Toronto’s Art Deco Renaissance

“When art deco arrived in Toronto in the late ’20s, it was more than an aesthetic or just a style; it was a declaration of faith — faith in the future and the power of technology. From the vantage point of today, such optimism seems naïve, even touching. The notion that art and industry can be combined, brought together in the service of mass-produced beauty, has been reduced to the lowest common denominator of mass marketing. Now, thanks to the Royal Ontario Museum and its London partner, the Victoria and Albert Museum, art deco is about to make a comeback, a rather splendid one at that… But the one form that the show can’t fully cover, architecture, can still be enjoyed in buildings around the city.”