Illustration of French Ocean Liner Interior, SS Normandie as I recall:-

Illustrations for proposed ocean liner interiors; never used:-

Art Deco bronze wall plaques:-

Art Deco Ocean Liner carpet:-

Art Deco Ocean Liner wall display and chairs. The chair on the right is stunning:-

The entrance display room to the Ocean Liners Exhibition, V&A, Dundee, displays advertising posters from the earliest liner eras up to the time when they were replaced by air travel.

My eye was mostly taken by classic Art Deco ones such as this for an Italian shipping line:-

Not to mention the classic SS Normandie:-

And the SS Empress of Britain:-

This brochure is from the NYK line:-

These are pages illustrating the high life of ocean liner travel:-

Finally and not Art Deco, the cover of a brochure for the QE2, whose first voyage down the Clyde to take her sea-trials we were all given a day off school to witness. Even then everyone knew there would never be such a ship built on the Clyde again:-

We visited the new V&A, Dundee, last week where the first exhibition was on Ocean Liners, with the sub-heading Speed and Style:-

Exhibition Poster, V&A entrance behind:-

This post only scratches the surface of what is a sumptuous exhibition which is mainly a feast of Art Deco style reflecting the ocean liner’s inter-wars heyday.

Brochure for French shipping line:-

United States Lines Brochure:-

It’s not exclusively Art Deco, though. This is a Louis XIV style door from a pre World War 1 French liner:-

A similar Louis XIV style panel and chair:-

Wall panel from one of the Titanic’s sister ships, SS Olympic:-

The ultimate in streamlined ship design. Perhaps it was fortunate this was never built. Everything’s enclosed, there’s no deck where you could take the air. (It also looks a bit like a submarine):-

I took this photo from the ship as we were leaving Olden. It’s a local hotel and has Art Deco/Moderne styling but may be later in construction:-

There’s a turf-roofed chalet to the right of centre on this photo of the hillside behind the pier:-

The locals gave us a flag-waving send-off:-

There was someone in one of the higher up chalets waving a Union Jack but I didn’t manage to get the picture. The ones on the pier had a musical accompaniment:-

A stunner to finish Blackpool’s Art Deco with. Yates. Everything you could want in an Art Deco building (except perhaps for primary coloured paint, original windows and a flagpole.)

Reverse view. Sadly with street furniture in the way:-

Yates and a moderne chippy across the road:-

Moderne building on left, Yates to right:-

Modern Art Deco in Blackpool.

We took a Blackpool tram all the way up to Fleetwood and back down to the southern terminus then back up to Blackpool again.

I’m afraid some of these photos are blurry due to being taken through the tram’s window.

Lots of the tram stops have deco features:-

Including Bispham:-

This is the former Store Twenty One in Fleetwood, unoccupied at the time of the photo:-

I saw Fleetwood’s football ground off in the distance but too far for a photo. The town has a more or less typical seaside town park and pavilion but looks alittle down on its luck. not too many people about. Note too the bus shelter:-

Reverse view:-

Pleasure Beach Casino. The curves on the building but especially the tower are deco features:-

A very geometric rectilinear tower inside Blackpool Pleasure Beach:-

New Oceans Hotel:-

Rounded windows and horizontal columns plus canopy in central portion:-

Solaris. Modern deco style:-

Frontage:-

Very Art Deco building in the grand style in Blackpool – though actually I think it’s technically in Bispham.

The ground floor now houses Hart’s Amusements. The rest is, I think, holiday accommodation.

From southwest. Its eyes have been poked out, though:-

Full vista. Wonderful deco style. Great horizontals and verticals. Rule of three in columnar windows and the central portion above the rounded canopy. Flagpoles! Clock!:-

Clock and Sculptures, Queen’s Mansions, Blackpool. Fine Art Deco styling. 1936 date on roof half-roundel. The sculptures are reminiscent of the A A Gill ones on the Midland Hotel, Morecambe:-