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Holiday pics: Napier, Art Deco City
Yes, I've finally resized, cropped, uploaded, and captioned my Art Deco photos. There are 45 in the gallery, in two pages, but in the meantime, here's a little about Napier and Art Deco, and a selection of my favourites.
An earthquake devastated Napier in 1931 after which it was rebuilt in mostly Art Deco (with some Spanish Mission and Stripped Classical).
Art Deco symbolised the new spirit of the early 20th century, a period characterised by three important new ideas: the development of science, technology, and machines; the increasing freedom of women (and indeed everyone); and the overthrow of old conventions. It was also influenced by ancient cultures just being rediscovered, especially Egypt. The common motifs embody these ideas: geometric, angular shapes like ziggurats (stepping); symbols of power and speed like lightning flashes and zigzags, speedlines and streamlining; expressions of freedom like dancing women; the rising sun with its rays of hope; and motifs from ancient Egypt or Central America.
Here are the best ones, but Art Deco fans should go the the gallery, click on the first pic, and look at each one because of the Deco-ness and the informative captions I went to all the trouble of writing. :-P
Hotel Central
Loo Kee's Building. All the buildings are named for the original 1930s shop-owners. I love the colours in this one.
Zig-zags and rising suns combined
Criterion Hotel - Spanish Mission style, and the classiest Backpackers' ever
The Daily Telegraph Building - zigzags, fountain shapes, ziggurats, and a sunburst
A mixture of Art Deco and Mission with lotuses (Egyptian influence) and tiles
Hotel Central: zigzags and sunbursts and all in coconut-ice colours
A shoe shop showing the lovely leadlight (AKA art glass) windows and the 'ingo' entrance
Bloom's Jewellers - that ingo gadget works! They were a way of having more shop frontage and drawing people in
The ASB Building - my bank! Stripped classical with added Maori motifs
Just for the B7 fans: S Carnell was a past mayor! In my fanon his name's Sebastian--vindicated! ;-)
The Soundshell - repainted in original colours
One of a pair of leaping nude wall panels in the Municipal Theatre
The suburb of Marewa contains a large proportion of Art Deco houses. Most of the houses feature speedlines like this.
There are a lot of Art Deco houses here in Auckland, including two very nice ones just down the road, but they're widely scattered.
My favourite; even though the colours aren't traditional, they work well.
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But your motiffs are typical for your culture, I think.
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OMG! When I lived in Germany, a colleague had a house full of what he called Jugendstil furniture. I thought it was a local style but it's just clicked that it's German for 'Art Nouveau'. Duh. But back then I didn't know much about it. :-P
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And this one (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/%C3%85lesund_Jugendstil.jpg/407px-%C3%85lesund_Jugendstil.jpg). Wow.
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I see from wikipedia that 'As of 2007, Napier has been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage Site status, the first cultural site in New Zealand to be nominated'
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You can always spot an ex-cinema by its architecture, can't you?
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Years ago I attended an evening class on Architecture and the Decorative Arts, it lasted four years and we did Victorian to contemporary. I think the locals were a bit nonplussed when, on our trip to London, the coach went into a council estate just so that we could see Quinlan Terry's sewage pumping station. Anyway, to the point, I'm sure we were told that archaeology was an influence on Art Deco. A lot of it came just after the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb which started a fashion for the Egyptian look. And those motifs you are calling fountains I think are meant to be papyrus and lilies.
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Our Civic Theatre (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/gallery/0000tkp0) in Auckland, built 10 years earlier in 1923, is a real flight of fantasy.
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This is the first time I've been back to Napier since I was a teenager, and then my parents took us to Marine Parade and the famous statue of Pania of the Reef. I don't think it occurred to them that the architecture was of note. I've been wanting to go back for years.
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*cough* ...end babble.
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They did refer to the Daily Telegraph ones as 'fountain shapes' on the walk, but you may be right.
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Yes! And my favourite Art Deco building ever is the Chrysler in NY; very Sky Captain.
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These are some beautiful examples - and I especially love the ones with Maori touches. There's some old buildings out on the west coast - British Columbia - that have Haida designs worked in. Fantastic. I love it when art styles encounter and incorperate each other.
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Napier's just gorgeous, being all of harmonious styles like that. Auckland just has a few old buildings surviving amongst the ugly modernism; most were knocked down in the 80s. :-(
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I got the chance to see some fab Art Deco when I was in New York. I only saw the Chrysler Building from the outside, but the Empire State is very Art Deco on the inside. Even more spectacularly so is the Radio City Music Hall, which is one of the reasons I wanted to visit it. It's been restored back to how it originally was, complete with jazz/deco carpet and backdrop. Utterly fabulous.
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