Ocean Liners: Glamour, Speed and Style

Description

Ocean liners became floating cities for those lucky enough to travel in an era before commercial flight was widely affordable. This book explores the technical, aesthetic, cultural and political factors that came together to define such an iconic mode of travel. The shift in passenger demographic from those driven to immigrate, often by necessity, to the wealthy leisure traveller led to rapid transformations in promotion, architecture, interior design and even the engineering of the ships themselves, as companies and countries competed to provide the most luxurious, safest and fastest liners possible. This comprehensive book considers all aspects of the ocean liner experience, from the striking marketing images, aspirational booking offices and landmark edifices of the major shipping companies to the ships' opulent interiors and triumphs of engineering. The lavish fashions required for each of the different settings - from poolside to smoking lounge, culminating in the evening ritual of the grande descente into the dining room - are also explored, along with the evolution of the ships' social and public spaces, as once-rigid class structures and attitudes were relaxed. Closing the book is an exploration of the impact of the ocean liner on the wider art and design world - an icon of modernity that influenced everyone from the Futurists to Le Corbusier. The golden age of ocean travel is intertwined with the key decorative trends of the twentieth century - Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modernism - making this book a visual feast and a volume to be treasured in itself.

Daniel Finamore is Russel W. Knight curator of Maritime and History, Peabody Essex Museum. Ghislaine Wood is Deputy Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia.

'lavish', Peyton Skipwith, Apollo, March 2018 'beautifully illustrated', Penny Hunter, The Weekend Australian, February 24th-25th 2018