What do you think about Art Deco style? Over one hundred years after it first showed up in France,
many modern buildings or interiors are still inspired by Art Deco, or in some cases,
they fully revive it. Today we are looking at the original RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach,
California. Her keel was laid down in John Brown Shipyards in Clydebank, Scotland in the year 1930,
but due to the effects of the great depression, she didn’t go into passenger service until May
of 1936. She served a rather interesting and storied troopship service during World War II,
and returned to passenger service after an extensive refit in 1947 and continued her
transatlantic crossings until she was retired 20 years later. Though she was originally a British
ship, she was purchased by the City of Long Beach, California, and she sailed here under
her own power arriving in December of 1967. She reopened a few years later as a hotel and museum,
and despite her age and sometimes neglect, she has recently emerged from a 3-year closure, looking
better than she has in the last three decades. After all these years, her Art Deco interiors
still glisten with the hope and optimism of the 1930s. The ship is in the midst of a renovation
that will last at least another 5 years, the refurbishment is designed to return much of
the interiors to their original appearance. I bring you first to the Main Hall, this is
an area on Promenade Deck that was originally designed to be the center of activity on the ship,
a place to shop, read, write letters, or socialize. Originally, the room was covered
in chestnut wood paneling and had green Korkoid floors, but this room resembles its 1947 refit,
with cream-colored linoleum decks, and the walls covered in shades of seafoam green and cream color
pigskin hide panels. These panels were installed in 1947 to help brighten the color of the Main
Hall and to reduce noise echo. The light in the room is provided by frosted glass circular lamps
overhead, but also from a strip of light emanating from decorative curved recesses in the ceiling.
Also, take note of all the curves and circles in the design of this room, there are very few
hard lines or sharp edges, and I’ll come back to that later. For now, let’s admire the top of the
grand staircase. This descends four decks down, and the back wall of this landing used to have a
beautiful Walnut Burr panel, unfortunately, it too was removed during the 1947 refit. But we
can also see a replica of the marble medallion of Her Majesty Queen Mary, consort of Britain’s
King George V, and namesake of this stately ocean liner. Queen Mary herself christened the
ship on the day of her launch, and then later toured the ship just before her Maiden Voyage.
Let’s move on to a space that looks a bit more original to the 1930s. This is the Observation
Bar, it is also located on the Promenade Deck just forward of the Main Hall. The
elevated seating area surrounds the nickel silver bar which is paneled with Macassar
Ebony. The painting at the top was done by Alfred Thomson and is called “The Royal Jubilee Week”,
it was commissioned as a celebration of the 25th year that King George V reigned as monarch of
Great Britain. One of the fantastic features of this room is the recessed dome lamps designed
to provide indirect light to the room below. There are also fantastic balustrades done by
artist Austin Crompton Roberts and made out of a proprietary alloy called Birmabrite,
and the images depict creatures and characters of Greek Mythology as they relate to the sea. You can
see Poseidon and his chariot, even Pegasus who was created when a few drops of Medusa’s blood fell
into the sea. And these motifs are separated by beer casks, as that was the drink of choice that
ancient seafarers carried in their cargo holds. You might have even noticed that the bar itself
resembles a giant barrel, it’s a subtle feature but makes a lot of sense when you consider it.
If we travel down to B Deck, near the third-class staircase, there is another Art Deco room that
unfortunately no longer exists. This was Queen Mary’s synagogue. Now, the RMS Queen Mary
wasn’t the first ship to have a synagogue, many ocean liners retroactively added synagogues to
an existing space aboard the ship, however, this British liner was the first one to be constructed
with a Synagogue already on the blueprints. It was dedicated in 1936 by Britain’s Chief Rabbi,
J.H. Hertz. Fantastic oak wall paneling complimented the centerpiece of this room,
a beautiful Torah ark made of Oak and Macassar Ebony. The scrolls would have been kept behind
a gold-plated grill that had been wrought in a shape reminiscent of a menorah.
Down on R Deck in the lobby area, we can see two sets of first-class lifts. The banisters,
balustrades, and lift doorways were all done in nickel silver. The two lifts on the port side
are still operable, and the interiors have seen quite a lot of abuse over the years,
but underneath it all, the English Elm Burr wall panels and silver-bronze bands offer a
faint echo of the original beauty of this space. Next to the lifts, on R Deck, is the First Class
Swimming Pool. This room was once a jaw-dropping feature. Details to note are the straw-colored
glazed terra cotta tiles lining the bulkheads and pillars, the decorative drinking fountains,
the faux mother-of-pearl ceiling, and mosaic floors made of specially coated slip-resistant
black tiles with green tiles laid out in a sparse pattern. The pool furniture was
all done in red and green, a color scheme that might seem to juxtapose the style of the room,
but it was typical of Art Deco furniture to sometimes contrast the room they were in.
I will admit here and now that the majority of beautiful Art Deco spaces aboard this ship are
found in first-class areas, but this was typical of ocean liners of her time. That being said,
there are areas other than first class that had beautiful designs.
This is the Second Class overflow lounge on A Deck, it was designed to be a sort of reception
room or quiet space for passengers that might be overcrowding the Second Class Main Lounge on the
deck above. The Main Lounge is beautiful in its own right, but one might mistake all the white
painted surfaces as just a bland-looking space. However, this was one of the few rooms aboard the
ship that were designed to look the most modern. While the wall-to-wall wood paneling from other
rooms was meant to imitate the interiors of more classic liners, some spaces such as this Second
Class lounge were designed to lean more minimalist with their decoration. However, the overflow
lounge below would have been a beautiful space, and its key feature was its nickel-plated bass
relief wall clock panel created by Rebel Stanton. The overflow lounge was replaced by a teenager’s
lounge after the ship came back from the War. Another minimalist sort of space was the
exclusive restaurant called the Verandah Grill, located on Sun Deck. During the day it served as
a restaurant offering fine dining, but then late in the evenings, it became an exclusive nightclub
called the Starlight Lounge. When you walk into the Verandah Grill you definitely notice a big
stylistic change from the rest of the ship. The restaurant’s interiors were designed by artist
Doris Zinkeisen. She didn’t want veneered paneling, but instead, white walls like
many modern plaster interiors. She chose black carpeting to contrast with the walls, and then
the balustrades were decorated with silver-bronze and glass. The glass panels themselves depict
music and instruments, reflecting the purpose of the space. Doris also painted several works of
art for the restaurant, each motif themed to a carnival or circus. The original paintings
were severely damaged during the war because the room was turned into an office, and the
paintings were used as bulletin boards with tacks going right through the canvas. When the ship was
being refitted back to passenger service in 1947, Doris Zinkeisen was brought back to re-create her
famous paintings, and they are still displayed on the bulkheads of the restaurant today.
If we return to Promenade Deck, we can go inside the former First-Class Smoking room. This is an
area I enjoy, particularly because of the Tiger Oak veneers, when you look close enough, you can
see tiger faces in them. The beautiful frosted lamps create a warm golden glow, which makes
it easy on the eyes when viewing the paintings by Edward Wadsworth. Both paintings feature the Queen
Mary floating on the horizon at roughly the same place in the image. Flanking either side of the
forward bulkhead are two of the three, hand-carved wooden screens done by artist James Woodford.
The final space I wanted to highlight is the first-class restaurant on R Deck. It is the
single largest room on the entire ship, it stretches 145 feet long and spans the entire
118-foot width of the hull, and its ceiling stands 3 decks high. The room is adorned with
veneers of both light and dark Peroba wood. The forward end of the room has a map of the
North Atlantic designed by artist MacDonald Gill. There are also crystal models of the RMS
Queen Mary and the RMS Queen Elizabeth that would move across the map to show passengers their true
position on the voyage. All around the room are 14 flat carvings done by artist Bainbridge Copnall,
and they depict the art of shipbuilding through history. At the far end of the room is a rendering
of the English countryside done by Artist Philip Conrad. The doorway below is a fantastic work of
bronze done by artist Walter Gilbert and his son, Donald. As you can see the first-class
main restaurant is an elegant masterpiece. Something you may have noticed about the Queen
Mary throughout this video is that while I did say she is designed in Art Deco style, her style
may not quite match what you might think of as Art Deco, especially if you were born and raised
in the United States. Art Deco style originated as far back as 1910, however, it wasn’t a fully
formed style until it was seen in an International Exposition of Art Decoration held in Paris,
France back in 1925. The style didn’t quite have a name, because at the time it was considered just
modern design, so many years after it went out of style, it eventually came to be known as Art Deco.
The design spread throughout the world, first in the UK, and then later it was
found in the US. Each country had adapted its own version of Art Deco. In the UK for instance,
it was a very practical and subtle style, but in the US, our version was a bit more
flamboyant and sometimes used to make a structure look more imposing and serious.
Since the Queen Mary is a British liner, she received a more subtle version of Art Deco, and
even at that, her style was created just as Art Deco was transitioning into Streamline Moderne.
You’ve probably seen a lot of Streamline Moderne, it’s known for its very curvy and circular designs
and the use of reflective alloys to accent the buildings or interiors. So on Queen Mary,
you don’t see too many hard lines and square edges…many of the designs have a flow to them,
almost guiding your eyes in a certain direction. And lastly, the interiors of the ship were
specially designed to make you feel a certain way. If you look at the lobby of the Empire State
Building, what does it make you feel? I would argue that it feels impressive, mighty, imposing,
cold, and also somewhat intimidating. You like the way it looks, but it very clearly is only meant
for you to be a visitor, it’s all business and no fun. Now, when you look at Queen Mary’s interiors,
how does it make you feel? I would say that it makes me feel warm, welcoming, cozy, beautiful,
and even relaxing. Cunard wanted the ship to appear not like a palace, but rather,
like a large modern home sitting on an estate in the English Countryside. And indeed, Queen Mary
was made to make you feel comfortable and at home, almost from the moment you set foot on her decks.
The nature of Art Deco style is the careful attention to detail. Don’t be fooled, sometimes
artwork might seem minimalist and lacking detail, but in that case, the posture and placement of the
subject matter are even more crucial to relaying the message that the artist intended. One of the
details that could never be overlooked on the Queen Mary was the way the ship was illuminated.
The amount of light and direction it is aimed at, are important factors to consider. There aren’t
very many places on the ship that are completely bathed in daylight, so, much of the ship must
be kept illuminated all day and all night. When the Queen Mary went into service in 1936, Cunard
boasted that the ship had 30,000 electric lamps, which could light a city with a population of
150,000 people. Much of the light on the ship was in the form of diffused light or indirect light.
The diffused light is often seen in the form of a lamp that has frosted glass. The sandblasted
glass breaks up the beam of light and scatters it so that the space around it is illuminated more
evenly. But there is also a great deal of indirect light on the ship, the curvy light coves above the
Main Hall frame the room in a glowing halo of soft light. Then there are the cove lamps of
the First Class Main Lounge, they were designed to shine up at the ceiling of the dome, and in turn,
the cream-colored ceiling would create a warm ambient glow of light in the room. Although,
I must add that since the ship became a hotel in the early 1970s the cove lamps in the main
lounge have not been connected to power. Art Deco design was very different from
what came before and after. It became popular during the Great Depression and during a time
of increasing tensions in Europe. There was a lot of uncertainty about the world and the future,
the people of the time needed an idea, a dream that distracted them from reality. Not to mention
the style was incredibly versatile. You could even find variations to it like Pueblo Deco,
a style influenced by the architecture of Native Americans in the early Southwestern United States,
or Egypt Deco, which is a fusion of the beautiful ancient Egyptian style.
You couldn’t do those kinds of variations with Mid-century Modern or Googie Style.
Art Deco style reflects an optimistic future, a future where art and life are one and the same,
and the RMS Queen Mary continues to carry on that legacy from a bygone era. This video is meant not
to discuss every last space on the ship, but rather to highlight some of the best rooms on
the ship and provide a little extra info about how the Art Deco style influenced it. If you
enjoy this video be sure to give it a thumbs up, leave a comment, and subscribe to the channel.