Art Deco Interior Design
The Iconic Sunburst Motif in Art Deco Design
Radio City Music Hall has one famous arch and two stories about it. The National Park Service landmark file for Rockefeller Center describes the semicircular arch as a stylized sunrise, while Rockefeller Center’s own magazine (2023) reports that its inspiration was a sun setting over the ocean.
Both stories hang on the same motif. Straight rays fan out from a central point or a semicircular base, and the pattern fills round, arched or fan-shaped spaces. It crowns skyscrapers and frames theater stages, and you’ll find it over entrances too, mostly in buildings from the 1920s and 1930s. It also doesn’t show which way the sun is moving, which explains the Radio City disagreement.
What Is the Sunburst Motif in Art Deco?
Rays that spread in straight lines from a central point or a semicircular base make up the pattern, and designers used it to suggest a rising sun. It turns up on skyscraper crowns, theater arches, entrances and smaller objects from the 1920s and 1930s.
The City of Miami Beach lists sunbursts alongside zigzags, chevrons and fluted patterns as common motifs of the style.
Ray treatment and symmetry
Every sunburst starts somewhere: a dot, a disk, a band or a flat baseline. The rays run out from there at even angles. They can taper or step outward, and some keep parallel sides. Designers often alternated long rays with short ones.
The whole arrangement is radial around the center, or mirrored left to right when the burst is cut off at a semicircle.
Art Deco designers drew the rays as hard-edged straight lines, which fits the style’s preference for geometry over organic curves. Earlier sunbursts often used curving rays, and that straightness is what separates the Deco version from them.
How the sunburst differs from related Art Deco motifs
The quickest test is where the lines start.
| Motif | Geometry | How to tell it apart | Typical placement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunburst | Rays from a point or semicircle | All lines converge on one center | Crowns, arches, entrances |
| Fan | Semicircular array of lines | Never closes into a full circle | Transoms, panels, borders |
| Chevron | Stacked V-shaped bands | Parallel lines, no center | Floors, textiles, trim |
| Zigzag | One angled line repeated | Direction without a center | Borders, metalwork, facades |
| Ziggurat | Stepped setbacks | Defined by outline, not lines | Tower profiles, lamps, doorways |
The fan is the closest relative, since a sunburst can match its semicircle but also close into a full circle.
Chevrons stack V-shaped bands, so their lines run parallel and never meet, which is why chevron bands in Art Deco design read as pattern and not as sun.
A zigzag is just one angled line repeated along an edge. It has direction but no center, as in the zigzag bands across Art Deco metalwork and facades.
The ziggurat sits in a different category altogether. It’s a stepped profile that describes the outline of a building, whereas the sunburst fills a surface or an opening.
Where Did the Art Deco Sunburst Come From?
Baroque church metalwork supplied the sun rays. Egyptian solar imagery came back into fashion after Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery, and the 1925 Paris Exposition then carried the new geometric style abroad.
Sunbursts before Art Deco
The motif is far older than the style.
Baroque church metalwork made it standard. A silver-gilt monstrance in the Victoria and Albert Museum frames a round glass window with a ring of sun rays, and the Museum of Christian Art in Goa calls the sunburst typical of Baroque church metalwork in early 17th century Europe. Architecture took it up as well, with fanlights and rose windows carrying sunburst forms, according to Wikipedia’s entry on the motif.
The Baroque version alternated straight and curving rays. It was made in silver-gilt, set with gems or rock crystal, and placed around the Eucharist on an altar. Art Deco rays were straight and hard-edged instead, and the materials changed to steel, glass and light, used on buildings and objects.
Egyptian Revival and the 1925 Paris Exposition
Howard Carter’s diary for 4 November 1922 records “First steps of tomb found” (Griffith Institute, University of Oxford).
The discovery set off a new wave of Egyptomania, and Historic England says Egyptian motifs became an integral part of Art Deco’s visual language afterward.
The style takes its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925 (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Attendance topped 16 million visitors according to the Metropolitan Museum, though the Victoria and Albert Museum puts it at about 15 million. A sunburst marked the entrance to the Galeries Lafayette pavilion by Joseph Hiriart, Georges Tribout and Georges Beau (Dezeen, ArchDaily).
The exposition’s furniture, glass and metalwork gave Art Deco interior design its first large public showing.
The label came later. A 1966 Paris exhibition revived the name (Metropolis), Bevis Hillier’s 1968 book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s made it standard (Wikipedia), and designers in 1925 spoke of Style 1925 (Scala Archives).
What Did the Sunburst Mean to Art Deco Designers?
Historians tend to read it as a rising sun of optimism or as an Egyptian solar disk, and some tie it to the interwar sunbathing craze. No source documents any of these as the designers’ stated intent.
Rising sun, sunbathing or Egyptian sun disk
The Cincinnati Preservation Association links the motif to the optimism of its era, which it says found a symbol in sunrises and rays breaking through storm clouds.
Critic Daniel Thomas reported that Bevis Hillier explains the spread of sunrays by pointing to the cult of sunbathing, and that Hillier considered the sunray the dominant Art Deco motif.
The Egyptian reading at least has objects to point to. Solar discs, the sacred image of the sun god Ra, returned after 1922 (Historic England), and New York’s Pythian Temple of 1927 carries painted winged sun disks (Archaeology magazine).
The sunbathing claim reaches us secondhand, through a newspaper column, so it is the thinnest of the three on documentation.
The optimism reading appears most often, but a repeated reading is not a documented one.
Sunrise or sunset at Radio City
A sunburst doesn’t show which way the sun is moving, and Radio City Music Hall is the clearest proof.
The National Park Service landmark file describes the semicircular proscenium as a stylized sunrise that can be lit in eight colors. Rockefeller Center’s own magazine says the inspiration was a sun setting over the ocean, seen from an ocean liner.
StageBuddy repeats the sunset story, crediting impresario Roxy Rothafel’s view from a liner, yet it also describes the auditorium’s ceiling arches as mimicking the slope of a sunrise.
So one room has two readings, both in print. It’s safer to treat the motif as a sun on the horizon and leave the time of day out of it.
Chrysler Building and Radio City Music Hall as Sunburst Case Studies
The Chrysler Building crown in New York (1930) and the Radio City Music Hall proscenium arch (1932) are the best documented cases. The crown carries its rays in stainless steel on the exterior, and the arch carries them as a lit semicircle inside the auditorium.
- Howard Carter’s diary records the first steps of Tutankhamun’s tomb on 4 November 1922 (Griffith Institute)
- The Chrysler Building held its opening ceremonies on 27 May 1930 (New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission)
- Radio City Music Hall opened on 27 December 1932 (CBS News Sunday Morning almanac)
- Radio City’s proscenium arch measures 60 feet high and 100 feet wide (StageBuddy)
- Seven radiating terraced arches make up the Chrysler Building crown (Designing Buildings)
Chrysler Building crown
William Van Alen designed the crown as seven radiating terraced arches, clad in stainless steel that is ribbed and riveted in a sunburst pattern around triangular vaulted windows, according to Designing Buildings.
The tower decorations are Nirosta, a then newly developed rust-resisting steel, per the National Park Service landmark nomination, and Krupp made the alloy in Germany.
The crown also shows two motifs working together. The setbacks climb in a ziggurat profile while the steel ribs fan across them. That pairing is the subject of this look at how stepped forms shaped Art Deco architecture.
Radio City proscenium arch
Edward Durell Stone was the architect and Donald Deskey designed the interiors (StageBuddy).
Closure of the hall was announced in 1977, and the interior was landmarked on 28 March 1978 over the objections of Rockefeller Center’s president (New York Preservation Archive Project). The 1999 restoration returned the gold leaf ceiling and the sunrise rings (restoration architects’ project summary).
Other placements and regions
In every documented case the sunburst sits where a building opens or ends. The Chrysler crown finishes the tower, and at Radio City the arch opens onto the stage. The Galeries Lafayette sunburst marked an entrance.
Miami Beach carries the pattern at district scale. Its Art Deco district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and the city’s own guide names sunbursts among the motifs of buildings by architects such as Murray Dixon and Henry Hohauser.
For other examples of the style at building scale, see this list of famous Art Deco buildings.
Materials Used for Art Deco Sunbursts
Art Deco sunbursts turn up in stainless steel, glazed terra cotta and faience, metal leaf and electric light. Each material forms the rays differently, and each has its own documented way of going wrong.
| Material | Documented example | How the rays are formed | Documented limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stainless steel | Chrysler Building crown, New York | Riveted ribs on terraced arches | Rarely cleaned; dents and pitting found in 1995 |
| Glazed terra cotta and faience | Eastern Columbia Building, Los Angeles (1930) | Molded blue and gold units over an entrance | Cracking and spalling needed repair |
| Aluminum or silver leaf | 570 Lexington Avenue lobby ceiling, New York | Sunburst motifs on a vaulted ceiling | Sources disagree on the metal |
| Light | Radio City Music Hall arches | Coves hide the lamps behind the arches | A lighting scheme can wait decades to be realized |
The crown’s upkeep is the cautionary tale for stainless steel. The International Stainless Steel Forum says the building was inspected and cleaned only three times in 86 years (1961, 1995 and 2001), while an Australian corrosion-industry article counts two manual cleanings of the top, in 1961 and 1995.
That article adds that the 1995 cleaning turned up dents and cracks, which were repaired, plus superficial pitting near an incinerator vent.
Ceramic is a different story. Los Angeles’s Eastern Columbia Building sets a blue and gold terra cotta sunburst over its two-story entrance vestibule (Wikipedia). The engineering firm SGH later investigated cracked and spalled cladding there, and Boston Valley Terra Cotta supplied 850 units cast from 59 custom molds for parapet repairs.
New York’s Fred F. French Building (1927) used faience for the same job. The Landmarks Preservation Commission’s 1986 designation report describes orange, green, red and gold panels near the top of the tower, each with a rising sun at the center between winged griffons.
The report also records what the sun was meant to say, and the word is Progress, a reading it traces to the architects’ own 1927 article in the company magazine The Voice.
The earlier section on meaning said no source documents the designers’ stated intent for any of the readings. This record is the exception for the progress reading, on one building, and the commission itself classes that building as proto-Art Deco.
Metal leaf gets murkier. The lobby ceiling at 570 Lexington Avenue (Cross & Cross, completed December 1931) carries sunburst and ziggurat motifs, but sources split on the metal. The building’s leasing page calls it silver leaf, while a U.S. News travel gallery describes a vaulted aluminum ceiling.
Radio City’s overhead coves conceal more than 5,000 house lights behind the arches, according to Rockefeller Center. Lighting is a design decision that can wait, too, and CNN reports the Chrysler crown was not lit to Van Alen’s original design until 1981.
How to Draw an Art Deco Sunburst
Draw it from a center point. Divide an arc into equal angles, repeat one straight ray around the center, and close the middle with a disk or band. Software handles the dividing, so the real decisions are base shape, ray form and color.
- Choose the base: a full circle for a medallion, a semicircle for an arch or door head, a sector for a corner
- Fix the center and the vertical axis (for a semicircle, the center sits on the flat baseline)
- Divide the arc into equal angles, using an even number of rays so the burst mirrors across the axis
- Draw one ray form, tapered, parallel-sided or stepped, and repeat it without mixing
- Set the rhythm by alternating long and short rays or adding a second ring
- Close the center with a disk, a band or a stepped frame
- Limit the palette to metal tones plus one or two saturated glazes, as the Los Angeles and New York terra cotta examples do
In Inkscape, select one line, move its rotation center to the burst’s center, then run Create Tiled Clones with a rotation angle per column. The official Inkscape tutorial’s example uses 30 columns, each rotated 6 degrees, which works out to a half turn when the line’s end sits at the center, the span of a semicircular burst.
In CSS, the repeating-conic-gradient() function draws rays as alternating angular color bands, and MDN lists a black and white starburst among its examples. Browsers have supported it since November 2020.
One catch from MDN: a gradient background carries no alt text, so a sunburst that conveys meaning needs a text description in the page.
Because the pattern is radial, visual weight sits evenly around the center, the same logic behind radial balance in a room.
For metal and glaze tones beyond those two buildings, this guide to Art Deco color choices covers the wider range.
Uneven angles break the symmetry that defines the motif, and curved, organic ornament mixed into the rays pulls the design toward Art Nouveau. Radial dividers from a polar grid tool can also miss the outer circle by a hair, as users in the Adobe Community forums report, so check the joins after expanding.
When a Sunburst Is Not Art Deco
A sunburst alone never proves Art Deco. The motif predates the style by centuries and kept going after it, so dating takes more than the rays.
Edward III of England took the sunburst as a badge, and it survives as the badge of office of Windsor Herald (Wikipedia). It also sits on flags, including the Irish sunburst flag, an emblem of Irish nationalism since the mid-19th century, and the flag of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Wikipedia).
Closer to Deco in time, Vitra dates its Sunburst Clock to 1949 and credits George Nelson’s office, working for the manufacturer Howard Miller.
Mid-century sunbursts look alike on a shelf but differ in construction and context, which is the ground covered by this comparison of Art Deco and mid-century modern interiors.
Dealer language gives the first clue. Phrases such as “in the manner of,” “revival” and “Art Deco style” mark newer pieces, according to the Heirlooms at Home identification guide.
A maker’s mark you can verify counts for more than the rays, and so does documented provenance, which reproductions cannot supply. Material and construction that match the period outrank the motif too.
Sunburst Motif in Art Deco FAQ
Is a sunburst the same as a starburst?
In design use, mostly yes. Merriam-Webster defines a sunburst as a design of rays diverging from a central point, and the Britannica Dictionary defines a starburst as a pattern of rays spreading from a center. The only real difference is the name, sun versus star, and the geometry stays the same.
Does Art Deco jewelry use the sunburst?
Yes, though the motif alone does not date a piece. Merriam-Webster lists a jeweled brooch of a sun with rays among the meanings of sunburst, a word in use since about 1815, so hallmarks and construction decide whether a brooch is Art Deco.
Which colors suit a modern Art Deco sunburst?
Metallic gold, silver or rose gold on a dark ground. The wedding stationery brand Joy names black, navy, emerald and charcoal as the usual backgrounds.
What finish makes a printed sunburst read as Art Deco?
Foil stamping, according to Joy’s invitation guide, which calls it the premium, most authentic finish. Flat printing in metallic-look gold or silver ink still reads clearly as the style.
Is the sunburst still used in modern design?
Yes. The Traveler reports that the City of Miami Beach uses Art Deco motifs, sunbursts among them, in official marketing campaigns and signage. The pattern now works as branding as much as ornament.
Where to See Authentic Sunbursts in Person
The sunburst motif in Art Deco is easiest to verify at street level, where New York’s Chrysler Building crown and the entrance of Los Angeles’s Eastern Columbia Building show their materials without a ticket. Eastern Columbia is now a private residence, per the Los Angeles Conservancy, so its entrance is a sidewalk view only.
Street-level exteriors make the best first stop, since they need no booking and the material shows. Ticketed interiors such as the Radio City auditorium come next, and landmark reports are where you check dates and stated intent.
The catch is distance, since the crown sits too high for any close look at rivets or finish.
Access is the variable most likely to change this order. Visitor guides updated in April 2026 report no public observatory at the Chrysler Building, and a deck approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2020 would open its upper floors.
For the style’s other forms, see how geometric shapes work in Art Deco interiors.
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