A Tale of Two Cities
It’s that fabulous time of the year again here in Hawke’s Bay, Art Deco Weekend when Napier city is filled with the celebrations of all things Art Deco. “Art Deco was a popular international design movement from 1925 until 1939, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts and film.
This movement was, in a sense, an amalgam of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties and continued strongly in the United States through the 1930s. Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was purely decorative. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, functional, and modern.
It became widely known following the great Exposition des Arts Modernes Decoratifs et Industriels held in Paris in 1925 and from which its name was ultimately derived. By the late 1930s it was in its streamlined phase and after World War 2, the International Style, devoid of all decoration, held sway. Not until the late 1960s did people begin to rediscover it and take it seriously.
Napier, New Zealand, was rebuilt in the early 1930s following a massive Richter 7.8 Earthquake. Subsequent fires destroyed most of its commercial heart. By the end of the decade, Napier was the newest city on the globe. Nowhere else can you see the a variety of buildings in the styles of the 1930s – Stripped Classical, Spanish Mission, and above all Art Deco, the style of the 20th Century in such a concentrated area. And Napier’s Art Deco is unique, with Maori motifs and the buildings of Louis Hay, admirer of the great Frank Lloyd Wright.
Enhanced by palms and the angular Norfolk Island pines which are its trademark, and bounded by fertile fruit and grape growing plains, dramatic hills and the shores of the South Pacific, Napier is on the centre of the Hawke’s Bay region. Napier to its great credit has sustained the legacy of its brave rebuilding and savoured the spirit of the optimistic Art Deco era.
The Art Deco style was at the height of its popularity for buildings in 1931. Its clean simple lines and bas relief decoration suited the needs of the new city. It was was fashionable and with its past destroyed, Napier looked ahead and chose a style associated with Manhattan, the movies and modernism. Art Deco was safe.
With its emphasis on low relief surface decoration, Art Deco did away with the elaborate applied ornament that had fallen from the buildings in the Earthquake and caused so many deaths and injuries. Art Deco was cheap. Its relief stucco ornament was an economical way to beautify buildings during the lowpoint of the Great Depression here in New Zealand.
Other architectural styles for the period were also used including the Spanish Mission style from California and both Stripped Classical and Classical Moderne, the styles of Greece and Rome but simplified and modernised. Local architect Louis Hay’s work strongly reflects Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style in the United States Mid-West that developed in the early years of the century. Art Deco expressed all the vigor and optimism of the roaring twenties, and the idealism and escapism of the grim thirties.
Its decorative themes are sunbursts and fountains representing the dawn of a new modern age. The skyscraper shape symbolic of the 20th century, symbols of speed, power and flight representative of the exiting new developments in transport and communications, geometric shapes representing the machine and technology that it was thought would solve all our problems.
There was the ‘New Woman’ revelling in her recently won social freedoms, breaking the rules, silky jazz, short skirts and hair, shocking dances. Ancient cultures for whom oddly enough, there was a fascination with the civilisations of Egypt and Central America. All of these themes are represented on the buildings of Napier most of which are still standing today and are lovingly cared for by their owners.”
My own personal belief is that of the two cities, Napier and Hastings, Napier city has its act together where visitor and consumer focus is key. It understands the marketing niche it’s created for itself and that belief has given it the confidence over the years to ‘live into’ it. There are no half-hearted attempts, it jumped into the period and has become a market leader of the architectural art style here in New Zealand. Napier in fact has become the belle of the ball and they sure know how to throw a party!
As we dined on the smooth, light and piquant flavours of seafood chowder at Oceans Cafe in the middle of the Marine Parade, we were joined by dapper gents in their striped blazers and boater hats. In New Zealand the boater is still a common part of the school uniform in many boys schools. Being made of straw, the boater was and is generally regarded as a warm-weather hat.
“In the days when men all wore hats when out of doors, ‘Straw Hat Day’, when men switched from wearing their winter hats to their summer hats, was seen as a sign of the beginning of summer, though of course the exact date of Straw Hat Day might vary from place to place.”
The boater is a fairly formal hat, equivalent in formality to the Homburg, and so, is correctly worn either in its original setting with a blazer or in the same situations as a Homburg, such as a smart lounge suit, or with black tie. Women wafted into Oceans Cafe like a fragrant Coco Chanel No.5 wearing flapper fashion attire. It was a beautiful time warp, a beautiful day in the Bay.
