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Possibly the finest ocean liner ever created, the TSS Normandie, second only in size to the Queen Elizabeth, running mate of the Queen Mary, represented the French nation and all that it had to offer to the world. With its revolutionary architecture, the TSS Normandie has influenced industrial design since the dawn of its making. Subsidized by the French government, the Normandie Cruise Liner’s revolutionary hull was designed by, not a Frenchman, but a Russian engineer: Vladimir Yourkevitch.
An expert in ship construction, Yourkevitch had at one point designed the hulls for Imperial Russian vessels. The directors of the French line were initially reluctant to test his extremely revolutionary ideas. Eventually, his credentials were validated through his astonishing hull designs which consistently outperformed all competition.
The Normandie was not only famous for its scientific engineering and design, but for its food. Staffed with the most illustrious chefs, dining aboard the Normandie was a once in a lifetime experience. For the truly jaded, the Normandie also offered its own Ritz-Carlton grill at the end of the main deck. The Normandie was 1029 feet in overall length with 12 decks holding approx. 1572 total passengers and 1345 officers and crew. She had a top speed of 32.2 knots.
The beginnings of Normandie can be traced to the Roaring Twenties when shipping companies began looking to replace veterans such as the RMS Mauretania which had first sailed in 1907. Those earlier ships had been designed around the huge numbers of steerage-class immigrants from Europe to the United States. When the U.S. closed the door on most immigration in the early 1920s, steamship companies ordered vessels built to serve upper-class tourists instead, particularly Americans who traveled to Europe for alcohol-fueled fun during Prohibition.[5] Companies like Cunard and the White Star Line planned to build their own superliners to rival newer ships on the scene; such vessels included the record-breaking Bremen and Europa, both German. The French Line began to plan its own superliner.
Adolphe Cassandre's famed 1935 depiction of the SS Normandie.
The French Line's flagship was the Ile de France, which had modern Art Deco interiors but a conservative hull design. The designers of the new French superliner intended to construct their new ship similar to French Line ships of the past, but then they were approached by Vladimir Yourkevitch, a former ship architect for the Imperial Russian Navy, who had emigrated to France before the revolution. His ideas included a slanting clipper-like bow and a bulbous forefoot beneath the waterline, in combination with a slim hydrodynamic hull. Yourkevitch's concepts worked wonderfully in scale models which supported his design's performance advantages. The French engineers were impressed and asked Yourkevitch to join their project. Reportedly, he also approached the Cunard Line with his ideas but was rejected because the bow was deemed too radical.
The French Line commissioned artists to create posters and publicity for the liner. One of the most famous posters was by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, who was also a Russian emigrant to France. Another cutaway diagram by Albert Sébille, 15 feet long, detailed the interior layout and is displayed in the Musée national de la Marine in Paris