Leseprobe

14 Between 1898 and 1907, the Blue Riband remained in German hands, alternating between NDL and HAPAG. Both companies favoured interiors that harked back to aristocratic homes and appealed to the wealthy international first-class clientele. NDL launched a trio of large liners: the Kronprinz Wilhelm (1901), the Kaiser Wilhelm II (1903) and the Kronprinzessin Cecilie (1906), which featured historicist interiors, densely decorated with heavy gilt mouldings and ornaments. Johann Poppe, the Bremen architect responsible for the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große ’s interiors (Figure 2), was again employed to design public rooms on board the Kronprinzessin Cecilie in a Neo-Baroque style. At the same time, however, NDL also looked to progressive designers and ran a competition for the decoration of thirty first-class cabins on board the ship. The winners of the competition were Richard Riemerschmid, Bruno Paul and Joseph Maria Olbrich, who were soon to become founding members of the Deutscher Werkbund in 1907. This association of artists, designers, industrialists and merchants sought to improve the quality of German applied art and to replace period styles with products suited to modern life and modern German society. Riemerschmid’s designs for the Imperial Suite on board the Kronprinzessin Cecilie were a stark contrast to Poppe’s public rooms and exemplified the new approach to interiors. Panelled in light-coloured wood with a stylised vegetal motif and pared-down furniture, the suite was devoid of historical allusions or excessive, classical ornaments (Figure 3). Riemerschmid’s designs were executed by the Dresdner Werkstätten für Handwerkskunst (now KaiserWilhelmder Große (1897) First-class smoking room 2