Coliseum Cinema, Porthmadog

The Coliseum in Porthmadog, Wales is a sweet little cinema.

The roofline consists of a simple stepped arrangement above a semi-circular grouping of three windows and the name, Coliseum presented in a classic deco style.

The cinema was opened in 1931 and appears to have reached the pinnacle of its fame in the mid 1960s when the cast and crew working on the TV series The Prisoner in nearby Portmeirion would gather each day to watch the rushes.

Projectionist, Bob Piercy, reflects on those times in this interview especially a special preview of the first episode Arrival.

Hotel Arthur, Helsinki

When I visited Finland, I stayed in Hotel Arthur in Helsinki, chosen purely on the name (father-in-law), the location (central) and the cost (good value). So I was pleasantly surprised to find a bit of deco decoration.

It hard to say how old the decoration is. The rest of the building did not look particularily old or deco.

The Hotel Arthur website indicates the hotel celebrated 100 years in 2007 but surely 1907 is too early for this style. I guess it doesn't really matter but it is sometimes nice to know.

The other thing about this photo is the icicles and snow on the window sill. I went in the first week of March thinking that the weather would be starting to get a bit better after winter.

Well. It didn't snow while I was there but the harbour was still filled with pack ice and I was very glad I'd taken my woollen hat and warm overcoat.

Florin Court, London

You may recognise this building as Whitehaven Mansions, the London home of Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, in the the British TV series Poirot starring David Suchet.

In actual fact it is Florin Court in Charterhouse Square.

The undulating wave of the facade of this building is absolutely spectatcular and I never tire of seeing it when we visit Poirot through our television screens.

I've just watched The Third Floor Flat, an episode from series 1, where a women is murdered two floors down from Poirot and he barely leaves the building during the whole show. Bliss ... except for the poor murdered woman of course.

Disco, Port Melbourne

In 1940 a simple red brick building was constructed in Port Melbourne for Disco Manufacturing to provide car parts for General Motors Holden in nearby Fishermen's Bend.

The two storey building has a simple facade with a low stepped parapet directly about the front entrance. The Disco sign is above the loading bay entrance.

The building curves around the corner and looks quite elegant from this angle with its squat flagpole topping off the corner.

At a later stage, GMH took over the building for their Management and Technical Education Centre (MATEC) and now the main part of the building is used by Cambridge University Press.

The Rose, Port Melbourne

When Pat Grainger wrote Chartered Scoundrels - A brief history of Port Melbourne hotels, she chose this picture to illustrate The Rose in Bay Street.

Established as the Rose and Crown Hotel in 1875, like so many Port pubs it was given a makeover in the 1930s to stave off closure by the authorities.

D F Cowell Ham designed the modernised building which was completed in 1939.

His facade is quite plain with most of the decoration of horizontal waves in the band along the stepped roofline. Perhaps in reference to the sea port location.

The central vertical element supports a flagpole allowing the pub to be identified among its similarily sized neighbours.

Those neighbouring buildings got a little shorter one hot October Sunday in 2007.

The gable of the building two doors down fell onto street below scattering bricks across the footpath. It brought the drinkers from The Rose and Chequers, across the road, to see what all the commotion was.

Luckily it didn't happen the following day when Bay Street would have been crowded with people.

Later that evening the Council closed the street and did a forced drop of the gable from the next door building to ensure it didn't fall at a later time. The photo above shows the second gable still in situ with the bricks lying on the footpath.

Not long after this, The Rose lost its dusky pink colouring and was repainted white and grey as shown below with its 'topless' neighbours.

You may also notice (click on the photo to see a bigger version) that although the pub is now known as The Rose, the vertical sign and the flag carry both a rose and a crown motif remembering the original Rose and Crown name.

S&W Cafeteria, Asheville

The decoration on the former S&W Cafeteria in Asheville, North Carolina is amazing.

It is hard to know where to start. The most obvious features are the large windows at street level. Two of them arched shaped, either side of the front door and a rectangular one further to the left.

And of course there are those fabulous blue tiles on the roof. Just ignore the greenery growing between them.

There are a few design elements that are repeated in other parts of the facade.

Just below the roofline, there are a couple of zig-zag lines in blue, gold and cream punctuated with green dots.

A simplified version of this design is repeated in the metal band across the rectangular window.

And in the metal beside the arched windows.

The blue and cream chrevrons around the windows get better the closer you look.

Above the door 'S & W Cafeteria' is displayed in an ornate frame topped with a colourful basket of fruit.

The S & W Cafeteria was built in 1929 from designs by Douglas D Ellington. It seems to have been an Asheville institution for almost 5 decades until it closed in 1974.

Since then it had housed various businesses but was empty and for sale when I saw it in 2005.

So I was thrilled the other day to see an article by Mark Barrett from the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper reporting that the old S&W Cafeteria has been restored and re-opened as S&W Steak and Wine restaurant.

Looks like a win-win and I hope the citizens of Asheville appreciate this art deco gem while they are enjoying their dinner.

Chequerboard Flats, Westminister

These amazing blocks of flats were designed by Edwin Lutyens for the Grosvenor and Regency Estate around Page Street, SW1. Central London.

They date from 1928-30 and were built as social housing, more commoningly known as council flats.

The Housing Prototypes website has more detail on how Lutyens came to design these buildings and a detailled description of their structure including quite a few pictures.

Calle de Alcalá 45, Madrid

I found this building at 45 Calle de Alcalá on a short visit to Madrid.

Overall, the building is bit too block-like for me but it does have these wonderful reliefs on the facade.

The one shown on the left is at the top of the main part of the building and has a mirror image on the other side.

The one shown below on the next level down. It is much more sculptural and protrays a group of three figures. It too has a partner which while similar in execution, protrays a different group of figures.

It seems that various banks and financial organisations have used this building and you can see why they would be lured to this formidible structure.