - 1930's six cup and two cup, vacuum coffee pots.

Big brother, little brother – 1930’s Silex six cup and two cup, vacuum coffee pots.

 

A good cup of coffee is always welcome at the start of the day. And the best tasting coffee is made with a vacuum coffee pot, like my 1936 Silex. This style of coffee pot went out of favor in the 1950’s and the electric percolator became the standard coffee pot in homes. Vacuum pots are not easy to clean, but they make a very good tasting coffee, because the grounds do not sit in the coffee, there is no bitterness to the flavor. The earlier style Silex coffee makers, like mine, had a narrow neck. Around 1940 the wide neck versions started to appear. I like the look of the earlier style (much more like an hour-glass), but the wide neck variety are much easier to clean.

 

This video shows the coffee pot in use –

If I’m only making coffee for myself, I will use my Silex two cup pot, instead of the larger six cup model. The two cup coffee pots are not that easy to find, I found this one at The Whistle Stop Antique Mall in Ontario, New York, this past January.

 

Silex two cup vacuum coffee pot.

Silex two cup vacuum coffee pot.

The second staple of a “Deco” breakfast is toast. I have a great 1930 Universal “drop down” toaster. Here are some pictures of  the  toaster.

 

 

This is a short video of the toaster in action –

 

The best way to make hard-boiled eggs, in my opinion, is with a Hankscraft Egg Cooker. Introduced toward the end of 1928 they were produced up through 1960’s. The great thing about a  Hankscraft Egg Cooker is that it takes all the guess work out of making hard-boiled eggs. Just add 8 teaspoons of water in the cooker and plug it in, the water completes the current and the cooker turns on. The water starts to boil and when it has evaporated the cooker turns off. It’s not just hard-boiled eggs that can be made, with 4 teaspoons of water the Hankscraft cooker will make a perfect soft-boiled egg, to be enjoyed in a matching egg cup –

 

And with 5 teaspoons of water one can poach an egg using the supplied dish (which needs to be be greased with butter) –

 

 

The Hankscraft cooker that I have is a model 730 that dates from 1933. This was the top of the line model, it is all porcelain, with platinum trim.

1933 Model 730 Egg Cooker

1933 Model 730 Egg Cooker

Below is a video of me using the egg cooker –

 

 

 

After having my breakfast of coffee, toast and maybe a hard-boiled egg, I’m ready to hit the road to find more Deco treasures. I will also stop for an early lunch as there is no way a breakfast that insubstantial will carry me for a long time, and I get very cranky when hungry.

 

Anthony

Art Deco meets Italian Futurism – The Art Direction of

Leave a reply


Main Title

March 5th, marks the 88th anniversary of the opening of Fritz Lang’s classic film Metropolis, at the Rialto Theatre in New York City. This version differed greatly from the film that opened in Berlin, Germany in January, 1927. Because of a distribution deal Ufa made with Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the American studios could edit the Ufa films any way they saw fit. Paramount, distributed Metropolis in North America, cut the film by a half an hour and rearranged scenes, making the plot incomprehensible. While this version was not a critical success dramatically, what did impress most critics was the art direction, which utilized design themes so modern, it was almost considered avant-garde.

The machine room, where the influence of Italian Futurist architecture is easily seen.

The machine room, where the influence of Italian Futurist architecture is easily seen.

Otto Hunte (1881 – 1960), Erich Kettelhut (1893 – 1979) and Karl Vollbrecht (1886 – 1973) were the team of art directors that created the look of the dystopian city. These three men had collaborated for the first time on the Fritz Lang film The Indian Tomb (1921) and would continue as art directors on Lang’s Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) and Die Nibelungen (1924). For Metropolis, the futuristic appearance of the city was heavily influenced by two current art movements, Modern or Modernistic (now known as Art Deco), which had just be given a massive kick off party at the 1925 Paris Exposition, and the more established Italian Futurism. To learn more about Futurism click on the links below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurist_architecture

 

Here are a couple of videos about the Futurism exhibition held at the Guggenheim Museum in 2014.

And this one from The Economist –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hRcuvFK4iQ

 

Below are images of the city, where Futurist inspiration is clearly evident –

The film’s opening montage, is seeing a Futurist painting come to life –

Metropolis - 1927

The interior sets reflect 1920’s Modernistic design trends.

And the most spectacular of the interiors – the Yoshiwara night club.

Metropolis, was one of the first films to employ Art Deco designs. If it does not seem so avant-garde to us in the 21st Century, it’s because we’ve had almost 90 years to catch up to it.

 

Anthony