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Orientalism and New York:
The 19th Century's Love Affair with the Middle East and Its Influence on Modern Design
Lecture delivered at the Montclair (NJ) Adult School, October 30th, 2008.
Running time: 1h 26m
Video production by Kamil Dobrowolski.
Copyright © 2009 Barry Lewis.
The 19th century West saw the Middle East as a veritable Shangri-La where Europeans and Americans could find alternative lifestyles and refreshingly different cultural ideals. This century long infatuation with everything Middle Eastern was known as "Orientalism".
In architecture, Orientalism gave Europeans and Americans a way of freeing themselves from rigid Western formulas and cluttered interiors to create simpler, more informal designs the modern world could live with. In iron and glass construction—prefacing the age of steel—young Western modernists used Moorish inspiration to forge a new "metallic style". Perusing the New York area, looking at its architecture both inside and out, we can discover a fine collection of these "Oriental"-inspired roots of modern design.
For a six minute video summary of this lecture, check out YouTube.
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