Shanghai to host World Congress on Art Deco in 2015

China's metropolis Shanghai will host the 13th World Congress on Art Deco in 2015, president of the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies said here Sunday. Sandra Cohen-Rose made the announcement when attending the 12th World Congress on Art Deco, which was opened Friday and lasts till Thursday. The biennial event aimed to showcase the main features of Art Deco, an architectural and artistic trend, its heritage value and its significance for culture, as well as the need to revaluate and preserve it, said Cohen-Rose. "We have gathered a group of important researchers in this event. This congress was attended by more than 250 experts from 15 countries," she said. Cuba "is home to a wide representation of the style, which is one of the reasons we chose Cuba to hold the current assembly," she said. The U.S. city of Cleveland will host the next congress in 2017, Cohen-Rose said. Art Deco was born in France in the first decades of the 20th century and flourished during the 1930s and 1940s as a modernist but classic style, using symmetry, tough lines, monumentality and glamor. The trend arrived in Cuba in the 1920s. The best examples of Art Deco in Cuba include Lopez Serrano Building in El Vedado and Bacardi Building in Havana.