Art Deco Scotland by Peter Bruce Book Review 28th April 2025
Art Deco Scotland: Design and Architecture in the Jazz Age, published by HES (Historic Environment Scotland) on Thursday 10 April is available now in bookshops and online.
No matter whether your interest in this subject is at an academic level, or simply as a lover of the designs of this period, this comprehensive book by Bruce Peter, Professor of Design History in The Glasgow School of Art's School of Design, has something in it for everyone as he explores Scotland’s Art Deco history from the 1920s/30s onwards and its enduring legacy in the post-war years to present day.
The amount of research that has obviously gone into this book is impressive and the large notes, bibliography and reports at the back of this book that have been referenced give some idea of the sheer depth of resource information that has been used to bring this history to life in informative text plus over 150 photographs and illustrations from HES’s collection.
Despite being such a large book on the subject, information is split into very clear areas of information. Firstly, a large and informative introduction to the events and design that were to lead to the term Art Deco (a name not widely recognised until a retrospective exhibition in 1966), not only in Scotland but also further afield, plus information on some of the major most important architectural and design practices of the day and their most innovative architects and designers sets the scene for a detailed study of the many diverse areas of design across many countries that were to define what we now call Art Deco. In some cases this design was to be of a purely utilitarian and practical use, whilst at other times it reflected both the needs of the often seriously wealthy social and economic elite of society, but also the growing consumer aspirations of many people, often along the way influenced by the lifestyle that so many people wanted to have, the luxury seen in so many Hollywood movies of the period.
Breaking this large subject up into the clearly defined chapters of The Architecture and Design Professions, Housing and Furnishing, Transport and Travel, Municipal and Governmental, The Empire Exhibition of 1938, Commercial and Retail, Entertainment, Hospitality and Catering, Industry and Energy, Ocean Liners, and The Art Deco Legacy makes this a book which the reader can pick up, read, and re-read to focus on their favourite area of interest with ease at any time.
There is in this book perhaps the simplest definition of the distinction between a building or object that was “moderne” and one that was “modernist”. Here Bruce Peter defines the difference as “A simple distinction… would be that the former would be designed in the established way from the outside in, beginning with the composition of the exterior, whereas the latter would be designed from the inside out with the facades merely a skin over whatever arrangement of the internal content would best fulfil the programme”.
At their most basic, many Art Deco buildings are simply a collection of basic geometric shapes, squares, rectangles, and ovals put together, but often it was the introduction of new construction techniques that allowed these buildings to be created, if required, very quickly. An example of this is the 1,700 seater Playhouse cinema in Murray Street, Perth which was completed in just nine weeks
One unexpected at the time problem, though, with one of these new construction techniques was the use of asbestos in the roofs, interiors and lightweight concrete exterior panelling of all too many buildings. The wonder building material of the Art Deco period was destined to become the stuff of nightmares in the 21st century.
It is almost impossible now for most of us to imagine what the impact of these often visually startling and very different designs, particularly the buildings, would have had upon us. From surviving records of the time, we do know that opinions were at times very divided.
Whether you associate Art Deco with iconic cinemas, grand municipal buildings, retail shops, public or private housing in Scotland, this book has something for you. At one level there is a sense of sadness in just how many of these buildings have simply been destroyed as part of “progress” in urban planning over the decades (many from the 1960s onwards), but there is also a cause for celebration in just how many have survived in pretty much their original state, or been restored to their former glory in recent years.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
No matter whether your interest in this subject is at an academic level, or simply as a lover of the designs of this period, this comprehensive book by Bruce Peter, Professor of Design History in The Glasgow School of Art's School of Design, has something in it for everyone as he explores Scotland’s Art Deco history from the 1920s/30s onwards and its enduring legacy in the post-war years to present day.
The amount of research that has obviously gone into this book is impressive and the large notes, bibliography and reports at the back of this book that have been referenced give some idea of the sheer depth of resource information that has been used to bring this history to life in informative text plus over 150 photographs and illustrations from HES’s collection.
Despite being such a large book on the subject, information is split into very clear areas of information. Firstly, a large and informative introduction to the events and design that were to lead to the term Art Deco (a name not widely recognised until a retrospective exhibition in 1966), not only in Scotland but also further afield, plus information on some of the major most important architectural and design practices of the day and their most innovative architects and designers sets the scene for a detailed study of the many diverse areas of design across many countries that were to define what we now call Art Deco. In some cases this design was to be of a purely utilitarian and practical use, whilst at other times it reflected both the needs of the often seriously wealthy social and economic elite of society, but also the growing consumer aspirations of many people, often along the way influenced by the lifestyle that so many people wanted to have, the luxury seen in so many Hollywood movies of the period.
Breaking this large subject up into the clearly defined chapters of The Architecture and Design Professions, Housing and Furnishing, Transport and Travel, Municipal and Governmental, The Empire Exhibition of 1938, Commercial and Retail, Entertainment, Hospitality and Catering, Industry and Energy, Ocean Liners, and The Art Deco Legacy makes this a book which the reader can pick up, read, and re-read to focus on their favourite area of interest with ease at any time.
There is in this book perhaps the simplest definition of the distinction between a building or object that was “moderne” and one that was “modernist”. Here Bruce Peter defines the difference as “A simple distinction… would be that the former would be designed in the established way from the outside in, beginning with the composition of the exterior, whereas the latter would be designed from the inside out with the facades merely a skin over whatever arrangement of the internal content would best fulfil the programme”.
At their most basic, many Art Deco buildings are simply a collection of basic geometric shapes, squares, rectangles, and ovals put together, but often it was the introduction of new construction techniques that allowed these buildings to be created, if required, very quickly. An example of this is the 1,700 seater Playhouse cinema in Murray Street, Perth which was completed in just nine weeks
One unexpected at the time problem, though, with one of these new construction techniques was the use of asbestos in the roofs, interiors and lightweight concrete exterior panelling of all too many buildings. The wonder building material of the Art Deco period was destined to become the stuff of nightmares in the 21st century.
It is almost impossible now for most of us to imagine what the impact of these often visually startling and very different designs, particularly the buildings, would have had upon us. From surviving records of the time, we do know that opinions were at times very divided.
Whether you associate Art Deco with iconic cinemas, grand municipal buildings, retail shops, public or private housing in Scotland, this book has something for you. At one level there is a sense of sadness in just how many of these buildings have simply been destroyed as part of “progress” in urban planning over the decades (many from the 1960s onwards), but there is also a cause for celebration in just how many have survived in pretty much their original state, or been restored to their former glory in recent years.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com