Green and gleaming: Illustration of the month
‘Have you seen how “VITROLITE” has brightened the bathrooms at the Savoy Hotel London?’ That’s the headline of a full-page advertisement in the August 1936 issue of The Architectural Review. The artwork, which I've chosen as my illustration of the month, shows a bathroom of great Art Deco elegance. The walls are clad mainly in eggshell green Vitrolite, a form of opaque pigmented glass that was especially popular between the two world wars, with strips of Wedgwood blue here and there to provide accents. The Vitrolite is fitted to different heights in different parts of the room, giving a stepped effect (partly visible in the reflection in the mirror) that’s typical of this decorative style. The chromium-plated fittings, angular basin and bath, and glass shelf complete the picture.
Everything is shiny and reflective (easy to clean and dazzling to look at), and the anonymous artist of this illustration is at pains to capture these mirror-like surfaces in the picture – a rug with a zigzag pattern is revealed reflected in the Vitrolite that surrounds the bath. The image is full of telling details: those reflections, the green soap, the glassware on the shelf. Everything works together, and everything is shiny and modern. The design was by Stanley Hall, Easton and Robertson, and perhaps this glamorous illustration was done in their office. It brings back the period and the style as perfectly as the Art Deco cinemas and factories of which I’m so fond.
It is just gorgeous--but "easy to clean"? Yikes. Having to polish all that shiny stuff, which would pick up water spots and soap and toothpaste splatters like nobody's business...I would not want to be a maid in that hotel!
ReplyDeleteJudy: Yes, I know just what you mean. But the alternative in the 1920s and 1930s was all too often walls covered in matte paint (or even wallpaper), which were certainly difficult to remove marks from.
ReplyDeleteI once rented a property where the bathroom fittings were eau de nil with black vitrolite around the bath and black vitrolite on the wall behind the sink and the mirror. It looked quite stunning even it was showing signs of its age.
ReplyDeleteThe alternative would have been tiling, many tiles in that period were oblong and laid brick fashion on the wall.
When we finished the course on Art Deco last semester, I asked the students if they could now identify an Art Deco piece of furniture, cocktail cabinet and shaker, piece of jewellery, poster, petrol station, cinema etc etc within 30 seconds. Most thought they could, except perhaps for paintings.
ReplyDeleteBut I must admit that with the eggshell green Vitrolite and chromium-plated fittings, you have made the task very easy :) 3 seconds will do the trick.
I wish they still made Vitrolite. I'd love to do our bathroom up in that style. I love it too. And that shade of pale green ...
ReplyDeleteThank you, JudyBG, about your comment on "easy to clean". I don't suppose that part was as well thought through as it might have been. Interesting that (some people's) bathrooms look like this today, but the taps and shower nozzle - the actual working parts - look antique. I wonder too about cracks and other inevitable damage, and ease of repair....
ReplyDeleteYes indeed. Though let's face it, ANYTHING is easy to clean if you are a guest at the Savoy and you have a large and subservient staff ministering to your every need, every water splash and toothpaste splatter.
ReplyDeleteHow amazingly contemporary it looks. If I walked into it now, I'd think it was a modish combination of retro porcelain with techno-sleek surfaces. Except perhaps, as Joseph B points out, for those heavy taps.
ReplyDeleteHeavy taps, by the way, that do not look as if they work in the ways that today's taps do. But neither the history of plumbing nor the vagaries of contemporary pipes are my strong point.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't looked that closely, Phil, but of course they're mixers -- hot and cold sharing one spout.
ReplyDeleteYes, Joe, they're mixers. But I was wondering what the knob on top of the central fitting on the basin controlled. Perhaps it doesn't control anything and is just a decorative finial that allows them to use a tap to provide the spout.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean, Phil. But if form is overriding function, why put the spout for the bath, randomly as it seems, in the corner rather than between the hot and cold faucets, as on the basin...? (Others apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of decorative finials and mixer taps, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.)
ReplyDeleteAh Joe. Although I am tempted to cry 'Vain wisdom all!' I have to say I am deeply impressed by the quality and breadth of cultural reference that is commanded by certain commentators on my blog. Even when surveying tiles and taps (or faucets indeed) I must somehow try to keep up the standard, lest I be accused of falling 'a pernicious heighth'.
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