Howard Carter’s sensational discovery of the tomb of the boy Pharaoh in 1922 sparked an instant craze for all things Egyptian. The amazing hoard of funerary goods extracted from the tomb included chariots, furniture, mummy cases, gold jewellery and the mesmerising gold mask of the Pharaoh himself.

Egyptian motifs such as lotus flowers, scarabs, hieroglyphics, pylons and pyramids soon covered everything from book bindings to biscuit boxes, while the figure-hugging “mummy wrap” was all the rage in the 1920s.

Women wore Cleopatra earrings. Designers such as Pierre Emile Legrain produced rich materials such as vellum, shagreen, zebra skin and chromium plating inspired by Ancient Egypt. Smart furniture by Eileen Gray often incorporated Egyptian motifs that were not limited to expensive couture items but extended across a range of mass-produced goods made in pressed metal and Bakelite.

Egyptian art became one of the founts of Art Deco, which was named after the 1925 International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris. The stepped profile is one of the archetypal Deco shapes found everywhere from uplighters to picture surrounds and even the setbacks on the upper storeys of large blocks of flats. Furniture was geometric and angular, made in highly polished wood and veneers. Chrome, glass, shiny fabrics and mirrors were used to decorate aeroplanes, cars, cruise liners and skyscrapers.

Among the most enthusiastic pioneers of the new Egyptian style were the movie moguls. No fewer than 69 cinemas in the Egyptian style have been identified in England and North America. Many have been closed or demolished but an exciting number have been lovingly restored. Capping them all is Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, designed by the architects Meyer & Holler. It is followed by exotics in little-known places such as Peery’s Egyptian Theatre in Ogden, Utah, which opened in 1924, and the Egyptian Theatre in DeKalb, Illinois, adorned with lotus buds, palm leaves, falcon wings and golden serpents.

Egyptian cinemas in London include the gorgeous 1930 Carlton in Essex Road, Islington, by George Coles, which is clad in cream tiles with vivid green-blue vermilion and yellow trim; and the Astoria, in Streatham, designed by Edward Albert Stone, which opened the same year. Inside was a mural of an Egyptian lady bathing in a lotus-filled pool. Another glorious essay in the Egyptian manner is the Hoover factory on Western Avenue, West London, with the sloping walls of a temple Tutankhamun’s tomb was filled with stylised imagery and symbolism, some embossed on the walls in shallow gilt relief. An example of this technique is in New York’s Chrysler Building, designed by William Van Alen and adorned with eagle hood ornaments, stylised flowers and sunbursts as well as abstract images of cars.

The Daily Telegraph Building in Fleet Street (1928-31), by Charles Ernest Elcock, has bulging Egyptian columns. Still more impressive is the Carreras Building, on Mornington Crescent, Camden, completed in 1928, with a giant Egyptian colonnade now restored to its full polychrome glory. The Strand Palace Hotel interiors by Oliver Bernard, now in the V&A, made sensational use of angular Egyptian door surrounds created out of translucent moulded glass, chromed steel and mirror glass.

As International Modern took over from Art Deco, there was no place for such ornament. Yet Egyptian motifs have made repeated comebacks. In London the architect John Outram built a pumping station on the Isle of Dogs in the late 1980s in the manner of a modern Nile temple with polychrome columns and capitals.

Another tribute to Tutmania is the Egyptian escalator hall at Harrods. William George Mitchell, the designer, says: “I intended the staircase to be a walk-in sculpture, a journey from the Lower Nile to the Upper Nile.”

The question is where Tutankhamun will take us now, as a new generation of architects and designers is dazzled by the intense beauty and colour of the trophies of the boy Pharaoh.

Egypt Travel

• Discover the Nile on a voyage into the past
• The pharaohs get a face-lift
• Bringing Egypt's history to life for the kids