Siobhan Doran has photographed the ambitious restoration of The Savoy, the world-renowned hotel on London’s Embankment. Built by impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the hotel opened on 6 August 1889. It enjoyed a resurgence of fame during the 1920s with both major art deco redecoration, and guests as varied as Noel Coward, Igor Stravinsky, Josephine Baker and George Gershwin.
The book traces the work through four periods of the restoration project. It opens with the process of stripping out, which in many instances exposed original detail. The two following sections follow the painstaking structural restoration and its progression into the new designs. The final section covers the finishing touches of decoration and furnishing. As the project developed Siobhan Doran became captivated by the hotel’s fifth-floor River Suites with their varied views across the Thames. Revisiting these rooms many times in the course of more than 100 visits to the hotel, she developed the concept of returning and remaking images, which she then expanded to embrace to other areas in the building. This approach also unconsciously reflects the many views and insights that the now-reopened hotel’s customers observe daily – depending on the season in which they visit, the length of their stay, the areas that they frequent and whether it is their first visit or one of many.
The book is a clothbound hardback with a printed image, 290mmx 290mm with 178 pages and 110 colour plates, ISBN: 978-1-907893-14-8, cost £40
Signed copies are available to pre order until the release date on 2nd November 2011
http://www.shopatthesavoy.com/the-savoy-collection/gifts/restoration-book.html
Published November 2011 by Dewi Lewis publishing http://www.dewilewispublishing.com
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