Titanic | IAR-CANDELA MUÑOZ

architecture student

¶ Titanic

As famous as the “Titanic” is I assume everyone already knows what is is and its story, but I will briefly introduce it as it deserves:

The Titanic was a famous luxury transatlantic, whose first voyage was in 1912 and was an enormous event. This ship departed from England on April 10th of 1912, but hours later an iceberg, which seemed to be smaller looked from above the water, made it sink in the North Atlantic Ocean with 2.200 passengers and crew. This sad event was a disaster that only left 705 survivors.

What was the problem? Why this five stars transatlantic’s disaster lost 2/3 parts of its passengers? The thing is that at that time, the engineers and designers who create it thought about comfort and elegance, but no one thought about the ship sinking, because in 1912′ people’s minds a luxury ship of that size would never sink. Everyone thought it was unsinkable, so the engineers incorporated some lifeboats basically to decorate.

On the basis of less boats than people, when they started sinking, the engineer had to tell the ship’s captain about it, so they had to prioritize: by social classes (rich people go first), genders (women’s first), and ages (child’s had preference).

Leaving aside what happened, let’s focus on the interior of the ship, with luxury features of the 1912s. The Titanic offered many facilities for first-class passengers, as back in that time the social status was meaningful at the time of comfort differences. Its interiors design mainly focused on comfort and elegance, based on the style of a British luxury hotel.

Thanks to its giant size, the number of rooms that it allowed was high enough to incorporate large individual rooms with the latest technologies, first-class staterooms, and public spaces, as for example many recreational and sport spaces.

Standard cabin.

The common cabins could be a single, double or triple-berth stateroom which contained a dressing table, horsehair sofa, wardrobe, and marble-topped washstand with basin. Staterooms had a bigger size with double beds, built-in wardrobes, and comfortable seating areas^[

Also, the majority of beds had above them an electrical outlet, which contained a call button, a reading lamp, and a little basket store.

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Suites.

These staterooms had private entrances, with separate servants’ rooms, wardrobe rooms, and a luxury en-suite bathroom. All suites were decorated lavishly in the style of different historical periods.

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In Titanic’s design, they introduced innovative features: A swimming pool, Turkish Baths, Squash courts, and a gym.

Gymnasium.

It was located in the Boat deck, and included the common machines of a usual gym: dumbbells, rowing machines, as well as a mechanical horse and mechanical camel. Its use costed one shilling (about 25 cents), to be paid to Thomas McCawley.

INTERESTING FACT

There was one passenger named Richard Norris, who while the Titanic was sinking, kept peddling a stationary bicycle of the gymnasium to keep warm. After the disaster, he survived on a lifeboat and had a sport’s career (tennis).

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Turkish baths.

They were a spa complex for first-class. The Baths were segregated by sex, available to women between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., and to men between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. It offered rooms with hot and cool temperatures, a steam room, a private toilet, a shampooing room and a freshwater drinking fountain.

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Grand staircase.

Its grand staircase had a really high level of royalty. It was commonly used by the passengers to go to the first-class dinning room or to tale the elegant lifts. The centerpiece of the grand staircase was a large carved panel which had a clock embedded in it.

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Reading & writing room.

This room was initially designed for first class women some to use, and decorated/painted with a very elegant atmosphere. It had a big bow window that had views to the Promenade Deck, and also a fire to increase de comfort environment of the room.