Washington and Baltimore Art Deco: A Design History of Neighboring Cities

Historians Striner (Washington Coll., Chestertown, MD) and Blair (Univ. of Delaware) have a deep acquaintance with Washington, DC, and Baltimore. The book opens with an informative and easy-to-read essay that places art deco in a broad historical and cultural context, and then brings the reader to the narrower context of the two cities' areas. Organized by broad subjects, the book includes a generous index allowing readers to look up specific buildings, names, and themes. Short biographies of principal architects are included. The volume is dense with well-documented text—detailed explanations of many buildings are provided—but it does not include photographs of all the structures discussed. The pictures that are included are primarily historic images taken from the 1920s through the 1940s. Street addresses of buildings can be found in the text, but there are no maps.