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++ Why Neon Is the Ultimate Symbol of the 20th Century +
++ The once-ubiquitous form of lighting was novel when it first emerged in the early 1900s, + though it has since come to represent decline. +
++ In the summer of 1898, the Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay made a discovery that + would eventually give the Moulin Rouge in Paris, the Las Vegas Strip, and New York’s + Times Square their perpetual nighttime glow. Using the boiling point of argon as a + reference point, Ramsay and his colleague Morris W. Travers isolated three more noble + gases and gave them evocative Greek names: neon, krypton, and xenon. In so doing, the + scientists bestowed a label of permanent novelty on the most famous of the trio—neon, + which translates as “new.” This discovery was the foundation on which the French + engineer Georges Claude crafted a new form of illumination over the next decade. He + designed glass tubes in which neon gas could be trapped, then electrified, to create a + light that glowed reliably for more than 1,000 hours. +
++ In the 2012 book L’être et le Néon, which + has been newly translated into English by Michael Wells, the philosopher Luis de + Miranda weaves a history of neon lighting as both artifact and metaphor. Being and + Neonness, as the book is called in its English edition, isn’t a typical + material history. There are no photographs. Even de Miranda’s own example of a neon deli + sign spotted in Paris is re-created typographically, with text in all caps and dashes + forming the border of the sign, as one might attempt on Twitter. Fans of Miami Beach’s + restored Art Deco hotels and California’s bowling alleys might be disappointed by the + lack of glossy historical images. Nonetheless, de Miranda makes a convincing case for + neon as a symbol of the grand modern ambitions of the 20th century. +
++ De Miranda beautifully evokes the notion of neon lighting as an icon of the 1900s in his + introduction: “When we hear the word neon, an image pops into our heads: a + combination of light, colors, symbols, and glass. This image is itself a mood. It + carries an atmosphere. It speaks … of the essence of cities, of the poetry of nights, of + the 20th century.” When neon lights debuted in Europe, they seemed dazzlingly + futuristic. But their husky physicality started becoming obsolete by the 1960s, thanks + in part to the widespread use of plastic for fluorescent signs. Neon signs exist today, + though they’ve been eclipsed by newer technologies such as digital billboards, and they + remain charmingly analog: Signs must be made by hand because there’s no cost-effective + way to mass-produce them. +
++ In the 1910s, neon started being used for cosmopolitan flash in Paris at precisely the + time and place where the first great modernist works were being created. De Miranda’s + recounting of the ingenuity emerging from the French capital a century ago is thrilling + to contemplate: the cubist art of Pablo Picasso, the radically deconstructed fashions of + Coco Chanel, the stream-of-consciousness poetry of Gertrude Stein, and the genre-defying + music of Claude Debussy—all of which heralded a new age of culture for Europe and for + the world. +
+ Amid this artistic groundswell, Georges Claude premiered his neon lights at the Paris Motor Show in + December 1910, captivating visitors with 40-foot-tall tubes affixed to the building’s + exterior. The lights shone orange-red because neon, by itself, produces that color. + Neon lighting is a catchall term that describes the technology of glass tubing + that contains gas or chemicals that glow when electrified. For example, neon fabricators + use carbon dioxide to make white, and mercury to make blue. Claude acknowledged at the + time that neon didn’t produce the ideal color for a standard light bulb and insisted + that it posed no commercial threat to incandescent bulbs. +
++ Of course, the very quality that made neon fixtures a poor choice for interior lighting + made them perfect for signs, de Miranda notes. The first of the neon signs was switched + on in 1912, advertising a barbershop on Paris’s Boulevard Montmartre, and eventually + they were adopted by cinemas and nightclubs. While Claude had a monopoly on neon + lighting throughout the 1920s, the leaking of trade secrets and the expiration of a + series of patents broke his hold on the rapidly expanding technology. +
+ In the following decades, neon’s nonstop glow and vibrant colors turned ordinary + buildings and surfaces into 24/7 billboards for businesses, large and small, that wanted + to convey a sense of always being open. The first examples of neon in the United States + debuted in Los Angeles, where the Packard Motor Car Company commissioned two large + blue-and-orange Packard signs that literally stopped + traffic because they distracted motorists. The lighting also featured heavily at the + Chicago Century of Progress Exposition in 1933 and at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. + At the latter event, a massive neon sign reading Futurama + lit the way to a General Motors exhibition that heralded “The World of Tomorrow.” +
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+ De Miranda points out that businesses weren’t alone in embracing neon’s ability to + spread messages effectively. By the middle of the century, the lighting was being + adopted for more political purposes. “In the 1960s, the Soviets deployed a vast + ‘neonization’ of the Eastern bloc capitals to emulate capitalist metropolises,” de + Miranda writes. “Because consumer shops were rare in the Polish capital [of Warsaw], + they did not hesitate to illuminate the façades of public buildings.” In other words, as + opposed to the sole use of the more obvious forms of propaganda via posters or slogans, + the mass introduction of neon lighting was a way of getting citizens of Communist cities + to see their surroundings with the pizzazz and nighttime glamour of major Western + capitals. +
+ Neon, around this time, began to be phased out, thanks to cheaper and less + labor-intensive alternatives. In addition, the global economic downturn of the 1970s + yielded a landscape in which older, flickering neon signs, which perhaps their owners + couldn’t afford to fix or replace, came to look like symbols of decline. Where such + signs were once sophisticated and novel, they now seemed dated and even seedy. +
++ Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. +
++ De Miranda understands this evolution by zooming out and looking at the 1900s as the + “neon century.” The author draws a parallel between the physical form of neon lights, + which again are essentially containers for electrified gases, and that of a glass + capsule—suggesting they are a kind of message in a bottle from a time before the First + World War. “Since then, [neon lights] have witnessed all the transformations that have + created the world we live in,” de Miranda writes. “Today, they sometimes seem to + maintain a hybrid status, somewhere between junkyards and museums, not unlike European + capitals themselves.” +
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+ Another mark of neon’s hybridity: Its obsolescence started just as some contemporary + artists began using the lights in their sculptures. Bruce Nauman’s 1968 work My + Name as Though It Were Written on the Surface of the Moon poked fun at + the space race—another symbol of 20th-century technological innovation whose moment has + passed. The piece uses blue “neon” letters (mercury, actually) to spell out the name + “bruce” in lowercase cursive, with each character repeated several times as if to convey + a person speaking slowly in outer space. The British artist Tracey Emin has made sculptures + that resemble neon Valentine’s Day candies: They read as garish and sentimental + confections with pink, heart-shaped frames that surround blue text fragments. Drawing on + the nostalgia-inducing quality of neon, the sculptures’ messages are redolent of + old-fashioned movie dialogue, with titles such as “You Loved Me Like a Distant Star” and + “The Kiss Was Beautiful.” +
++ Seeing neon lighting tamed in the context of a gallery display fits comfortably with de + Miranda’s notion that neon technology is like a time capsule from another age. In + museums, works of neon art and design coexist with objects that were ahead of their own + time in years past—a poignant fate for a technology that made its name advertising “The + World of Tomorrow.” Yet today neon is also experiencing a kind of craft revival. The + fact that it can’t be mass-produced has made its fabrication something akin to a + cherished artisanal technique. Bars and restaurants hire firms such as Let There Be Neon + in Manhattan, or the L.A.-based master + neon artist Lisa Schulte, to create custom signs and works of art. Neon’s story + even continues to glow from inside museums such as California’s Museum of Neon Art and the Neon Museum in Las + Vegas. If it can still be a vital medium for artists and designers working today, + “neonness” need not only be trapped in the past. It might also capture the mysterious + glow of the near future—just as it did a century ago. +
+This article originally appeared on The + Atlantic.
+ About the Author +
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Sarah Archer
+Sarah Archer is the author of The + Midcentury Kitchen. +
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