In celebration of World Art Deco Day on April 28th, we’re spotlighting one of New York City’s most passionate advocates for its iconic skyline—Anthony W. Robins, who is going to teach 100 Years of Art Deco New York: How It Happened, And How It Was Reclaimed this summer at the NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning.
Anthony W. Robins is an award-winning writer, historian, lecturer, and guide. He’s led visitors through New York City and lectured for museums, universities, and private groups around the world along with a 20-year career at the New York Landmarks Commission, where he served as Deputy Director of Research and Director of Survey. He is the author of New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture (SUNY Press, 2017) which won a New York City Book Award from the New York Society Library, among other guidebooks. Robins has taught at Williams College, Pratt Institute, and Columbia University, and has been published in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Gourmet, Connoisseur, Architectural Record, and Progressive Architecture. Most recently, he was interviewed by NY1 and starred in the Daily Mail’s “Obsession to Detail” series in this video highlighting NYC’s iconic buildings.
Q: Can you tell us about your background? How did you get involved in this field?
A: Well, I was an art history major a long time ago, and I went off to graduate school, and my field of study was Italian Renaissance painting. But I got interested in architecture. I was in graduate school at the Courtauld Institute, which focuses on European architecture and art.
But I thought, while in London, let me try a course in architecture. One day, I was in a double-decker bus on the upper level, and that’s relevant because you see different things when you’re in the upper level.
I was going home on a pretty undistinguished street, the Uxbridge Road in West London, and I looked out the window and I started to notice the buildings and all of the details on them like the windows had little columns on them and a pretty little triangle at the top, which I learned later was called a pediment. And I never noticed these things. And it was as though a third eye had opened in my forehead and saw buildings, and saw architecture, and it changed the way I experienced everything, my surroundings.
I came home for winter break, and I went charging around New York. I distinctly remember standing before Carnegie Hall and thinking, so that’s what it looks like.
Q: What can students expect from your class?
A: In the course, we’re going to address the origins and characteristics of Art Deco, along with its history, the architects, and its revival.
It’s about this remarkable style that transformed the city. When it was new, it was the latest and the greatest, and now the major monuments are all 90 years old. They’re historic landmarks. But it’s still magnificent.
If you’re on a plane coming back from anywhere to New York and you see the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building, you know you’re home. That’s what these buildings still do for us.
Q: How can this class help students at different stages of their lives?
A: I hope people will come away from it, specifically knowing more about Art Deco than they did when they started, but also with their third eye wide open when walking around the city. The city should look different to you by the time you finish the course, because you’ll see things you didn’t see before.
We’re all New Yorkers, we’re all too busy to look. We wander, we’re constantly moving around with our faces buried in our phones when we’re on the sidewalk.
My job as a tour guide and teacher, among other things, is to take people by the chin and push their heads up, and say get them to look around! If you look just at the street level, all you see are storefronts, and storefronts are always changing to meet contemporary styles. At street level, the city looks pretty much the same, wherever you are. Once you look up, you’re seeing buildings that have been there for 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, 200 years—from a different and new perspective.
I think this discovery is the same no matter what age you are. My hope is that anyone who takes the class, whether they’re 20 or 80, or anywhere in between, leaves with a keener sense of what it means to look at the city.
What inspired you to create this course?
A: Art Deco today is everybody’s favorite architectural style. It’s the only architectural style that regularly shows up in the New York Times crossword puzzle. I think I’ve seen Bauhaus once. I’ve never seen Renaissance or Baroque, but Art Deco shows up all the time. And this is a particularly interesting year to be doing the class because this is the 100th anniversary this year,
It started in skyscrapers, but it evolved to every other building type, from apartments, restaurants, diners, automats, bus terminals, airline terminals, department stores, houses of worship, and even row houses.
Fifty years ago, Art Deco was looked down on, and now we see its influence everywhere and I think that’s worth exploring!
Q: What kind of classroom environment do you try to create for yourself and your students?
A: The format is four illustrated lectures – one of which includes audio clips from interviews with architects active during the period, people I was lucky enough to meet 45 years ago – followed by a walking tour so we can experience some of the major monuments in person. I will also include suggested readings and some online resources.
Q: What do you think makes NYU special?
A: I’ve been teaching here for 30 years. I’ve seen NYU through many transitions. This school is a very specific place. It has non-credit courses, which is what I teach, for people who are out of college and are looking to expand their horizons. But it also has courses for students looking to get into professions and has instructors who work in those industries. The diverse teaching staff is the most interesting.
