Art
Deco Architecture in Napier, New Zealand
Photographer: Chris McLennan (www.cmphoto.co.nz)
NAPIER:
THE THIRTIES REVISITED
by
Bruce Burnett
It
is a quiet, late summer mid-morning, February 3, 1931 in the sleepy
seaside city of Napier on Hawke's Bay on New Zealand's North Island.
Along with businesspeople everywhere, Napier's shopkeepers have fallen
victim to the financial panic and economic depression engulfing the
whole world. They stroll leisurely back to their stores after their
morning cup of tea. Suddenly the ground heaves and settles. It is quiet
for a minute. Two minutes later Napier's business district is in ruins.
Fire is raging through the town fanned by a brisk easterly wind. The
water mains are burst and the hydrants are dry. Two hundred and fifty
six people lay dead and hundreds more are severely injured.
An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale has devastated Napier.
In addition to the almost total destruction of the downtown core, the
seabed of Napier's harbor has been raised by two meters (six feet),
draining the lagoon, marshes and swamps, donating an extra 4,000 hectares
(9,900 acres) of land to the city.
With an admirable degree of cooperation between architects and builders,
the town is completely rebuilt within two years. And it is rebuilt in
a remarkable style, predominantly Art Deco with influences from native
Maori motifs and some Spanish mission designs.
Art Deco is the name given to the style, which dominated architectural,
interior and utensil design in the twenties and thirties. It takes its
name from the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial
Arts held in Paris in 1925. It differs from its predecessor, Art Nouveau,
in as much as this fin-de-siecle design motif sought to disguise
function. Art Deco seeks to make function apparent, while utilizing
modern materials such as plastic and chromium.
Not everyone liked Art Deco. It sometimes verged on the vulgar. English
writer Aldous Huxley described it as "a mixture of greenhouse and
hospital ward, furnished in the style of a dentist's operating table."
Favorite motifs of Art Deco included geometric patterns and shapes,
symbols of power and speed, such as lightning flashes, and leaping deer
and dancing women, signifying freedom. The rising sun was the emblem
of a new, emancipated age.
Napier
today is a fascinating living museum of a bright side of the dirty thirties.
Art Deco aficionados from around the world flock here to study their
favorite design form. Dr. Neil Cossons, director of the Science Museum
in London, England, describes Napier as representing "the most
complete and significant group of Art Deco buildings in the world, and
it is comparable with Bath as an example of a planned townscape in a
cohesive style. Napier is without doubt unique."
In 1985 the Napier Art Deco Trust was formed largely to protect the
city's architectural heritage from "progressive" developers.
The Trust now conducts Art Deco walks and has published a self-guiding
"Take a Walk Through Art Deco Napier" booklet.
Rothman's
Building Napier
Certain
buildings are worthy of mention. The Rothmans building, built by architect
Louis Hay in 1933 for the National Tobacco Company, has magnificent
carved doors flanked by sculpted concrete panels in floral design.
Applied decoration is seen at its best in the beautifully maintained
AMP Building. Panels of fruit and flower reliefs surround each entrance
and run along the roofline. Inside, fruit and flowers are intricately
carved into the wood paneling and set into the ceiling corners. The
light fixtures have the simplicity and clean lines of late Art Deco.
Above the entrance to the Bank of New Zealand on Hastings Street and
the Ministry of Transport building on the corner of Tennyson Street
and Church Lane are two distinctive Maori designs. The fern frond pattern
symbolizes nature and new growth and the zigzag design represents sea
waves.
The Telecom building on Dickens Street was formerly the Post Office.
Completed only weeks before the earthquake it was gutted by fire, which
could have been extinguished, so the story goes, had there been two
buckets of water handy. The upper facade was remodeled in the fifties
and the lower windows altered in 1989.
Probably Napier's finest Art Deco building is the Hotel Central with
its beautiful plasterwork. The tiled steps and pressed metal verandah
ceilings are worth a close look. A good example of 1980s Art Deco is
the UFS Dispensary. It won a New Zealand Institute of Architect's Design
Award in 1985 after being built to replace a Spanish Mission Building.
Any tour of Art Deco Napier should start at the Hawke's Bay Museum on
Marine Parade. As a backgrounder, first see the 20-minute continuous
audio-visual presentation "The Great Hawke's Bay Earthquake."
Then view the exhibition "Newest City on the Globe" which
includes many examples of Art Deco design.
Napier, with a population of 57,000, is located in the Hawke's Bay area
on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is one of the country's
largest wine and fruit growing regions.
Black
Bridge Estate Winery, Hawkes Bay Photographer:
Chris McLennan (www.cmphoto.co.nz)
|
The
Hawke’s Bay wine region excels with classic varietals such
as merlot, cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and syrah. The local
alluvial soils are ideally suited to grape growing, as is the
Mediterranean-style climate. Many of the wineries welcome visitors
for tasting and cellar door sales – wine trail maps make
it easy to find your way around.
|
The
city is 420 kilometers (250 miles) southeast of Auckland. Allow seven
to eight hours driving time. Napier is also served from Auckland and
other New Zealand cities by Air New Zealand.
NAPIER:
THE THIRTIES REVISITED
was first published in the Regina Leader-Post
