A hotel lobby is not a small piece 0_0 Why not do a hotel bedroom? You could even give it some extra personality, make it the bedroom of a 1930s spy or something!
9 heads high figure proportions looking great! Not a new design discovery of course. Checkout this Soviet poster from the 1930s. But people still will hate anything by Liefeld :p
Are you following the help file? https://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/index.html?url=files/GUID-EE108A86-9830-455E-BF2F-64A4075E8303.htm,topicNumber=d30e692103
Because I am not busy enough, I am doing a little bit of freelance for a friend - building a 1930's steamliner! A new challenge for me - luckily it is going to be reasonably stylized!
Not sure what supposed to be 1950's about this, it's slightly more 1930's art deco but more generic overall. Like jackablade said, bioshock would be your goto reference.
We were there a few years ago and wanted to see Hitlers bunker but it was "closed indefinitely", it looked like an empty lot. Apparently the Germans don't want to remember 1930-45. *shrug*