ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes one Art Deco building that offers vivid examples of the mutually informing relationship between relief sculpture and architecture. Within the literature on Art Deco architecture, the Cormier residence is an eccentric case in a couple of respects. The Cormier residence offers a fruitful case study to highlight the importance of relief sculpture to Art Deco architecture, a form of applied art favored by architects active during the first decades of the twentieth century who strove to produce architecture that was modern while evoking continuity with the past. In contrast to the bright and airy top floor of the Cormier residence, which was the most public and the most lavishly appointed level of the house, the passage to the semi-private fourth floor, entails a descent into what feels like an intimate, subterranean realm.
