VulcanSpirit - Napier "39:28.55S 176:53.47E"

Napier "39:28.55S 176:53.47E"

VulcanSpirit

Richard & Alison Brunstrom

Fri 10 Jan 2014 11:04

We have escaped the Roaring Forties and the seemingly ever-present gales of the Cook Strait and are now part way up the east side of North Island, anchored off the charming city of Napier - the 'Art Deco capital of the world'.

There is an interesting story to this claim. Napier was absolutely devastated by an earthquake and consequent fires in February 1931. Almost every building in the town entre was flattened or burnt to the ground and there was considerable loss of life. But the city bounced back - the town council delegated its powers to two specially appointed Commissioners who quite amazingly caused the entire town centre to be completely rebuilt in only two years. Nowhere else in the world is there a town centre built almost entirely in the styles of the early 1930s. Most of the few buildings to survive the quake were built in the preceding ten years and these too form a part of the story of the very rapidly evolving 20th century design. There are hints of Art Nouveau, Spanish Mission, Beaux Arts, Stripped Classical, the Chicago and Prairie Schools, NZ's unique Maori forms - and above all Art Deco, the style that epitomises the jazz age. Of the 164 buildings erected between 1920 and 1940, 140 remain today. "Napier represents the most complete and significant group of Art Deco buildings in the world, and is comparable with Bath as an example of a planned townscape in a cohesive style. Napier is without doubt unique" - Sir Neil Cossens, Chair of English Heritage. We're here to see it, and jolly good it turns out to be too.

In 1930 Napier was at the mouth of a huge (3000ha/8000acre) tidal lagoon, a shallow inland sea. The earthquake, which lasted 90 seconds, raised the surrounding land by 2 metres causing the lagoon and swamps to drain and disappear, freeing up newly created flat land for housing - Art Deco housing:

Note the clean lines, stepped roof and detailing, Art Deco motif over garage, and severe formal garden. Small Art Deco houses were once fairly common in NZ, but the unusual pattern of development in Napier has concentrated lots of them in one small area. They have been unpopular for years because their design is not particularly suited to the NZ climate (or any climate) because the lack of roof overhang leaves windows and walls unprotected from wind and rain, and the flat roofs tend to leak. However, what goes round comes round, in houses as in clothes, and these houses are once again fashionable. Space precludes any more house pictures because the bigger story is in the town centre.

So here is perhaps Napier's most flamboyantly Art Deco building:

Dating from 1932 it displays almost all the elements of the Art Deco style - zigzags, fountain shapes, ziggurats and a sunburst.

The ASB bank (1932) offers NZ's finest example of Maori carving and rafter patterns ornamenting a European style building, with the theme continued outside and in. The Maori patterning on the parapet is visible in the picture below, as is the Maori design of the column capitals. The bronze lapms flanking the massive entrance are also typically Art Deco:

Inside the traditional red white and black rafter patterns, the taiahas at the corners of the ceiling panels and the column capitals all demonstrate Maori design beautifully integrated into the Art Deco style:

Below is a typical 1932 Art Deco small commercial building whose features I think speak for themselves:

The typical corner building below is dated 1934, and the photo shows clearly not only the Art Deco style, but also a feature in NZ unique to rebuilt Napier - the absence of verandah posts. New buildings were required to cantilever their verandas over the pavement at a standard height using steel hangers anchored in the concrete facades. This gave the new street scene an uncluttered modern look in contrast to the vertical wood or iron supports seen elsewhere (verandahs are necessary not to keep rain off the pedestrians, but to protect goods displayed in windows from the sun!). This premises now house the ZigZag cafe, a very fine eatery which required more than one visit to confirm that it was as good as initially perceived to be.

The County Hotel (below) is Napier's second oldest reinforced concrete structure, built originally in 1908 in Classical Revival style and extended in 1935 to match the original. The early building survived the earthquake though its massive parapets fell off (falling parapets were a significant cause of death in the quake).

The former government building below (1936) is in Stripped Classical style with an Art Deco entrance. Stripped Classical has very low relief as you can see in the 'columns'. This form of building is very similar to those built in the same era in Washington DC as part of Roosevelt's New Deal and which make such a fine spectacle today; there they are known as Graeco-Deco. In front of the building is a contemporary lamp in Moderne style in a geometrically landscaped forecourt. The rapid evolution of such a large range of styles in the 1920s and especially the 1930s is a bewildering indicator of the mood of the times - a rush to modernity.

The Municipal Theatre (1938) has an Egyptian influence in its columns and door lintels. Because design was progressing so rapidly in the 1930s it has features not seen in the other Napier buildings largely finished by 1934 - elements of Streamline Moderne such as chrome speed lines, nautical light fittings, neon lamps:

The Museum entrance (1936) appears to have the battered walls of ancient Egyptian buildings, but these are a clever illusion. The lamp standards were inspired by those at Frank Lloyd Wright's Midway Gardens in 1913 Chicago: