QE2 Theatre Bar Lamp

[Scott Ebersold]

I was walking in the Moma design store yesterday when I came upon this lamp.  My heart kind of stopped for second.  It is exactly the same as those that graced the theater bar in QE2's original interior.  It's fun to see its still being sold and commanding quite a price!  $375 US!

Pic of it in the theater bar on p. 59
http://www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/diad/article.php?title=244&year=1969&article=d.244.39

[Chris]

Great find! Were you tempted??

Also wonderful link to the 1969 design article!

[Twynkle]

This is really interesting, Scott!

On p 55 (VADS article), a reference is made to 'the original moulds for the ship's anchor being mounted on one of the bulkheads like a piece of sculpture'
               Does anyone know more about this - or have an image of them?

On p 63 - It looks as if there was lighting, at 'knee height' at along the length of the dividing 'walls' / partitions  - is this as it was then?
              This is a magnificent picture!
              I wonder when the lighting was changed to round lights set at intervals into the 'walls'?


http://www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/diad/article.php?title=244&year=1969&article=d.244.39

[Scott Ebersold]

At $375 I was ... tempted ... but not sold.  Although I do love the lamp and actually admired it before I realized what it was!  Maybe, someday.

And the link I think is connected with Rob's website (or he's to linked to it) in some way, that's how I found my way here to the forum. 

BTW, (and OMG) enlarge pgs. 62 and 63 and then move your windows around so the two line up - it is a superb view of the QR as it was designed.

-s

[Twynkle]

Yes - that double spread 'page' of  the Queen's Room is fab!

Hoping not to cast a shadow etc... this is simply a curious connection!
QE2 was designed at a time when nuclear testing was going on in the South Pacific.
(I was diverted to Samoa, before the planned journey to Tahiti could take place, as the Muroroa atoll was being used for testing).
The design of the lamp instantly reminded me of all the media coverage of the 'mushroom clouds' at that time....

[Malcolm]

The design of the lamp instantly reminded me of all the media coverage of the 'mushroom clouds' at that time....

I think that it's coincidence. In other words I don't think the designer actually thought mushroom cloud = table lamp (I could be wrong there though  ). However I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the pattern of the mushroom cloud didn't leave a subconscious imprint on the designers imagination and that influenced the lamp.

[Scott Ebersold]

... on that note, there were probably lots of reasons mushrooms were part of the popular subconscious at the time.  It was the swinging sixties London that inspired the decor.  It was more than martinis that brought about higher level of consciousness, if you know what I mean 

[Twynkle]

Yes - and thank you!
Couldn't have put it better myself -
and I was there, even...!

Just a thought - is there anything else that was on QE2 that could have been called truly psychodelic?

In fact, thinking of the 'modernistic look',  QE2(1969) reminds me more of the Royal Festival Hall, in a way - the rounded-off corners etc.
Interestingly the RFH (1951) has recently had a refit - and some of the new designs distinctly echo the 1950's and very early 60's.

On VADS Page ?64 or is it 54? -  About the 736 Club
 -There are Bertoia chairs - simply wonderful! 
Identical ones are also to be found in London now - Dwellers in the rather 'drab' flats and houses built in the mid fifties, are re-creating the 50's 'look' inside, then using colours of this century.
Good to see that QE2's designers were influenced by C.R Mackintosh, too.