If It Was Today…

After dinner last night, we went for a stroll along The Marine Parade, the main road along the Napier water front. Yesterday was the 95th anniversary of the earthquake that destroyed Napier on February 3rd, 1931. The space between the Marine Parade and the sea has gardens, fountains, and a concert shell. It is all built on top of rubble that was dumped there after the earthquake. It provided the base for one of Napier’s biggest attractions.

The lawns were surrounded by flower beds, loaded with a wide variety of colourful plants. This closeup gives you an idea of the beauty all around.

We also came across an installation that provides a global perspective, showing the direction and distance from Napier to many cities. This one in particular caught our attention.

The main event today was the Art Deco Tour. On our way to the meet point, we passed a fountain with water lilies.

I learned a lot about Art Deco today. I knew almost nothing about it at the start of the tour. Jan knew a lot more, but even she learned quite a bit. The first thing that I learned is that Art Deco isn’t just one thing. There are many sub groupings, or schools within the overall category. It makes sense. Napier didn’t set out to build an Art Deco city after the earthquake. They were just rebuilding the city, in the architectural style(s) that were popular at the time. There were very few guidelines or restrictions, so architects were largely free to build what they wanted. But all the buildings were broadly similar. One interesting fact is that a global recession meant that very little construction was happening elsewhere, which makes Napier unique. The next building was actually built before the earthquake and survived. It is useful to compare it to the buildings that followed.

It is similar to the Art Deco buildings, but there are a few important differences. One is the columns that are clearly projecting from the building facade. Most of the other buildings you will see have “columns” but they barely protrude from the building walls. The other difference is the corner of the building, which is square, even though it sits on an intersection. All the other buildings, when they are on an intersection, have a chamfer on the corner – the corner is cut off at an angle, making it easier to see around the corner. Here is a good example.

The tour took us into the Napier theatre, which has a number of art deco features. The next picture shows the lobby, which has a vaulted ceiling and coloured lights. In 1931, neon lights were new, and providing lighting that wasn’t just plain white, was really exciting.

When the theatre was being updated several years ago, someone discovered a piece of the original carpet, which had long since been replaced. This small sample was used as a template for the updated carpet so that it exactly matched the original design. It is very Art Deco.

There was one other interesting touch. Decorations over the exit doors captured the newfound freedom that women in Europe were beginning to experience after the First World War. I quite like them, but it created a bit of controversy at the time.

This next building was owned by a German immigrant who wanted to acknowledge the connection between Germany and New Zealand. If you look along the top of the building, you can see German and New Zealand flags, with wavy lines between them, representing the oceans that bring them together.

The next two buildings show the simple, straight lines and symmetry that are hallmarks of Art Deco. Even the lettering is characteristic of the style.

I’ve been focusing on the building exteriors, but the Art Deco style also influenced other aspects of the building. The awnings over the sidewalks often had textured ceilings and the windows had leaded glass decoration.

The next picture is the interior of a bank, which is still a working bank today. The detail on the ceiling is stunning, but also note the skylights that were often included to provide more natural light.

I mentioned earlier that there were many sub categories within the Art Deco buildings. In New Zealand, one of these included Māori symbols. This is a close up of the ceiling, with Māori patterns, including a detail from the handle of Māori fighting sticks.

Another sub category was the prairie school, with influence from Frank Lloyd Wright, including the use of earth tones. Here is a good example.

Here is a closeup of the decorative details called hollyhocks.

The ceiling of the next building was rediscovered during a major renovation a few years ago. The textured ceiling and skylights had been hidden behind a plain false ceiling. Fortunately the owners decided to preserve the original detail.

Some of the building exteriors were terrazzo, a technique that uses concrete, with stone and glass chips set into it, which is then polished to create a smooth surface. I’ve seen this used on floors before, but never on exterior walls. This picture also shows another example of the decorative leaded glass windows.

The Art Deco style is also reflected in the utilities, including these manhole covers.

I’ll close with a picture of the fire station, another example of Art Deco beauty in a very utilitarian building. It’s a restaurant today, but it was a working fire station for decades.

On today’s tour, we learned that the beauty you see in Napier today was an accident that grew out of reconstruction after a devastating earthquake. It was almost lost in the 1980’s when pressure was building to update the “tired old buildings” that dominated Napier. Local volunteers in a group that became the Art Deco Trust encouraged people to think about these buildings in a different way. An architect convention that toured Napier agreed and helped the Art Deco Trust convince the city that it had an architectural gem. Thank heavens they did!