0:00:01 > 0:00:03- Sex.- Speed.
0:00:03 > 0:00:07- Escapism.- Glamour.
0:00:07 > 0:00:12Our 21st century obsessions are not as new as we think.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16The decades between the two world wars saw a cultural revolution
0:00:16 > 0:00:23so exciting, so extraordinary that it still shapes who we are today.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26The British learned what modernity was,
0:00:26 > 0:00:29they learned a new aspect of their own identity.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34From technology and design,
0:00:34 > 0:00:37to fashion and sexuality,
0:00:37 > 0:00:42everything was changing at a dazzling pace.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48Speed was central to the age.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52The mass production line was increasing the pace of life...
0:00:52 > 0:00:55the speed of communications had increased,
0:00:55 > 0:00:57everything seemed to be going faster.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01Hollywood came calling...
0:01:04 > 0:01:10..selling a shimmering fantasy of glamour that refuses to fade.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14We're fascinated by the '20s and '30s
0:01:14 > 0:01:17cos it resonates with our own age.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19Celebrity glamour, celebrity culture,
0:01:19 > 0:01:23the cult of the personality.
0:01:27 > 0:01:32These were decades of turmoil, unemployment,
0:01:32 > 0:01:37political conflict and the prospect of war.
0:01:37 > 0:01:43But they were also decades of optimism and aspiration.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45What happened was a kind of design democracy.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49For the first time, ordinary people started to get a little hint in
0:01:49 > 0:01:54their lives of this new, glamorous, shiny, modern world.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59This new world not only felt different, it looked different too.
0:01:59 > 0:02:04We dared to dream and for a brief, brilliant moment,
0:02:04 > 0:02:08our dreams became reality.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17'The Queen Mary nearing New York, and those of you
0:02:17 > 0:02:19'who have ever enjoyed American hospitality
0:02:19 > 0:02:23'can imagine the welcome in store for her.'
0:02:23 > 0:02:27In August 1938, the luxury British liner, Queen Mary,
0:02:27 > 0:02:32arrived in New York, having made the fastest trans-Atlantic sea crossing
0:02:32 > 0:02:34in history.
0:02:34 > 0:02:39It was a sensational achievement and a defining moment.
0:02:39 > 0:02:42'By how much did you smash the record, Captain?
0:02:42 > 0:02:45'By one hour and 14 minutes.'
0:02:45 > 0:02:47Modern, fast, dynamic
0:02:47 > 0:02:51and with an interior adorned with Art Deco glitz,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54she was the definition of elegance
0:02:54 > 0:02:58and a focus for British national pride.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02'When records are broken, the Queen Mary will break them.'
0:03:03 > 0:03:08The Queen Mary wasn't just an icon of British design achievement,
0:03:08 > 0:03:12she carried with her the accumulated dreams and desires
0:03:12 > 0:03:15of the previous two decades.
0:03:15 > 0:03:17She provided a total experience,
0:03:17 > 0:03:23a combination of speed and luxury, the very qualities which defined
0:03:23 > 0:03:29the Luxe Experience of Glamour's Golden Age.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35It's an irony that, out of the horror of the trenches,
0:03:35 > 0:03:38a glittering new age was born.
0:03:39 > 0:03:42The survivors would rebuild a shattered landscape.
0:03:42 > 0:03:47They would transform a broken world.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50The pioneers of this new design frontier
0:03:50 > 0:03:53would be artists and architects.
0:03:53 > 0:03:58But for the British, there was a moment of hesitation and doubt.
0:03:59 > 0:04:03After the Great War, you've got a sense of release,
0:04:03 > 0:04:07I think, a sense of release and a sense of relief.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10There's a notion that we're going to build a land fit for heroes,
0:04:10 > 0:04:14but we're looking back to the past, back to old certainties.
0:04:14 > 0:04:18So, in design terms, we've got the Arts and Crafts movement,
0:04:18 > 0:04:23which still dominates 1920s' England, and the Arts and Crafts Movement,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26with its praiseworthy but pathological earnestness,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29wished that the Industrial Revolution would go away.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31It didn't want the future.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38But like it or not, the future was on its way.
0:04:38 > 0:04:44No nostalgia. No regrets. Art Deco.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47Art Deco was very much of the moment.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50The streamlined interior.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53Sharp, angular, brightly coloured.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56Primitive African Art.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59The Egyptian, Assyrian...
0:04:59 > 0:05:01Sunrise motifs...
0:05:01 > 0:05:03..abstract, jagged shapes.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06..aluminium and chrome...
0:05:06 > 0:05:10Bold geometric zigzag patterns.
0:05:10 > 0:05:15Mechanical forms, cogs, horizontal lines.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17The sensation of speed.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21Super cool, super modern, super glamorous.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29This is where Art Deco was born.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35The capital of fantasy...
0:05:35 > 0:05:38of fun.
0:05:38 > 0:05:42A place where the past was there to be forgotten.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45Paris.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49There's a greater embrace of what it is to be modern
0:05:49 > 0:05:53in a more conspicuous sense in France than there is in Britain.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56Paris had become the home of haute couture
0:05:56 > 0:06:00and there was a very strong sense of women consuming
0:06:00 > 0:06:02and consuming modernity, becoming modern,
0:06:02 > 0:06:06both in their dress but also in their homes.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08Paris sold style.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12Its trend-setting chic and upmarket products led the world.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Keen to promote new Parisian design,
0:06:18 > 0:06:22the French government staged an international showcase in 1925.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26It was a canny piece of marketing.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31You've got official government encouragement to develop Paris
0:06:31 > 0:06:35as this great global capital of luxury and glamour and style.
0:06:35 > 0:06:40They invited countries from around the globe to come and exhibit,
0:06:40 > 0:06:45but making sure that France had the prime spots, the most pavilions,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49so they could outclass everybody else in terms of style and glamour.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56The International Exposition of Modern Industrial
0:06:56 > 0:07:00and Decorative Arts was an instant sensation.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07Located in the very heart of The City of Light,
0:07:07 > 0:07:11the exhibition attracted over 15 million people
0:07:11 > 0:07:15who came to gaze at the exclusive products on display.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23There were Makassar ebonies, shark skin and ivory shagreen,
0:07:23 > 0:07:29there was white gold, wonderful Japanese lacquer work.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35The important thing about Deco in its early stages
0:07:35 > 0:07:40is that it's a very rich, very opulent, very elitist design style.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42It's only for the rich.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48The new French style was not called Art Deco at the time.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51With its wholehearted embrace of the future,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55it was known simply as the Moderne.
0:07:56 > 0:08:01The 1925 exhibition was quite explicit. It was to portray
0:08:01 > 0:08:04France as a modern nation,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08and no exhibits were allowed to be shown unless they were modern.
0:08:08 > 0:08:14It was very rich, very complex, no nostalgia whatsoever,
0:08:14 > 0:08:18but looking outside of Europe for visual sources.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23Suddenly the world was opening up in quite spectacular ways.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27'A women's world. That's what it was now.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30'Shooting big game with rifles or a movie camera.'
0:08:30 > 0:08:34One of the key elements in Art Deco, defining it, is the exotic.
0:08:34 > 0:08:39There are Egyptian elements, North African elements, there are...
0:08:39 > 0:08:44Japanese elements, Chinese elements, South American elements.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47All these things are reflections of our love of the exotic,
0:08:47 > 0:08:50which was about the realisation that it is all out there,
0:08:50 > 0:08:52we could actually see it.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59Art Deco was about the glamour of travel
0:08:59 > 0:09:02and the novelty of new technology.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05It was about escaping the hardships of the past
0:09:05 > 0:09:12and the anxieties of the present. Above all, Art Deco was about fun.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19The thing about Deco is that it sucks up anything.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21To try and define Deco,
0:09:21 > 0:09:26to try and look for a serious intellectual purpose behind Deco
0:09:26 > 0:09:30is like trying to nail a manifesto to a bubble. It just goes pop.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36The British had been in Paris in 1925,
0:09:36 > 0:09:40but hadn't exactly been the life and soul of the party.
0:09:40 > 0:09:42Their stand had promoted stolid brands
0:09:42 > 0:09:46such as Wedgwood and Doulton.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48The racy new French products
0:09:48 > 0:09:51left them feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56The British take on Art Deco is what you would have expected -
0:09:56 > 0:10:00a load of decadent French stuff, souffle stuff.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04It's rather like that idea that the British in the 18th century
0:10:04 > 0:10:08would have a go at French cooking and say that the French used
0:10:08 > 0:10:11these fancy sauces to disguise bad meat.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14The British found what the French were doing
0:10:14 > 0:10:16was like a sauce on roast beef.
0:10:19 > 0:10:24Of course, the British had their own peculiar fondness for sauce.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28It was in the permissive atmosphere of London's West End theatres
0:10:28 > 0:10:31that sexy, salacious French Deco
0:10:31 > 0:10:35first arrived to spice up our humdrum lives.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39Art Deco is the quintessential good night out.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51The Arts and Crafts Movement wants a moral context for its design.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55It's been taught that good design is tied in with good behaviour
0:10:55 > 0:11:00and along comes Deco which says, "No, it's not. Let's have some fun."
0:11:05 > 0:11:08Art Deco is a supremely theatrical style.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11You walk into the lobby of the Savoy Theatre
0:11:11 > 0:11:14and suddenly you're living the dream.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17It just takes your breath away.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20It gives the lie to the statement
0:11:20 > 0:11:24that so many design historians insist on making that
0:11:24 > 0:11:27there is no such thing as British Deco.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32You just need to look around you and you see it and you love it.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39From the beginning, Art Deco had reflected
0:11:39 > 0:11:42traditionally female tastes and fashions.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46'The woman today demands practical things that are attractive as well.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50'These facts influence the modern designer and produce furniture
0:11:50 > 0:11:54'that is distinctive to our age.'
0:11:54 > 0:11:59In Britain, it was women designers who led the field.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05I think probably the most interesting English decorator,
0:12:05 > 0:12:07as they were called then, was Syrie Maugham.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11She was married to the famous writer Somerset Maugham,
0:12:11 > 0:12:13but they divorced and for that reason, in fact,
0:12:13 > 0:12:18she had to earn her own living and she moved into interior decoration.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Very typically, she started by designing her own interior,
0:12:22 > 0:12:26a lovely room that was very much written about in Chelsea
0:12:26 > 0:12:29in her own house and called The White Room.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31In fact, it was various shades of cream,
0:12:31 > 0:12:35but it was striking in its use of this sort of monotone.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40Syrie Maugham's soft, chic and subtle take on Art Deco
0:12:40 > 0:12:44was a huge hit with her upper class clients.
0:12:44 > 0:12:45But it was another woman designer
0:12:45 > 0:12:47who would take Art Deco to the masses.
0:12:47 > 0:12:53Deco at its most colourful, vibrant and exuberant.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57In terms of British Art Deco, Clarice Cliff is it.
0:12:57 > 0:13:01She was the revolutionary. It's quite a romantic story.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04She ran off for a romantic weekend to Paris
0:13:04 > 0:13:08with the sales director of the factory where she worked.
0:13:08 > 0:13:10She sees things at the Paris Exhibition,
0:13:10 > 0:13:14which clearly impress her enormously and she comes back,
0:13:14 > 0:13:18and she was given a pile of waste china to play with
0:13:18 > 0:13:22and she began to do patterns like this which are vibrant, dynamic
0:13:22 > 0:13:26and what they show is the impact of that French trip.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30Popular modernism, cheap, accessible, colourful,
0:13:30 > 0:13:32decorative, exciting shapes -
0:13:32 > 0:13:36nobody else in Britain was doing it at that point.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40By the late '20s, this stuff was selling in tons.
0:13:44 > 0:13:49British designers like Clarice Cliff introduced French Art Deco
0:13:49 > 0:13:54to a mass market in the late 1920s. But it would take the Americans
0:13:54 > 0:13:57to truly democratise the high society style.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00- It certainly is beautiful, isn't it? - Yes.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03Hollywood is Art Deco, Art Deco is Hollywood.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08It's the place where people would have seen Art Deco.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11They wouldn't have seen it in the homes of the rich and the elite,
0:14:11 > 0:14:15they would have seen it on the Hollywood screen.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19I think Art Deco was very attractive to Hollywood
0:14:19 > 0:14:22because it represents novelty and people went to the cinema
0:14:22 > 0:14:26for something that would surprise them, interest them, entertain them.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30In the 1920s, the global media machine of
0:14:30 > 0:14:33Hollywood was just gearing up.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36Crucial to the way it projected itself was the gleaming,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40up-to-the-minute style of Art Deco.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44Art Deco was absolutely vital to the success of Hollywood.
0:14:44 > 0:14:49A huge party of Americans came to visit the Paris exhibition.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54For example, Cedric Gibbons, who's the art director at MGM,
0:14:54 > 0:14:57he uses Art Deco to symbolise a sort of glamorous,
0:14:57 > 0:15:03young, cutting-edge, slightly naughty and sexy character.
0:15:10 > 0:15:15In Our Dancing Daughters, you see this constantly moving flapper.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19You see her in the mirrors changing at the start of the movie
0:15:19 > 0:15:21where her feet are constantly moving.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28She's very vibrant, very energetic.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31Even to change her clothes, she can't stop dancing.
0:15:37 > 0:15:42It's all mirrored surfaces, the floors are black and reflective...
0:15:42 > 0:15:45very geometric designs -
0:15:45 > 0:15:49the shawl that she puts on is a black and white geometric design.
0:15:53 > 0:15:55She's living the Art Deco lifestyle.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03In Our Dancing Daughters, art director Cedric Gibbons
0:16:03 > 0:16:07deliberately contrasts the raffish Art Deco interiors
0:16:07 > 0:16:10of its liberated flapper heroine
0:16:10 > 0:16:15with the repressive Victorian atmosphere of her friend's home.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18This gleeful stylistic assault on an uptight old world
0:16:18 > 0:16:24would be played out in Hollywood film after Hollywood film.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32Art Deco is very naughty and very transgressive,
0:16:32 > 0:16:34and that's probably why I like it.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40It's a challenge to British established taste, I think,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43as was the whole of Hollywood.
0:16:45 > 0:16:49If we look at the film Top Hat, right at the beginning,
0:16:49 > 0:16:54we get Fred Astaire entering a sort traditional English gentlemen's club
0:16:54 > 0:16:56and starting to tap dance.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07So we get that kind of transgression of the English upper classes
0:17:07 > 0:17:08happening at that moment.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16Hollywood Art Deco was revved up.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20It was rapid fire.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25It roared with the energy of its time.
0:17:28 > 0:17:29This is the machine age.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33The machine is central to the aesthetics of the period.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37Busby Berkeley movies are very good examples of
0:17:37 > 0:17:40where the machine becomes a kind of art.
0:17:42 > 0:17:47In Gold Diggers Of 1933 for example, the routine Petting in the Park,
0:17:47 > 0:17:49you see all the women running
0:17:49 > 0:17:55when it starts to rain into a set of booths where they then change.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02And when they come out they are dressed in robot-like costumes.
0:18:07 > 0:18:11And this is like the women themselves have become machines.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28Deco didn't just dominate the movies.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32It also defined the new cinemas that showed them.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36Art Deco was absolutely vital for the design of cinemas in Britain.
0:18:36 > 0:18:41Cinema going had been a fairly dodgy thing to do.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43You went to sort of flea pits.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46It wasn't something that respectable people did,
0:18:46 > 0:18:50so that cinema owners were absolutely hell-bent on
0:18:50 > 0:18:52creating gorgeous buildings
0:18:52 > 0:18:56where you could have tea with your friends and then watch a film.
0:18:56 > 0:19:00This is the New Victoria Cinema built in 1929.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03Really for the first time lighting was considered as
0:19:03 > 0:19:08part of the architecture externally and also the interior design,
0:19:08 > 0:19:12so we get muted lighting, different coloured lighting and so on.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19It's inspired by the idea that we had from America of
0:19:19 > 0:19:22the atmospheric cinema where you would feel you were
0:19:22 > 0:19:24walking into an Arabian Night's cave
0:19:24 > 0:19:28or you were walking into some underwater grotto.
0:19:38 > 0:19:39The cinema interior is quite wacky,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42but that's great, isn't it? Because that attracts people,
0:19:42 > 0:19:46it gets the masses in to enjoy the films,
0:19:46 > 0:19:47but it also adds to the experience,
0:19:47 > 0:19:49it adds to that element of escapism.
0:20:00 > 0:20:02Deco is about escapism
0:20:02 > 0:20:07in the same way that the Hollywood musical is about escapism.
0:20:07 > 0:20:13You know, the Busby Berkeley musical is Art Deco made flesh, if you like,
0:20:13 > 0:20:17and that notion of escape becomes more
0:20:17 > 0:20:23and more important when your present is so uncongenial and so scary.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25Escape was a craving.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28'The Jarrow Petition - a petition to the government
0:20:28 > 0:20:31'for work for the thousands of unemployed in what is probably
0:20:31 > 0:20:32'the hardest hit town in Britain,
0:20:32 > 0:20:36'is being carried to London by the 200 members of the Jarrow Crusade.'
0:20:36 > 0:20:42The Jarrow March of 1936 has become a symbol of the times.
0:20:42 > 0:20:46Britain was scarred by the Great Depression.
0:20:46 > 0:20:51Poverty was a real and grinding experience for many.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55But there was a paradox at the heart of the age.
0:20:55 > 0:21:01For those in work, the 1930s saw a sustained rise in real wages.
0:21:01 > 0:21:03Beyond the black spots of the industrial north
0:21:03 > 0:21:06there was a gradual rise in prosperity.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12I think the real revolution of the Art Deco period was a social
0:21:12 > 0:21:14revolution, it was about social mobility,
0:21:14 > 0:21:18it was about having what we now call disposable income.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22We could spend on luxuries in a way that we'd never done before.
0:21:22 > 0:21:27Accessibility of consumer materials was suddenly there.
0:21:34 > 0:21:37Art Deco was the ultimate consumer style.
0:21:37 > 0:21:44It screamed luxury, but it whispered affordability.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47Easy to mass produce
0:21:47 > 0:21:53glamorous Deco was both inexpensive and highly desirable.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01I think the story of the kind of democratisation of Art Deco through
0:22:01 > 0:22:05the '20s and '30s is fascinating. There's obviously a kind of time lag.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08The elite style is manifested first,
0:22:08 > 0:22:13but the attraction of that style seen through exhibitions,
0:22:13 > 0:22:17magazines, Hollywood films is very quickly picked up
0:22:17 > 0:22:19by a much wider social group.
0:22:19 > 0:22:24You could go to Woolworths and you could buy an Art Deco pot or vase.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27The industries, the decorative arts industries,
0:22:27 > 0:22:32were very quick to realise the attraction of the style.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35The British have a wonderful talent for taking any serious design
0:22:35 > 0:22:39movement and making it sort of you know very basic and high street.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42You can see that in the suburbs around the great cities.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45The British were able to take something that
0:22:45 > 0:22:51had been refined and delicate and almost ethereal in Paris in 1925,
0:22:51 > 0:22:55and by 1935 they've transformed it into something for everybody.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02Alongside the consumer boom came a housing boom.
0:23:06 > 0:23:12Architecturally the new suburbs were mostly conservative and nostalgic.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21But behind the unassuming exteriors,
0:23:21 > 0:23:26a more daring, democratic world of Deco was flourishing.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34The house was built in 1937 as part of Metroland that sprang up from
0:23:34 > 0:23:36the Metropolitan Line.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39We previously lived in another 1930s house,
0:23:39 > 0:23:42but it had been modernised quite a bit and we decided that
0:23:42 > 0:23:45we wanted to find something that had a lot of original features.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49We love Art Deco because of the interesting shapes, the colours,
0:23:49 > 0:23:53it's just a fascinating period.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57We had all the pieces really in our old house, so it was
0:23:57 > 0:24:01just putting it into the setting and decorating each room individually.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03Clive is very good, a very handy man,
0:24:03 > 0:24:04so he did all the decorating.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08I obviously helped with the interior design and the colour scheme.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12I think a lot of people tend to forget that the 1930s and Art Deco
0:24:12 > 0:24:16was actually quite colourful. People see the black-and-white films
0:24:16 > 0:24:19and don't imagine that there's much colour there, but there is.
0:24:23 > 0:24:28At heart of every British home was the radio.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31The 1930s saw an explosion in the new medium,
0:24:31 > 0:24:37turning the wireless into an indispensable consumer object.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40Radio is a total revolution.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43It's a revolution as big as the internet in its own way,
0:24:43 > 0:24:46and radio has become, in a sense, the symbol of Art Deco because
0:24:46 > 0:24:49they start as a box of scientific tricks
0:24:49 > 0:24:52and they then become a very stylish piece of furniture.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56You can sit there listening to live broadcasts of dance bands,
0:24:56 > 0:24:59you can sit there listening to politicians speak,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02you can sit there listening to the King talking at Christmas.
0:25:02 > 0:25:04All these things come into your home.
0:25:07 > 0:25:13But wonderful wireless delivered less welcome news too.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16'Events of major importance happened in Europe today.
0:25:16 > 0:25:20'This morning German troops made a formal entry
0:25:20 > 0:25:24'into the demilitarised zone on the left bank of the Rhine.'
0:25:26 > 0:25:28Hitler's Germany
0:25:28 > 0:25:32not only had aggressive political and military aims,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36Nazi ideology also set its sights on art and architecture.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43Hitler right from the top does not like anything modern.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46Bam! So anybody working in the arts,
0:25:46 > 0:25:49now let's forget being Jewish for a moment,
0:25:49 > 0:25:52but anyone working in the arts of any sort
0:25:52 > 0:25:54that wanted to be modern was out.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Germany had been the birthplace of the Modern Movement
0:26:02 > 0:26:05in architecture and design.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11Under Walter Gropius, the radical Bauhaus Art School
0:26:11 > 0:26:16preached a new design philosophy that wanted to rebuild the world.
0:26:16 > 0:26:23Modernism is serious and Art Deco is not.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28Art Deco is a supremely commercial style.
0:26:28 > 0:26:30It will take everything it can
0:26:30 > 0:26:34and it will sell it back to you at the highest price it can.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40The Modern Movement is very definitely ideologically underpinned.
0:26:40 > 0:26:42The Modern Movement is essentially a Socialist movement
0:26:42 > 0:26:48and it has a manifesto, it has a moral imperative to it.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52It's about the triumph of form, it's about stripping away
0:26:52 > 0:26:57useless decoration and ornament, it's about utilitarianism and minimalism.
0:26:58 > 0:27:05To Hitler, Modernism's left-leaning ideals made it suspect.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09The fact that many of its leading lights were Jewish
0:27:09 > 0:27:12made it anathema.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15Life for Jewish architects such as Erich Mendelsohn
0:27:15 > 0:27:18was about to get very hard indeed.
0:27:20 > 0:27:23Mendelsohn was one of the most respected modern architects
0:27:23 > 0:27:27in Germany in the Weimar years just before Hitler came to power.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30He had built some wonderful modern department stores
0:27:30 > 0:27:33called the Schocken Department Store, a great name actually, cos
0:27:33 > 0:27:37they're really about the shock of the new, they're thrilling.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40He'd also been a heroic and very daring engineering
0:27:40 > 0:27:43artillery officer during the First World War, highly decorated.
0:27:43 > 0:27:45So, here's that great conundrum in Germany,
0:27:45 > 0:27:49a great heroic Jewish officer and a great professional talent
0:27:49 > 0:27:53who's about to be told he's wrong on every count.
0:27:53 > 0:27:55He's Jewish and he's a Modern.
0:28:01 > 0:28:05Erich Mendelsohn joined a flood of hugely talented and influential
0:28:05 > 0:28:08emigres coming to find safety in Britain.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13They were the Apostles of a new faith -
0:28:13 > 0:28:20a faith in a Modernist future that would soon find concrete form.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26The most iconic Modernist building in Britain, I guess, is Mendelsohn's
0:28:26 > 0:28:28De La Warr Pavilion.
0:28:32 > 0:28:37Everybody knows it, everybody's seen it in a thousand episodes of Poirot.
0:28:37 > 0:28:42Everybody's seen it in any '30s documentary that has been.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45Yes, it's familiar, but it's so damned beautiful.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51But it caused a tremendous storm.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55When the competition was won by Mendelsohn, the Fascist Week
0:28:55 > 0:28:58said that this was a "contemptible and despicable betrayal of
0:28:58 > 0:29:00"our own countrymen."
0:29:00 > 0:29:04It aroused quite a lot of rather unpleasant emotions.
0:29:04 > 0:29:08The De La Warr Pavilion shines like a Modernist jewel
0:29:08 > 0:29:10on the sunny Sussex coast.
0:29:10 > 0:29:15But it has its roots in a starker, more utilitarian world.
0:29:18 > 0:29:22Mendelsohn began his career designing factories.
0:29:22 > 0:29:25Even then, they were typically Modernist -
0:29:25 > 0:29:27pure, simple.
0:29:27 > 0:29:34Like the De La Warr Pavilion, there was absolutely no surface design.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38In Britain, they were building new factories too,
0:29:38 > 0:29:40but the approach was different,
0:29:40 > 0:29:42dramatically different.
0:29:49 > 0:29:54This was the Hoover Factory. Where Mendelsohn's buildings
0:29:54 > 0:30:00strip away all ornamentation, this positively revels in it.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07It's Tutankhamun for the Machine Age.
0:30:09 > 0:30:13Built on the outskirts of West London in 1932,
0:30:13 > 0:30:15the Hoover Building's jazzy high spirits
0:30:15 > 0:30:20attracted the disapproval of Modernism's young disciples.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23But the building's architect, Thomas Wallis,
0:30:23 > 0:30:27wasn't the type to turn the other cheek.
0:30:27 > 0:30:32Thomas Wallis was very forceful, very dynamic. He didn't necessarily seek
0:30:32 > 0:30:35the limelight, most of the time he chased glamorous ladies,
0:30:35 > 0:30:38this is what he did as a hobby. He was pretty fierce
0:30:38 > 0:30:41and it's very interesting, when he did the Hoover Building
0:30:41 > 0:30:43The Architectural Review magazine had a pop at it
0:30:43 > 0:30:47and they wrote a very cheeky little poem. Thomas Wallis was not amused.
0:30:47 > 0:30:49The Architectural Review decided to have a go at Art Deco
0:30:49 > 0:30:53because it wasn't proper Modernism, and Wallis came round to
0:30:53 > 0:30:56Number Nine Queens Anne Gate, The Architectural Review offices,
0:30:56 > 0:31:00brandishing, it's absolutely true, brandishing a horsewhip,
0:31:00 > 0:31:04hammering on the door saying, "Let me at those whippersnappers!"
0:31:04 > 0:31:09The Hoover Factory has become an icon of Deco in British culture.
0:31:09 > 0:31:11It's an advertisement, it's a brand.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21'Here you see a beating-type of electric sweeper being made.
0:31:21 > 0:31:28'There are 879 parts and 3,631 operations in its manufacture.'
0:31:28 > 0:31:35It's also an advertisement for new technology, which is a fundamental
0:31:35 > 0:31:38part of design theory and Deco design theory in the 1930s.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42A belief not only in the future, a belief in new technology.
0:31:42 > 0:31:45'At last milady can make light of her housework,
0:31:45 > 0:31:48'hardly realising how much care energy and patience
0:31:48 > 0:31:50'have been spent on her behalf.'
0:31:52 > 0:31:55There's an interesting contrast in the period, I think, between
0:31:55 > 0:31:59our acceptance or otherwise of modern art and design,
0:31:59 > 0:32:01and our embrace of technology.
0:32:01 > 0:32:06The British attitude towards progressive or avant-garde art
0:32:06 > 0:32:07has always been ambivalent.
0:32:07 > 0:32:13We're suspicious of it, we think it's a little bit racy, superficial maybe.
0:32:13 > 0:32:18I rather like this. It's very pleasing both in rhythm and colour.
0:32:18 > 0:32:20I'm very glad you like it.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23Of course, you know you've got it upside down?
0:32:23 > 0:32:26But when it comes to technology, we're very happy to embrace that.
0:32:26 > 0:32:29We see that as our positive contribution, if you like,
0:32:29 > 0:32:34to the world, and the engineer is a hero for us.
0:32:34 > 0:32:39The British may have harboured some scepticism about the new styles,
0:32:39 > 0:32:40but they adored speed.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46Fast, functional, fabulous -
0:32:46 > 0:32:50British machines would conquer the world.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58In July 1938, one of Sir Nigel Gresley's A4 Pacifics,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01Mallard, this wedge-shaped, streamlined locomotive,
0:33:01 > 0:33:06garter blue livery with red wheels, came streaking down the hill between
0:33:06 > 0:33:09Grantham and Peterborough and reached the speed,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12momentarily for one second possibly, of 126 miles per hour.
0:33:14 > 0:33:17It was casual, it was amateur, it nearly failed,
0:33:17 > 0:33:21but the most important thing was we had beaten the world
0:33:21 > 0:33:26despite being broken, despite having no money, despite being on our knees,
0:33:26 > 0:33:28we'd beaten the world at a great record
0:33:28 > 0:33:30and, of course, we still hold it.
0:33:32 > 0:33:37The British also dominated automobile technology.
0:33:37 > 0:33:4225 land speed records were set during the interwar years,
0:33:42 > 0:33:47of which 21 were by British drivers in British cars.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54The high Utah desert was the ultimate arena
0:33:54 > 0:33:57for these gladiators of speed.
0:34:01 > 0:34:06In 1935, the world gasped as Sir Malcolm Campbell
0:34:06 > 0:34:10took his futuristic Blue Bird to new limits.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13'Speed - 300 miles an hour, five miles a minute,
0:34:13 > 0:34:16'one mile and 12 seconds, an achievement which balks
0:34:16 > 0:34:18'the imagination and beggars description.'
0:34:18 > 0:34:22'It's great what you've set out to do. Well done, George.'
0:34:22 > 0:34:26Having set the sensational new record, Campbell passed
0:34:26 > 0:34:31the baton onto two other British drivers George Eyston and John Cobb.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34'It's the strangest battle in history,
0:34:34 > 0:34:37'two Englishmen in faraway America fighting side by side
0:34:37 > 0:34:39'to earn the title of fastest man on earth.'
0:34:39 > 0:34:44On the eve of the Second World War, Cobb set a new record of more than
0:34:44 > 0:34:50367 miles per hour in his space-age Railton Special.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04But there was another technology, which would offer the possibility of
0:35:04 > 0:35:10record-breaking speed to a growing band of international adventurers.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12The luxury liner embodied this age,
0:35:12 > 0:35:17it really symbolised it because it had that power, that technology,
0:35:17 > 0:35:20that kind of gigantic proportion about it,
0:35:20 > 0:35:24but it was also within that highly decorated,
0:35:24 > 0:35:27luxurious and fashionable.
0:35:31 > 0:35:35The luxury liner was where engineering and aesthetics finally
0:35:35 > 0:35:37came together for the British.
0:35:37 > 0:35:41Before the First World War, the interiors of transatlantic liners
0:35:41 > 0:35:45had all the heaviness and fussy detail of Victorian hotels.
0:35:45 > 0:35:49But a revolution was about to begin.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52I think what changes in the '20s and '30s is that
0:35:52 > 0:35:55people realise that a ship is not a hotel.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58It requires its own dynamic, its own design principles.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02And from the mid-20s ships begin to look like ships and
0:36:02 > 0:36:06they have a real expression of modernity as defined by
0:36:06 > 0:36:08the Art Deco styles of that period.
0:36:12 > 0:36:17These stylish interiors were the product of a cut-throat competition
0:36:17 > 0:36:18for new passengers.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22Art Deco wasn't a stylistic afterthought,
0:36:22 > 0:36:25it was ammunition in a commercial war.
0:36:27 > 0:36:29There were two ships in particular,
0:36:29 > 0:36:33which were locked in a duel for stylistic supremacy.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38There was a fantastic rivalry between the Cunard's Queen Mary
0:36:38 > 0:36:42and the French Line's Normandie.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46Cunard was always a fairly sort of respectable firm and they really
0:36:46 > 0:36:49hankered for something fairly traditionally British.
0:36:49 > 0:36:53With the Queen Mary they tried to combine a bit of Art Deco glamour
0:36:53 > 0:36:56with something more traditional.
0:36:56 > 0:36:59It was a bit like walking through a fairly modern country house,
0:36:59 > 0:37:04we get over-stuffed armchairs, we get paintings of country scenes,
0:37:04 > 0:37:05and it was all very polite.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08Whereas, with the Normandie,
0:37:08 > 0:37:12I mean, it was like walking through a film set.
0:37:13 > 0:37:18We get the huge dining room with the Lalique glass chandeliers,
0:37:18 > 0:37:20which were fabulous.
0:37:20 > 0:37:26We get the salons and they all had the most exquisite, highly crafted
0:37:26 > 0:37:31lacquer work and the best of French artists and artisans and craftsmen
0:37:31 > 0:37:34working on these interiors.
0:37:41 > 0:37:43But style wasn't everything.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46The decisive factor was speed.
0:37:46 > 0:37:53Sleek, chic and superfast, the Normandie had no rival...
0:37:55 > 0:38:02..or at least until 1936, when the Queen Mary appeared on the horizon.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04'The coming of the Queen Mary inaugurates one of
0:38:04 > 0:38:07'the greatest races of all time.
0:38:07 > 0:38:10'Which ship will turn out to be the faster, the Normandie or the Queen?
0:38:10 > 0:38:12'That is the question of the hour.'
0:38:12 > 0:38:13In a matter of months
0:38:13 > 0:38:17the Queen Mary had decisively answered that question.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20She smashed the Normandie's transatlantic record,
0:38:20 > 0:38:23winning for Britain the honour known as the Blue Riband.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27The contest between the two ships, and the two countries,
0:38:27 > 0:38:28was now on in earnest.
0:38:28 > 0:38:31'The Normandie has gone into dry dock at Le Havre
0:38:31 > 0:38:34'to have new propellers fitted, which it is thought may enable her
0:38:34 > 0:38:36'to approach the Queen Mary in speed.'
0:38:36 > 0:38:43In 1937, the refitted Normandie snatched the Blue Riband back again.
0:38:43 > 0:38:45But it was a short-lived victory.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48'The great French liner Normandie has had her New York triumphs
0:38:48 > 0:38:51'and her record-breaking voyages, but this time it's the turn of her
0:38:51 > 0:38:55'British rival the Queen Mary, undisputed Queen of the Atlantic.'
0:38:55 > 0:39:01The Queen Mary was a potent projection of national identity
0:39:01 > 0:39:04in an era of intense global rivalry.
0:39:06 > 0:39:09It was a competition that was played out in the air
0:39:09 > 0:39:11as well as on the sea.
0:39:13 > 0:39:18The Schneider Trophy was the Formula One of its times.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22A worldwide event that combined cutting-edge technology
0:39:22 > 0:39:26with intense international rivalry.
0:39:26 > 0:39:31Seaplanes from America, Italy, Germany, France and Britain
0:39:31 > 0:39:35raced in front of crowds of up to a quarter of a million people.
0:39:35 > 0:39:40These thoroughbreds of the skies broke record after record,
0:39:40 > 0:39:45but one machine emerged triumphant over all the rest.
0:39:47 > 0:39:53The Supermarine S.6B is the most, glamorous, dynamic, beautiful,
0:39:53 > 0:39:57thrilling machine and object that emerged from British workshops,
0:39:57 > 0:39:59British industry in the 1930s.
0:39:59 > 0:40:03It's a very, very beautiful object indeed.
0:40:03 > 0:40:05It sits on floats because it flies from water,
0:40:05 > 0:40:08it has the thinnest possible wing you can imagine,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11and it's gloriously streamlined.
0:40:11 > 0:40:14In fact, it's so streamlined, and the detailings of the streamlining
0:40:14 > 0:40:17are such that if you look at it in a certain way,
0:40:17 > 0:40:20it looks like some sort of piece of Art Deco jewellery.
0:40:22 > 0:40:25If you had said this Reginald Mitchell, its designer,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28he'd have just kicked you out of his office, I mean,
0:40:28 > 0:40:32literally kicked you, booted you up the bum and out of his office door,
0:40:32 > 0:40:36because Mitchell was a no-nonsense man from the Black Country
0:40:36 > 0:40:40and he didn't like fancy talk about art and had no interest.
0:40:40 > 0:40:42He said he had no interest in styling.
0:40:42 > 0:40:47His only interest was in efficiency, in aerodynamics
0:40:47 > 0:40:49and he certainly got it right.
0:40:49 > 0:40:54The Supermarine S.6B not only won the Schneider trophy for Britain,
0:40:54 > 0:41:00but it took the world speed record - 407.5, love it,
0:41:00 > 0:41:02407.5 miles an hour.
0:41:02 > 0:41:05The fastest machine in the world!
0:41:08 > 0:41:13The Supermarine S.6B represented the cutting edge of aerodynamic
0:41:13 > 0:41:19technology and was the direct predecessor of the Spitfire fighter.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25But it was American designers who would fully exploit
0:41:25 > 0:41:28the consumer potential of streamlining.
0:41:28 > 0:41:33Streamlining is quintessentially American. What happened was
0:41:33 > 0:41:36interior designers and architects started to look to
0:41:36 > 0:41:38science and technology
0:41:38 > 0:41:41and take their lead from the study of aerodynamics,
0:41:41 > 0:41:43and they looked at this and they thought,
0:41:43 > 0:41:47"Art Deco is far too luxurious, it has too much ornament,"
0:41:47 > 0:41:49they called it "an infection of ornament."
0:41:52 > 0:41:56There is a sense here that what is American is this machine know-how,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59this practical use of things,
0:41:59 > 0:42:02this is very much about paring down from these luxury ornaments,
0:42:02 > 0:42:07to making a kind of democratic art, something that was fit for purpose,
0:42:07 > 0:42:11something that could speed people into the future.
0:42:11 > 0:42:17There's a car produced in round about '33, it's Chrysler's Airflow car,
0:42:17 > 0:42:20and it personified, or it symbolised, that streamlined idea.
0:42:20 > 0:42:26Not only was it sort of curved from bonnet right through to boot,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29the idea of a continuous shape that the air would move over,
0:42:29 > 0:42:34it also had wonderful chrome strips on it and I think the origin of that
0:42:34 > 0:42:37was probably the cartoon figures that have little lines
0:42:37 > 0:42:41behind them suggesting that they're whooshing across the page,
0:42:41 > 0:42:44the chrome strips again symbolic of the idea of speed.
0:42:52 > 0:42:56The aesthetics of streamlining were hugely important.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59It was the look that counted,
0:42:59 > 0:43:02a look that had soon spread from transportation
0:43:02 > 0:43:05to a dazzling range of consumer products.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11Streamlining is a style that makes things look functional,
0:43:11 > 0:43:15but when you see the streamline style added to say a vacuum cleaner
0:43:15 > 0:43:19or a toaster it doesn't actually make it more functional.
0:43:22 > 0:43:26But it actually gives it that appearance of speed and dynamism.
0:43:26 > 0:43:27Even buildings,
0:43:27 > 0:43:32the ultimate static objects, were built to look fast.
0:43:32 > 0:43:35Streamlined architecture was particularly popular
0:43:35 > 0:43:39in new seaside developments such as Miami's South Beach.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42Buildings are designed to look like ocean liners
0:43:42 > 0:43:46with decks and portholes.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49They even have the horizontal speed strips
0:43:49 > 0:43:52originally seen in the chrome trim on cars.
0:43:52 > 0:43:56Streamlining expressed the unstoppable momentum
0:43:56 > 0:43:58of America itself.
0:44:08 > 0:44:11This is not Miami.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16It's Morecambe.
0:44:16 > 0:44:20But the parallels are unmistakable.
0:44:20 > 0:44:24Built in 1933, the Midland Hotel
0:44:24 > 0:44:29brought American-style streamlined glamour to the Lancashire seaside.
0:44:31 > 0:44:32It was a great boom time for resorts.
0:44:32 > 0:44:35You get the building of fantastic seaside hotels,
0:44:35 > 0:44:38like the Midland Hotel in Morecambe.
0:44:38 > 0:44:44If you're attracting clients, do you want to look like a Victorian palace?
0:44:44 > 0:44:47Not particularly. You want to give a sense of modernity.
0:44:47 > 0:44:51Buildings need to look Moderne.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57The new Art Deco-styled resorts
0:44:57 > 0:45:00were the product of a transport revolution.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07Britain was on the move. For example, in 1919
0:45:07 > 0:45:11there were a quarter of a million, 250,000 cars.
0:45:11 > 0:45:16By 1929, ten years later, there were 1.5 million cars.
0:45:16 > 0:45:21People were on the move and as they were liberated, as they were able
0:45:21 > 0:45:24to move out, they moved to the seaside, they moved to the country.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28That sense of being able to escape,
0:45:28 > 0:45:33that sense of being able to get away from it, was the future.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35Perhaps even more than the automobile,
0:45:35 > 0:45:40the railway came to define the Deco-styled great escape.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44Posters are the great evocative element of this period.
0:45:44 > 0:45:47You were encouraged to travel by, you know, the Art Deco style.
0:45:47 > 0:45:50Posters showing "Look how great these places are.
0:45:50 > 0:45:52"This is the great train you can go on.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55"Come with us. We'll take you to the English Riviera.
0:45:55 > 0:45:58"We'll take you to North Wales. We'll take you to the Lake District.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01"We'll take you to the Highlands of Scotland."
0:46:01 > 0:46:07It was all about what we can do and the fantasy of what we'd like to do.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10Fantasy was rapidly becoming a reality.
0:46:10 > 0:46:14Mandatory holiday pay was introduced in 1936,
0:46:14 > 0:46:18the same year as working hours were reduced.
0:46:18 > 0:46:23Suddenly holidays were within the reach of ordinary families.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26The British were ready to play.
0:46:26 > 0:46:30You have mass recreation for the first time, you have paid holidays,
0:46:30 > 0:46:33and suddenly people can get down to the seaside,
0:46:33 > 0:46:38they can go for their week and they can have fun.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42And above all, beyond all, Deco architecture is fun.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52Fun is what places like Saltdean Lido near Brighton
0:46:52 > 0:46:55were in the business of providing.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59Built in 1938, it's a pure projection of
0:46:59 > 0:47:01American streamlined glamour.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07Saltdean Lido is a great example of that sunshine architecture.
0:47:09 > 0:47:15The sort of clean lines, the white walls, the streamlined curves
0:47:15 > 0:47:17of what was the coming resort.
0:47:17 > 0:47:22It is sunshine architecture and lidos all over the country, in fact,
0:47:22 > 0:47:27were popping up that were very heavily influenced by Deco ideas and
0:47:27 > 0:47:30that I think is because along with the sunshine architecture
0:47:30 > 0:47:33went a love for sunshine, for health and fitness.
0:47:33 > 0:47:36'The greatest place of all for the sun-worshippers of today
0:47:36 > 0:47:40'is by the sea and don't the ladies know it!
0:47:40 > 0:47:42'Just look at these charming costumes.
0:47:42 > 0:47:47'Our cameraman missed the last train back, but what an excuse he had.
0:47:50 > 0:47:54'Between ourselves, these are the super, super models of today,
0:47:54 > 0:47:57'the era of the cult of the sun.'
0:48:05 > 0:48:09Swimming and sunbathing were all the rage.
0:48:09 > 0:48:16In 1926, the young American Gertrude Ederle swam across the Channel,
0:48:16 > 0:48:21smashing the then male-held record by two hours.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26Female achievement was also celebrated by
0:48:26 > 0:48:28the Women's League of Health and Beauty.
0:48:30 > 0:48:36With 170,000 members it popularised physical fitness.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42This obsession with the body beautiful and the fashion
0:48:42 > 0:48:49for revealing costumes was more than just a superficial fad.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53Machine-Age streamlining, the interconnected ideas of
0:48:53 > 0:49:00efficiency and mass production, was seen as a model for human beings.
0:49:00 > 0:49:04Streamlining was definitely the pursuit of an idea of perfect form
0:49:04 > 0:49:06that was appropriate to the age,
0:49:06 > 0:49:11an age in which speed, dynamism and modernity were uppermost.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14I think that idea does extend to the human body as well,
0:49:14 > 0:49:17particularly for women at this time.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20I think the New Woman with the bob
0:49:20 > 0:49:24and the clinging dress was a streamlined form.
0:49:26 > 0:49:30In the age of glamour even pets became streamlined.
0:49:36 > 0:49:41The idea of machine-like human perfection
0:49:41 > 0:49:44became a kind of fetish in the 1930s.
0:49:44 > 0:49:50This was an era of mass displays in which hundreds, sometimes thousands
0:49:50 > 0:49:55of bodies, acted like uniform parts in a streamlined production process.
0:50:06 > 0:50:10People were fascinated with the idea of the body,
0:50:10 > 0:50:15strength, power and movement, and I think Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia
0:50:15 > 0:50:20is a really good example of this fascination.
0:50:20 > 0:50:24Entirely unconnected to the narrative of the documentary about
0:50:24 > 0:50:26the Olympics, the 1936 Olympics,
0:50:26 > 0:50:30the film begins with scenes of women performing calisthenics,
0:50:30 > 0:50:32naked women performing calisthenics,
0:50:32 > 0:50:37and it's not really that far from the kind of aesthetics that
0:50:37 > 0:50:41Busby Berkeley had been achieving in Gold Diggers Of 1933, for example.
0:50:51 > 0:50:56The interwar years were dominated by an idea that human beings
0:50:56 > 0:51:02could be made as perfect as the machines that surrounded them.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06This was the dark side of the Age of Glamour.
0:51:07 > 0:51:11Eugenics seeks to apply the known laws of heredity, so as to prevent
0:51:11 > 0:51:16the degeneration of the race and improve its inborn qualities.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19Not all mental deficiency is hereditary,
0:51:19 > 0:51:22but heredity accounts for more of the mild feeble-minded types.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26If carefully trained, they can be taught simple routine tasks.
0:51:27 > 0:51:31But it would have been better by far, if they had never been born.
0:51:33 > 0:51:37Although the Eugenics Movement was founded in Britain,
0:51:37 > 0:51:43it found its most extreme expression in Nazi Germany and the USA.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47By the time of World War Two, over 40,000 American citizens
0:51:47 > 0:51:51had been sterilised without their consent.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55Eugenics affected many different areas of American life
0:51:55 > 0:51:59including, controversially, design.
0:51:59 > 0:52:03Most people would just think of streamlining as a design style,
0:52:03 > 0:52:07but, in fact, beneath that is an ideology that
0:52:07 > 0:52:08does connect it to eugenics.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12Eugenics wanted to redesign society
0:52:12 > 0:52:19and the industrial designers themselves very much believed in eugenic progress.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22They would use terms like as "parasitic drag", for example,
0:52:22 > 0:52:27as something that held back the object, that held back society.
0:52:27 > 0:52:31They would look at pure bred forms such as the greyhound
0:52:31 > 0:52:36as an example of eugenic thoroughbreds
0:52:36 > 0:52:40to implement into their designs.
0:52:40 > 0:52:42There are a lot of parallels between the two -
0:52:42 > 0:52:45ideas of the future, the future perfect form,
0:52:45 > 0:52:48a more streamlined body, a more streamlined lifestyle.
0:52:48 > 0:52:51For American designers,
0:52:51 > 0:52:57eugenics was a design template not a political ideology.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00They had only one aim...
0:53:02 > 0:53:04..to sell.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14The vision of a streamlined consumer paradise
0:53:14 > 0:53:20became real with the World's Fair held in New York in 1939.
0:53:25 > 0:53:28Attracting over 44 million visitors,
0:53:28 > 0:53:32it was the largest such event ever held.
0:53:35 > 0:53:37The 1939 World's Fair
0:53:37 > 0:53:41was a fascinating moment I think in the history of modern design.
0:53:41 > 0:53:46Very, very different from Paris 1925 which had been elite, luxurious
0:53:46 > 0:53:48and highly decorative.
0:53:48 > 0:53:53By '39 we've moved to quite a different style. It's much simpler,
0:53:53 > 0:53:57much more streamlined, even the buildings are streamlined,
0:53:57 > 0:54:01rounded forms, and the exhibition is dominated, interestingly, not
0:54:01 > 0:54:06by the work of architects or decorators,
0:54:06 > 0:54:08but now by industrial designers.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11And the designers are designing things like "The World of Tomorrow,"
0:54:11 > 0:54:13the car of tomorrow.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18'Safe distance between cars is maintained by
0:54:18 > 0:54:21'automatic radio control.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24'Curved sides assist the driver in keeping his car
0:54:24 > 0:54:28'within the proper lane under all circumstances.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34'The keynote of this motorway - safety.'
0:54:34 > 0:54:38It's an absolutely optimistic American view of the future.
0:54:38 > 0:54:42That's the most remarkable thing I've ever seen.
0:54:42 > 0:54:47But while America was looking forward to "The World of Tomorrow,"
0:54:47 > 0:54:50Europe was staring into the abyss.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59This was not the moment for a light-hearted style.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03Deco had become decadent.
0:55:03 > 0:55:07By 1939 Deco is a kind of, it's an aging whore.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10It's unfaithful, it's avaricious,
0:55:10 > 0:55:13it's desperate for anything which will make it look young,
0:55:13 > 0:55:15and it's a failing architecture
0:55:15 > 0:55:20and that's because the whole mood of the times has changed.
0:55:20 > 0:55:25In September 1939, just a year after her record-breaking triumph,
0:55:25 > 0:55:29the Queen Mary slipped back into New York.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31For her celebrity passengers,
0:55:31 > 0:55:35this had been a more eventful voyage than usual.
0:55:35 > 0:55:41- Well, Mr Warner I think we're very lucky getting back here safely, don't you?- I don't know about that.
0:55:41 > 0:55:43Were you worried?
0:55:43 > 0:55:45- Of being torpedoed?- No. Torpedoed?
0:55:45 > 0:55:48Why I didn't have the slightest thought of being torpedoed.
0:55:48 > 0:55:50- I didn't either. I didn't sleep a second.- Oh, I did.
0:55:50 > 0:55:53It didn't bother me. Of course, I'm of the hardy type.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56Yeah, but you see I'm serious, so I'm not nervous.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02While the Queen Mary was at sea,
0:56:02 > 0:56:06war had been declared between Britain and Germany.
0:56:06 > 0:56:10The liner's luxurious Art Deco drawing rooms and libraries
0:56:10 > 0:56:15had been crammed with temporary cots in case of U-boat attack.
0:56:15 > 0:56:18It was an omen of things to come.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20The glamorous Queen Mary
0:56:20 > 0:56:24now prepared to begin a new life as a troop ship.
0:56:26 > 0:56:31If you want to think perhaps of one example of that shift from
0:56:31 > 0:56:33a belief in luxury and glamour
0:56:33 > 0:56:37to a much more functional and rather drab world of war,
0:56:37 > 0:56:39the Queen Mary is the most wonderful example.
0:56:39 > 0:56:42You move from it depicting all those wonderful qualities
0:56:42 > 0:56:46to it being stripped out for use in war, battleship grey.
0:56:48 > 0:56:50The Grey Ghost.
0:56:50 > 0:56:54The contrast is complete and I think the world has changed.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01This would be an age of austerity,
0:57:01 > 0:57:05an age of service and sacrifice.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09But perhaps there would be one final decisive expression
0:57:09 > 0:57:12of British Art Deco.
0:57:13 > 0:57:17I always think ironically one of the best Art Deco objects
0:57:17 > 0:57:19the British ever made was the Spitfire.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23'To the man in the street perhaps the most amazing machine is the Spitfire.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26'A land version of the famous seaplanes that won the Schneider Trophy.'
0:57:26 > 0:57:31It is a wonderful, fluid, perfect definition of streamlining.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35It's a wonderful aeroplane, probably one of the best aeroplanes made.
0:57:35 > 0:57:37It's also one of the prettiest.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44But in a sense, it's an indication of where things were going.
0:57:46 > 0:57:48You know, we were by that time
0:57:48 > 0:57:51moving towards another global conflict.
0:57:58 > 0:58:03How can you have faith in a future which promises your extinction?
0:58:03 > 0:58:06How can you, sort of, look for fun and frivolity
0:58:06 > 0:58:09when actually what you've got to look for is survival?
0:58:09 > 0:58:13What happened in 1939 is that people realised that there was no escape,
0:58:13 > 0:58:15the future had caught up with us.
0:58:25 > 0:58:29Art Deco's moment in the sun might have been short-lived,
0:58:29 > 0:58:32but it shone all the more brilliantly for it.
0:58:32 > 0:58:35Life for most might often have been grey.
0:58:35 > 0:58:38It might sometimes even have been grim.
0:58:38 > 0:58:44But just occasionally it could also be defiantly, deliciously glamorous.
0:58:59 > 0:59:01Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:59:01 > 0:59:03E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk