The Art Deco style began in Europe in the early years of the 20th century, with the waning of Art Nouveau. The term "Art Deco" was taken from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, a world’s fair held in Paris in 1925. Art Deco rejected many traditional classical influences in favor of more streamlined geometric forms and metallic color. The Art Deco style influenced all areas of design, especially interior design, because it was the first style of interior decoration to spotlight new technologies and materials.

Art Deco style is mainly based on geometric shapes, streamlining and clean lines. The well-maintained Muswell Hill Odeon was an Art Deco style interior. Its striking lighting fixtures include an illuminated ribbon running down the middle of the ceiling to the top of the screen, which creates a streamlined effect, with a circular light be placed in the recessed ceiling area as a focal point. The geometrical shapes, angular edges and clean lines offer a sharp, cool look of mechanized living utterly at odds with anything that came before. The spacious lounge of Chicago’s 1929 Powhatan apartments which designed by Robert S. Degolyer and Charles L. Morgan is also a key Art Deco icon. These apartments note the geometric patterns on the ceiling’s light panels, as well as on the mouldings, grilles and pelmet. All of these geometric patterns provide by sharp angles and well-define lines that give the whole space a clean and elegant looking.

As the influence of industrial power, the Art Deco has to be seemed as one of the most exciting decorative style of the century. The Art Deco reject the traditional materials of decoration and interior design, instead option to use more unusual materials such as chrome, glass, stainless steel, shiny fabrics, mirrors, aluminium, lacquer, inlaid wood, sharkskin, and zebra skin. Stemming from this use of harder, metallic materials is the celebration of the machine age. Some of the materials used in art deco style interiors are direct reflection of the time period. Materials like stainless steel, aluminium, lacquer, and inlaid woods all reflect the modern age that was ushered in after the end of the World War,and the steel and aluminium also reflect the growing aviation movement of the time. The innovative combinations of these materials create theatrical contrasts which were very popular at the end of the 1920s and during the 1930s, for example, the mixing highly polished wood and black lacquer with satin and furs. The barber shop in the Austin Reed store in London was designed by P. J. Westwood. It was the trendiest barber shop in Britain by using metallic materials. The whole barber shop was a gleaming ovoid space of mirrors, marble, chrome and frosted glass. The most exciting design was the undulating waves lighting fixture that forming by the continuous arcs of neon tubing, and support by chrome structure. The used of new technologies and materials emphasis the feature of Art Deco style.

Source: Wikipedia