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It was October 4, 1883 and the Gare de l’Est in Paris (then called the Gare de Strasbourg) was filled with a crowd of curious, elegant Parisians including leading politicians, journalists and writers, who had come to catch their very first glimpse of the Orient Express, a new invention that would revolutionize travel. Its first destination was Constantinople: initially, after traveling day and night from Paris to Bucharest aboard the luxury train, passengers had to take another train to Bulgaria then a ship to the Bosporus; the direct rail link only began in 1889, stopping in Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest. The train made its first 3,094-km return journey in less than two weeks, winning favor among the press. In the October 20, 1883 edition of Le Figaro newspaper, special envoy Georges Boyer wrote, “We made the trip from Constantinople to Paris in 76 hours instead of the usual 111, in perfect comfort and without the slightest fatigue.”
Thus begins the story of this legendary train that leaves nobody indifferent, whether you’re from Europe or the Middle East. Somehow or other its name has managed to make its way into the collective consciousness, and the mere mention of it stirs up romantic fantasies of crossing borders and continents. With its theatrical character, it has been able to seduce visitors as they watched the world go by from their seats. It was the height of the Industrial Revolution, and the railways were its symbol and its engine. After its launch, the Orient Express lived according to the rhythm of European geography and geopolitics, conflicts and empires that were crumbling, the evolution of its frontiers and the relations between the countries that it crossed. It was in fact a theater for major political events: its hushed corridors were among the spheres of action of European diplomacy. It was also indicative of the relations between East and West, a witness of the modernization of the Middle East. For three quarters of a century – between 1883 and 1956 – it captivated the imagination and made history.
The Orient Express was the brainchild of Georges Nagelmackers, a young Belgian businessman and engineer, who traveled on Pullman trains and experienced their renowned sleeping cars during a trip to the United States in 1868. He noticed that although some American trains were technologically superior to their European counterparts, they were very uncomfortable, so he returned to Europe intent on creating luxury trains for the wealthy, which would combine long-distance travel with comfort, elegance and refinement. The Orient Express’ early success also led to a new generation of luxury trains including the Nord Express, the Sud Express and the Calais Nice Rome Express. Nagelmackers proceeded to found the Compagnie Internationale des Grands Hôtels to accommodate passengers when they reached their destination, and the famous hotels he established, like the Pera Palace in Constantinople and the Riviera Palace in Monte Carlo, became the world’s first international hotel chain.
Travelers were spoiled like movie stars or royalty. Embodying innovation and refinement, the “King of Trains and the Train of Kings” featured cabins flaunting the most high-tech amenities of the day – central heating, hot water and gas lighting – and incredible luxuries such as upholstered interiors, Cordoba leather ceilings, Lalique crystal bas-reliefs, Gobelins tapestries, velvet curtains, precious tablecloths, beds and robes sporting the company crest, silk sheets, marble bath fixtures, crystal goblets and silver cutlery. Before WWI, the coaches were made of teak, but after 1920, the wood was replaced by metal to eliminate creaking. Celebrated French master jeweler and glassmaker René Lalique was called upon to decorate the walls of its dining cars with glass panels inlaid with Cuban mahogany, making the Orient Express a symbol of Art Nouveau style, while the walls of the Côte d’Azur bar car were embellished by René Prou, a master of the Art Deco style.
However, perhaps what propelled the Orient Express into the annals of history forever was its fame among celebrities who slept in its plush berths, such as King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, American actress Marlene Dietrich, Russian ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, British officer Lawrence of Arabia who became a heroic leader in the Arabic rebellion against the Turks, American-born French dancer-singer Josephine Baker and German WWI spy Mata Hari. Movie and music stars, politicians, writers and secret agents mingled in the Blue Train bar and dining car and the Riviera dining car, which takes its design cues from the most stylish restaurants.
Its close ties with the worlds of literature and film also fueled the legend of the Orient Express, inspiring authors like Graham Greene, Joseph Kessel, Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie. The British mystery writer met her husband on board, and her journeys impelled her to write three novels about it, including Murder on the Orient Express, which immortalized the train forever when it was turned into a film in 1974 by director Sidney Lumet, who brought some of the world’s greatest actors aboard: Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Sean Connery and Anthony Perkins. Even earlier, in 1963, scenes from the James Bond film From Russia with Love were filmed in Pinewood Studios in England on a set faithfully reproducing the carriage interiors of the Orient Express.
Sheet music for the ditty entitled "Orient Express" (Photo Paris, Collection Pierre de Gigord ©... [+]
WWII and later the Cold War took its toll on the Orient Express, which made its last commercial return journey between Paris and Istanbul in 1977. Nonetheless, it still exists as a seven-car train, with all of its carriages listed as French historic monuments, and they are preserved in mint condition by Trains Expo, a SNCF (France’s national state-owned railway company) subsidiary that specializes in planning prestigious events. More than a display of beautiful objects, the exhibition Once Upon a Time There was the Orient Express, which opened last April at the Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA), a Parisian cultural institution dedicated to the Arab world, is an invitation to travel and succeeds in showing almost a century of history that passes before our very eyes, a century of events that transformed the world map, a century during which the contemporary Arab world was born out of the pain and suffering of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
How is the Orient Express connected to the Arab world, you might wonder? This train, in the strictest sense, extended from Paris to Istanbul and never left Europe but, in fact, in its advertising posters, it offered its guests journeys of four and a half days to Tripoli, eight days to Baghdad and seven days to Cairo – three continents on a single trip. On the other side of the Bosporus, the train station of Haydarpasa served as the start of the line towards Syria, Baghdad or Tripoli. Many years later, an extension towards Tehran via Istanbul was allowed by the Shah of Iran, and thereafter the Taurus Express established correspondences for Alep, Baghdad and Beirut.
At the height of its success, the Orient Express allowed numerous exchanges between the Middle East and Europe. Much more than a luxury train, it was a true link between Europe and Africa and Europe and Asia. It allowed countless travelers to visit countries, which until then were only accessible to certain explorers and diplomats. Nagelmackers’ dream with this moving palace was to allow his contemporaries to attain this vague Orientalism that they had only known via illustrations, paintings or indirect testimonies. The Orient Express was therefore synonymous with a dream come true, in the spirit of transatlantic cruises. The idea was that by criss-crossing continents, it would abolish frontiers and push back horizons ceaselessly.
The IMA and SNCF grant visitors the rare privilege of starting the exhibition on a reconstituted train platform before climbing on board. A locomotive, three carriages and a dining car have been installed on the museum’s forecourt dressed in the interior decoration of the day, recreating scenes right out of a book or film. We find vintage watches, typewriters and maps, James Bond’s tuxedo, Mata Hari’s evening dress and shawl, Agatha Christie’s overcoat and even Hercule Poirot’s distinctive hat. The mythical carriages of the Orient Express include the Golden Arrow lounge car constructed in 1929, composed of a central room with 20 seats and 10 tables equipped with polished bronze lamps, and interiors decorated by René Lalique; the Blue Train bar car showcasing plane tree wood-paneled walls with incrustations of flower bouquets in René Lalique molten glass and a luxurious mahogany bar; the Y Type sleeping car featuring panels and partitions in varnished mahogany veneered woodwork; and the 230 G steam locomotive built in 1922, which was a screen star, having participated in numerous shoots including Murder on the Orient Express.
After this immersive experience, the voyage continues over more than 800sqm of exhibition space inside the museum. Objets d’art, archival documents, photos, news videos, movie extracts and items from the era – posters, menus, crockery, cutlery, suitcases, historical Moynat trunks, stained-glass windows and furniture – which evoke the rich literary and cinematographic heritage inspired by the Orient Express and the different stops on the train’s itinerary, like London, Paris, Venice, Istanbul, Alep, Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad, Cairo, Luxor and Aswan, are showcased for the first time inside giant display trunks. The touring exhibition will then travel to cities that form part of the train’s historical itinerary, like Venice, Vienna and Istanbul.
Moynat wardrobe trunk carrying a Simplon Orient Express sticker, 1920 (Photo Paris, collection... [+]
The exhibition curator, Claude Mollard, comments, “This mythical train recently celebrated its 130th anniversary. We found that it was a great opportunity to pay tribute to it and to talk about the relations between East and West from the 19th century to present day. Thanks to the Orient Express, we have indeed moved from legends surrounding Orientalism to the reality of the Orient. This part of the world has considerably changed in more than a century, with the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire, the splitting of the Arab world and its political unity. Evoking the relationship between East and West is a way of telling the story of the Middle East. The Orient Express is both exciting and complex. Just talking about it is enough to realize that a light appears in people’s eyes. There’s a real fascination with this train and what it evokes. It embarks with it a mythology, from its relationship with the decorative arts of the time to celebrities, great writers, cinema. This train is extremely theatrical. This explains some of the affection that great directors, filmmakers and authors have for it. There is, just as in theater, unity of time, action and place. When passengers embark on board, they leave for a specific destination, and a bit unreachable at the same time, for a predetermined period of several days. It is this experience that we wanted to reproduce. We wish to bring visitors onto this theater stage, as if they were its actors, in the likeness of the characters who frequented the Orient Express and wrote its history in gold letters.”
As a special gourmet surprise, during the exhibition until July 31, guests had the chance to dine on board the Anatolia dining car exhibited on the museum’s forecourt, which housed the pop-up restaurant of three Michelin-star chef Yannick Alléno. Constructed in 1925, the car is composed of a room able to accommodate 42 people with 14 tables, 38 bridge armchairs and four bench seats. Its luxurious decoration, based on the drawings of cabinetmaker Albert Dunn, proposes marquetry and mahogany wood-paneled walls with garlands of flowers in violet wood, rosewood, plane tree wood, citrus wood and Makassar ebony. Everything had been put in place to accurately reproduce the legendary meals of the era, both in terms of the dishes and the decoration, by following the codes of French gastronomy, thereby recalling the very first meal served on the day of the train’s inauguration: red mullet, tournedos with Béarnaise sauce, Clamart-style saddle of lamb and herb tea with champagne.
Alléno remarks, “Being associated with such a magical name is an incredible opportunity. The Orient Express is a fairy-tale universe related to travel, culture and gastronomy, just as we are. It echoes the French art of living and resonates throughout the entire world. This exhibition doesn’t only look at the past. It gave us the opportunity to revive, in the space of several months, one of the legends of French luxury, in terms of both heritage and gastronomy.”
Once Upon a Time There was the Orient Express runs until August 31, 2014 at the Institut du Monde Arabe, 1 Rue des Fossés Saint-Bernard, 75005 Paris, France.
