Teatro Opera, Buenos Aires

Is's a bit cold in Buenos Aires at the moment, only 7C, but sights like this certainly warm me up.

A House in Albury

I'm sure you remember another house in Albury that I posted earlier this month. A wonderful two storey Art Deco confection in a white and green colour scheme.

That post drew a comment about the next-door house with a great entrance.

This is it! Another beauty, you'll agree.

3632 Fillmore, Marina

The apartment block is at 3632 Fillmore in the Marina area of San Francisco.

What do you think about the paint job?

I think it is a bit gaudy. Deco doesn't need to be this garish. A simple scheme using one or two colours at most is often enough to let Art Deco patterns come alive with light and shadow as the sun passes across their surface.

Troy House of Music, Footscray

Troy House of Music, Footscray

Hangar 85, Essendon Airport

Sydney architect, Arthur Baldwin, designed two hangars at Essendon Airport which were built by the Department of Air Production in 1944 for the production of Beaufort bombers.

Hangar 85 includes a two storey red brick section for offices alongside the large open work space.

The windows run in two hoizontal bands across the face of the building shaded by a simple concrete ledge. Three storey sections at both ends of the office building providing a softer transition to the taller work space.

A flagpole and clock face at the freeway end of the building make a nice grouping of features linked by horizontal bands in the brickwork.

After the second world war both hangars were taken over by Trans Australian Airlines (TAA).

References:
Essendon Airport Tour Booklet, Art Deco & Modernism Society, June 2011

Accommodation Block, Laverton

A week or so ago, when I wrote about an Art Deco accommodation block in Laverton dating from 1935, I mentioned there was a row of three such accommodation blocks.

This is one of the other blocks and, although all three are similar in bulk and layout, the ones on either end do not have the same level of decoration as the middle one.

Still, their simple decoration is quite stylish and the courses of bricks stepping back towards the doorway make a very handsome entrance.

A Shop in Port Melbourne

I wrote about this former shop at 9a Raglan Street, Port Melbourne almost three years ago but today I was prompted to do some research into its history.

My source of information was the archives of the Port Melbourne Historical & Preservation Society (PMHPS) where I was able to view information from the Sands & McDougall directories and a database of Port People compiled from local church records and some family details provided by researchers and people looking into their family trees.

A man called John Byrne set up a grocers, certainly not in this exact shop front but in this location on the corner of Raglan Street and Easplanade East in 1891. He was married to Margaret Cecilia (Torris) and they had seven children over the the next fourteen years.

Joseph Vincent Byrne was born in 1895 and by 1924 he had joined his father in the grocery business. Joseph was married to Bridget Agnes (Stenson) by the early to mid 1920s because, as we will see later, they had a daughter, Imelda Joan, born around this time.

John & Joseph continued to work together for around the next decade afterwhich the business is listed solely under Joseph's name.

Joseph & Bridget's daughter Imelda was a school teacher when she married a clerk from Bentleigh called Francis Wellesley Walker at St Joseph's Church, Rouse Street in Feburary 1954. At that time Joseph gave his occupation as a grocer.

That's where my research trail goes cold but for over 60 years, John & Joseph Byrne, father and son, together and separately ran a grocers shop here and, in all probability, added this handsome modern shop front during the Art Deco period.

So why was I prompted to re-visit this particular former shop. You may have already guessed that, in a good sense, it is a former shop no longer. It is the temple of art ... where art meets design, an exciting addition to the Port artistic landscape.

It is so good to see these older building used again and I wish them much success over the next 60 years or so.

A House in Albury

I think this is the best Art Deco house in Albury and would be in a lot of other places as well.

I love the sweep of the front steps and the overall curvaceousness of the house. The matching lights either side of the front door, at the door leading to the upper storey terrace and also above the garage door.

And look at those continuous shade eyebrows encircling the house above the windows.

Commerce House, Wangaratta

T&G Building, Albury

The T&G Building in Dean Street is one of the stand-out Art Deco buildings in Albury.

The original two-storey portion of the T&G Building replaced an eariler shop in 1935 with the tower and front portion added in 1940 to designs by A & K Henderson & Partners.

Reference:
Albury Interwar Heritage Walk, Robin Grow, Art Deco & Modernism Society, June 2010

Albury Delightfully Deco Exhibition

Last night I went to the opening of the Albury Delightfully Deco exhibition showing at two sites, the Art Gallery and the Library/Museum, in the NSW city of Albury.

The curator, Tracey Judd Iva, has done a fantastic job to bring together so many diverse Art Deco objects. Radios from a private collection in Sydney, clothes and jewellery from a private collection in Melbourne, cameras and all manner of items from local Albury collections including the AlburyCity Collection.

The highlight is undoubtedly the 1936 Cord (pictured above). I don't recall how few Cords were built or what the miniscule number that reached Australia is but the answer is not very many. The ABC filmed the car driving into the museum for this exhibition.

The exhibition also includes 4 motorbikes, all from local collections. A 1922 Hercules, 1922 GCS Super Sports, 1931 Raleigh and a 1927 Indian Scout.

A dedicated section of the museum deals with the incredible story of the KLM plane, the Uiver, and its link with Albury during the 1934, Macpherson Robinson funded, London to Melbourne air race. Rare KLM tickets and other mememorabilia relating to the Uiver was recently donated to the AlburyCity Collection by the Domenie Family descendants of Roelof Jan Domenie one of the passengers on that Uiver flight.

I especialy liked the works by women modernist artists including Theo Proctor, Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme. There are also photographs by Max Dupain, travel posters by James Northfield and bookplates by Napier & Christian Waller.

The exhibition is free and runs until Sunday 9th October with a full program of supporting workshops and events including the lighting of several significant Albury deco buildings like the T & G Building pictured below.

Reference:
Delightfully Deco Catalogue, Albury City Council, 2011

Accommodation Block, Laverton

This accommodation block in Laverton dates from 1935.

It is the centre block of three and it has more elaborate entrance than the other two.

Reference:
Victorian Heritage Database

A House in Ararat

This fabulous Art Deco house is in Ararat.

It is a wonderful arrangement of coloured bricks and cream rendered sections topped off with a stunning deco porch. The low wall is simple and stylish and allows the beautiful house to been seen by passing foot and car traffic. A strip of garden outside the wall beside the footpath gives passers-by another reason to linger and enjoy this lovely property.

I think I caught this place at a wonderful time of year with the Autumn colours of the specimen tree in the front garden contrasting against the tall native Australian trees behind the house.

RAAF Memorial, Point Cook

RAAF Memorial, unveiled by the Govenor General of Australia, 30th October 1938.

44 Wirraway Road, Essendon Airport

44 Wirraway Road at Essendon Airport was designed by H Garnet Alsop and built in 1940. The somewhat plain building features this tower at one end with three porthole windows, small circular porch and a selection of coloured bricks on either side of the door. It appears there may have been a flagpole on the corner but only the wall brackets remains.

Reference:
Essendon Airport, Bus Tour Booklet, Art Deco & Modernism Sociey

Firestone Service Station, Miami

I really like the amazing series of cantilevered canopies on this Firestone Service Station in Miami. Funtionally, only one is required I think all four look sensational.

A Villa in Asmara

The residential areas of Asmara has many buildings like this one. Modernist boxes reaching to various heights with little or no decoration. A thin line around the roof line and a single shade eyebrow encircling the entire building above the upper storey windows.