Bruce Peter is the Professor of Design History in the Glasgow School of Art’s School of Design. He has researched and published extensively on modern architecture and design for transport, pleasure and hospitality and is also internationally known as a maritime historian, specialising in the design history of modern merchant ships.
As an undergraduate student in the early-1990s, Bruce wrote his first book, Glasgow’s Amazing Cinemas, published in 1996 to coincide with the centenary of the earliest film show in the city. His PhD, Form Follows Fun: Modernism and Modernity in British Pleasure Architecture 1925-1940, was published by Routledge in 2007. His interests in passenger ships and their interiors then led to him co-authoring Cruise: Identity, Design and Culture, which was followed by three further works: Ship Style: Modernism and Modernity at Sea in the Twentieth Century, QE2: Britain’s Greatest Liner and The Ferry: A Drive-though History.
In Denmark, Bruce was commissioned to write a history of the naval architecture firm Knud E Hansen, which Polyteknisk Forlag produced. He next wrote a history of Danish liner shipping, Dansk Linjefart, which was later republished in English as Danish Liners around the World. These works led to a commission from the Danish Maritime Museum, Museet for Søfart, to write the official guide book about its architectural design by Bjarke Ingels Group and the exhibitions in its galleries. Thereafter, Bruce authored company histories of P&O for its 175 anniversary and of DFDS for its 150th anniversary and also co-authored Innovation and Specialisation: The Story of Shipbuilding in Finland.
In 2017-2018 Bruce became advised on the content of the V&A Ocean Liners: Speed and Style exhibition and contributed chapters to the catalogue. Concurrently, he researched and wrote The Changing Face of British Railways, addressing the design culture of BR from nationalisation in 1947 to privatisation in 1997; this won the Railway and Canal Historical Society’s award for the best transport book of 2018. In 2019, he contributed chapters to the catalogue of the Art Deco by the Sea exhibition, shown at the Sainsbury Centre for the Arts and at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle in 2020. In that year he also had published Jet Age Hotels and the International Style about the politics and design of mostly American-operated hotels of the 1950s and 60s.
Bruce’s ship design research formed the basis of an Impact Case Study submitted for the Research Excellence Framework in 2021. In 2022 he had published Danish Design at Sea: Ship Interior Architecture and Furnishing, followed in 2023 by Lusitania to QE2: The Great Clyde-Built Ships and the Creation of their Interiors.
Bruce has appeared in several television documentary series, mainly concerning the design and operational histories of passenger ships on BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, Channel 4 and Channel 5. His latest television appearance is in Secrets of the Lost Liners for Sky History. Since 2008, he has been a regular contributor to Shippax, a leading passenger shipping industry information publisher headquartered in Halmstad, Sweden.
Bruce’s most recent output is Denmark in Britain: Architecture, Design and Lifestyle 1945-1970, published by Peter Lang. He is presently completing Art Deco in Scotland for Historic Environment Scotland, which will be published in 2025.