Regent Theatre, Hokitika

In the mid 1930s New Zealand town of Hokitika needed a new theatre.

The Princess Theatre had been built in the 1880s and was by then in very poor condition.

The Christchurch architect W Melville Lawry designed a new theatre and local builder E H Shirley won the tender to construct the building. The Regent Theatre was completed in December 1935. Two weeks ago it hosted the Hokitika community Christmas Carol evening.

Today the theatre is a Listed Building with a Conservation Plan developed by specilist Conservation Architect, Ian Bowman.

In recent years, a Members Society has been actively chasing 400 members, to match the number of seats in the theatre.

Regent Theatre, Hokitika website: www.hokitikaregent.com

M U Building, Adelaide

This is a great building in Franklin Street, Adelaide. I photographed it in 2005 and I hope it is still there because I didn't get to this part of town the last time I was in Adelaide.

I call it the M U Building because it has this wonderful deco motif on the facade featuring the initials M & U.

Ellan Vannin, Durban

This large block of flats in Durban is called Ellan Vannin.

From the above angle you can notice the curved end to the canopy over the doorway.

Otherwise, the minimal decoration on the building consisted almost exclusively of straight lines. The other exception is the diamond motifs at the roofline of the projecting sections of the facade.

The windows are interesting. I suspect that at one time they were all metal frames with small square panes but over time some have been replaced with larger panes.

The main doors by contrast are wooden with this fantastic sunburst design.

A House in Miami

I love the glimpse of this house in Miami over the hedge.

Naturally it is painted in pastel pink with the deco details picked out in green.

The arrangement of 5 circular discs, one serving as a porch above the main door with another four above the window provide a very striking feature. Each disc is smaller than it's predecessor as they progress up the facade.

The panel directly below the window is fantastic and someone with more patience than me painted it.

Hotel Beverley, Beverley

The town of Beverley, Western Australia, about 130km from Perth, has a couple of great art deco buildings.

This is the Hotel Beverley, originally a Victorian pub that was made-over in the 1930s.

You can see it has a corrugated iron roof, like a lot of Australian country pubs, but also has the concrete deco elements punching through the roofline.

St Dunstan's, Ovingdean

During the First World War, Arthur Pearson, owner and founder of the English newspaper, The Daily Express identified the need for a training centre for blinded soldiers returning from the front. Pearson had been blinded himself through glaucoma, was the first Presidnet and Treasurer for the National Institute for the Blind.

By March 1915 there were sixteen blind servicemen enrolled in a revolutionary training programme to help them return to as normal as life as possible and earn a living. They were housed in the residence of the American banker Otto Kahn called St Dunstan's Lodge which Kahn loaned to them for the duration of the War. These sailors and soldiers became known as St Dunstaners.

Several convalescent homes were established in the south of England including West House at Kemp Town, Brighton.

By the mid-1930s, West House was full so land was purchased nearby at Ovingdean.

Francis Lorne designed this magnificent building in the shape of an aeroplane. It was completed in 1938.

The front bears this sculpture holding a shield with St Dunstan's across the front.

Flats, Albert Park

An interesting block of flats in the Melbourne suburb of Albert Park.

Conventional, two-storey with a ptched roof on the left and streamline and minimal on the right.

A simple low wall and a neatly trimmed hedge show off the building very nicely.

St Augustine's Mansions, Durban

These are the fantastic entrance gates to St Augustine's Mansions in the Berea district of Durban.

Starting at the top, there is a band of chevrons running just below the guttering.

Directly above the gateway, the name of the mansions is inscribed in suitably stylised lettering.

On the faces of the columns are mask-like geometric decorations which are also perhaps Mayan inspired.

The gateway is flanked on each side by tapering walls bearing light fixtures. These look modern by fit in nicely with the other decorative features.