Art Deco Buildings

Hill House, Helensburgh

2012-02-15T20:38:00.002+11:00

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was the architect of Hill House in Helensburgh which was built in 1902 for the Blackie family.

The dull exterior belies a glorious, mostly white, interior jointly designed by Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald but you'll have to visit to see that for yourself. The National Trust for Scotland website has some interior photos and details of how you can visit the property.

References:
National Trust for Scotland, Places to Visit, Hill House
Hill House, GreatBuildings.com

Giffith City Library

2012-02-13T19:29:00.002+11:00

A plague on the Griffith City Library reads that this was the original site of the Council Chambers - 25 January 1935. So I presume that the library was built in 1935.

Apartments, Montevideo

2012-02-12T21:18:00.002+11:00

Montevideo was such a great Deco city to explore. This apartment building is just a block or two off the main street Avenida 18 de Julio. It has an interesting asymmetrical façade with squared edges on the corner of the building and curved balconies on the other side of a central projection. The main doors are around the corner and feature metalwork consisting of interlocking circles and and horizontal bars. The really interesting aspect for me however is a series on panels on the projecting section of the façade bearing combinations of circles and other geometric and floral patterns.

Hotel Cecil, Buenos Aires

2012-02-11T20:06:00.003+11:00

A great little modernist building in Buenos Aires with an amazing sign.

Edificio Caxias, Copacabana

2012-02-08T21:40:00.002+11:00

I was lucky to get a quick look inside the foyer of Edificio Caxias when I was wondering around Copacabana.

Water Trough, Yenda

2012-02-06T20:17:00.004+11:00

It is perhaps fitting that Yenda, a small town in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA), has a concrete water trough just off the central park area. The inscription reads

Donated by
Annis & George Bills
Australia

~~~ UPDATE ~~~

Robin Grow has provided a link explaining who Annis & George Bills were. In part it reads ...

George Bills died 14 Dec 1927 and his wife, Annis died on the 20 Jun 1910. After providing some personal bequests, his will directed the income from the residue of his estate to be used to provide troughs for horses, and for the purpose of preventing cruelty, and alleviating the sufferings of animals in any country.

More then 500 troughs were erected in Australia mostly in New South Wales and Victoria, and some in overseas countries---England, Ireland, Switzerland [for donkeys] and Japan.

...

Later a standard design was adopted, and Rolca concrete products supplied many hundreds of the troughs in Victoria and New South Wales. Troughs were supplied on application to the Bills Trust by Councils, and truckloads of 10 would often leave the Rocla Factory for installation by a team of men in country towns.

Website: Bills Horse Troughs

Dreamland, Margate

2012-02-05T13:11:00.002+11:00

The Dreamland cinema was opened on 22 March 1935. It was designed by architects, J R Leathart, W R Granger and J B Iles.

It survived as a single auditorium cinema until 1973 when the balcony was converted into twin cinemas and the stalls area converted into a bingo hall.

My photo dates from 2001 when the cinemas and bingo hall were still open. Both cinemas and the bingo closed in 2007.

References:
Art Deco Super-Cinemas of Margate, Margate Museum Fact Sheet No. 5
Lost Bingo Halls - Dreamland Bingo Margate, Playing Bingo UK website

Old Toronto Stock Exchange

2012-02-03T13:38:00.002+11:00

Here are some cropped photos of Charles Comfort's frieze on the façade of the old Toronto Stock Exchange building (Samuel Maw, 1937). It is now used as the Design Exchange but whoever decided to put the ornamental lamp posts right in front of the frieze perhaps should go back to design school.

Reference:
Art Deco Architecture in Toronto, by Tim Morawetz

From New York to Fish Creek Exhibition

2012-02-01T21:42:00.003+11:00

I received a call from the West Gippsland Arts Centre on Monday afternoon saying that they had had a cancellation and could I hang my From New York to Fish Creek exhibition any earlier ... like this week!

'Of course', I said. What an opportunity!

So after two very busy days (and nights) I now have an exhibition. The captions aren't done yet but they'll be up as soon as I can get them done.

I'm pleased with how it looks so far and I had quite a few interested viewers and favourable comments as the frames went up.

From New York to Fish Creek
West Gippsland Arts Centre, Warragul

Open Weekdays 9am - 5pm
Web 1 Feb to Fri 24 Feb, 2012

A peek inside the Manchester Unity Boardroom

2012-01-30T18:26:00.001+11:00

Signs Publishing, Warburton

2012-01-29T22:25:00.003+11:00

The Signs Publishing Company, the Australian publishing house of the Seventh-Day Adventists, moved to Warburton in 1906 having operated before that as the Echo Publishing Company in the Melbourne suburb of North Fitzroy.

Like the original factory of the nearby Sanitarium Health Food Company (SHF), the first Signs Publishing building was badly damaged when the River Yarra flooded in 1934.

And again like SHF a new building was designed by Edward F Billson and constructed in 1935.

Billson worked with Walter Burley Griffin so it is not unexpected that I can see Frank Lloyd Wright influences particularly in the arched brick decoration surrounding the main door.

I especially like the use Billson has made of blue bricks to divide the windows contrasting against the red window frames.

Reference:
Signs Publishing Company Factory, Warburton Adventists website

former Sanitarium Factory, Warburton

2012-01-28T22:59:00.003+11:00

I used to spend quite a lot of time in Warburton and have loved this metal gate from the first time I saw it.

The gate is looking a bit worse for wear now as is the building that it leads to, the former Sanitarium Factory. They used to make Weet-Bix here which explains the stylised stalk of wheat worked into the design of the gate.

The Sanitarium Health Food Company, owned by the Seventh-Day Adventists, had built an earlier factory on the banks of the Yarra River in Warburton next to their Signs Publishing complex but it was damaged by flood in 1934 so architect Edward F Billson was commissioned to design a new factory on higher ground. It was completed in 1939 and won Billson the Street Architecture Medal from the Royal Victoria Institute of Architects (RVIA) in 1940.

The factory closed in 1997 but hopefully a new lease of life as a conference and reception centre awaits this handsome building with plans for refurbishment in the pipeline since around 2006.

The Warburton Adventists website includes an extensive photo gallery of their former factory.

Reference:
Sanitarium Health Food Company Factory, Warburton Adventists website

Wade Building, Hastings

2012-01-27T21:35:00.000+11:00

Wade Building, Hastings, NZ

115 Cressy Street, Deniliquin

2012-01-25T19:51:00.003+11:00

As you can see this a simple clean stylish deco shopfront. It has a nice use of contrasting tiles and very simple design elements such as the two horizontal bands of cream tiles to the right of the doorway.

What I find interesting is that the rest of the building is older at least by a decade or three.

Commercial pressures probably lead to the redesign of the building at street level and here again in April 2011 when I took this picture the commercial forces are looking for a new owner for this fine building.

Caister Road Bus Depot, Great Yarmouth

2012-01-21T22:23:00.002+11:00

I was looking through some old photos today and came across the Caister Road Bus Depot in Great Yarmouth.

According to the memories of Patrick Burnside it was the garage for the blue & cream buses of Great Yarmouth Corporation Transport. By the time these photos were taken in around 2001 the buses were still blue and cream (although more cream than blue) but 'The Corporation' was long gone.

The red brick bulk of the building is broken up by vertical fins running either side of the garage openings and there are three panels showing different forms of transport.

There's ...

a carriage ...

a very early steam train ...

but my favourite is the blue Routemaster style bus.

Reference:
Great Yarmouth Corporation Transport by Patrick Burnside, Our Great Yarmouth website

House, Frinton-on-Sea

2012-01-20T20:11:00.001+11:00

A modernist house in Frinton-on-Sea.

Travellers Rest Hotel, Thorpedale

2012-01-18T21:49:00.002+11:00

It says 1937 on the pediment of the Travellers Rest Hotel in Thorpedale. The lettering spelling out the pub name and that whole central section of the pub are so typical of mid to late 1930s Streamline design.

And closer inspection revealed that many of the windows still bear the original etched glass some, like the that shown in the photograph below have the stylised TRH initials.

From New York to Fish Creek Exhibition

2012-01-16T10:35:00.003+11:00

Plans for my From New York to Fish Creek exhibition are progressing nicely which is just as well because it is less than a month away.

For anyone in the Warragul area, the exhibition is open to the public, free, on weekdays Tue 14th Feb - Fri 24th Feb at the West Gippsland Arts Centre, cnr Smith & Albert Sreets, Warragul. (Visit the WGAC Exhibitions webpage for details)

I've designed a poster which should attract a bit of attention.

Luck's Corner, Launceston

2012-01-15T21:44:00.002+11:00

Former Luck's Butchers Store from 1937 in Launceston, Tasmania. It's now a restaurant.

Railway Club Hotel, Seymour

2012-01-14T16:39:00.002+11:00

The rural Victorian town of Seymour boasts these two fine pubs. The Art Deco style Railway Club Hotel in the foreground and the Terminus Hotel behind that. They are close to the Railway Station ... believe it or not.

The Railway Club Hotel has very nice Art Deco style tiles at street level. Interestingly, so does the Victorian style Terminus Hotel.

Tiles on the street level façade of the Railway Club Hotel, Seymour

Tiles on the street level façade of the Terminus Hotel, Seymour

Clevelander, Miami South Beach

2012-01-13T13:11:00.002+11:00

Clevelander (1938) on Ocean Drive designed by Albert Anis.

Reference:
The Clevelander Hotel: Where the Action Begins, Ocean Drive Miami Beach website

Hotel Terminus, Shepparton

2012-01-11T20:23:00.002+11:00

In 1938 Melbourne architects J F Ballantyne & Roy Wilson remodelled the Hotel Terminus in Shepparton. They added a second storey and extended the ground floor of the original 1880s building giving the old hotel a slick Moderne look.

Reference:
City of Greater Shepparton Heritage Study Stage II, Allom Lovell & Associates, February 2004

Union Depot, Tulsa

2012-01-09T19:21:00.002+11:00

At its peak, the Tulsa Union Depot serviced as many as 36 trains daily but the days of train as a major form of transport was numbered and this fine building ceased operation in 1967. A useful life of just 36 years.

Empty and falling apart, it was rescued and restored in the 1980s and was used as office space demonstrating that older buildings can be adapted and reused.

Since 2007 it has been the home of the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.

Reference:
Tulsa Preservation Commission website

Barlow & Weller Pharmacy, Denilquin

2012-01-08T21:07:00.002+11:00

A small corner shop in rural Australia, Denilquin, New South Wales to be precise. A simple building as you would expect currently occupied by Barlow & Weller's Pharmacy. But the roofline has that extra Art Deco something. Horizontal bars curving around the corner and two rounded pylons marking the entrance. Nice.

A House in Ararat

2012-01-07T22:52:00.001+11:00