Monday, July 20, 2009

The Oxley, Elizabeth Bay

The Oxley, Elizabeth Bay

Elizabeth Bay is nestled on the shores of Sydney harbour, a desirable place for an Art Deco apartment.

This is The Oxley in Ward Avenue.

Most of the decoration on the facade comes from the arrangement of standard dark coloured bricks as can be seen above the windows on the squared-off corner and the stepped window boxes on the four upper floor windows on the front.

Colour is introduced around the front entrance, albeit in the form of black and white Art Deco patterning in the tiles and paintwork.

It is almost as if the doorway belongs to another building altogether.

The Oxley, Elizabeth Bay

2 comments:

  1. I wonder why there are so many red brick deco buildings in Sydney and hardly any in Melbourne. The beautiful Melbourne buildings may have been made from concrete, granite, stone or indeed rendered something else, but rarely red brick.

    Were bricks cheaper in Sydney than other building materials? Did Sydney achitects prefer the look of dark red bricks? Did bricks have better insulating properties?

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  2. Intersting point Hels. We do have a lot of deco buildings in Melbourne made of brick but it tends to be cream bricks rather that the dark red. There are some very interesting brick buildings on Brighton Rd on the opp side to StK Town Hall heading towards Glen Eira and some further up again on the same side as the TH.

    Robin Grow always says on his walks that Melb has lots of brick deco buildings because there were lots of brick works and they were cheap.

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