Belfast Art Deco Walking Tour

While all eyes are on South Africa this weekend, I'm thinking of Belfast and I wish I was there.

PLACE, the Architecture and Built Environment Centre for Northern Ireland is running a Belfast Art Deco Walking Tour this Saturday at 12:30pm.

No doubt it will include some great deco buildngs like Sinclair's,

the Bank of Ireland

and my personal favourite, the elephants on the former Burton's Store in Ann Street.

If there's a tour booklet can someone pick one up fo me ... then we just got to work out how to get it to Melbourne.

former Majestic Cinema, Belfast

The Majestic Cinema in Belfast opened in May 1936 and closed in October 1975. It is currently an Ideas furniture store.

It was designed by Belfast architect J McBride Neill.

The basic shape of the building remains but the original tiles have been removed or covered. Certainly the flagpole which was at the centre of the facade has been removed.

There is a great picture of the cinema in November 1954 on Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/oldcinemaphotos/2298609350/).

Sinclair's, Belfast

This magnificent building is the former Sinclair's Store in the centre of Belfast.

The flat facade across the corner site is dominated by this large deco clock which is stepped out and up from the parapet.

At ground level the entrance is sheltered by a large ribbed verandah while the spandrels below each window carry a deco medallion inscribed with an 'S' to denote Sinclair's, the stores owners.

King's Hall, Belfast

The main exhibition and concert hall in Belfast for a long time has been The King's Hall.

It was built in the early 1930s for the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society and hosts the annual agricultural show.

The stepped facade with a series of deco fins hides the semi-circular auditorium.

A simple clock at the centre of the facade sits below lettering spelling out "The King's Hall". And just above that a is a beautiful art deco arrangement acting as a support for the flagpole.

The area is surrounded by a blue railing fence supported by white deco pillars. Even the gates themselves have a great deco style to them.

Lisburn Road Fire Station, Belfast

The thing that stands out to me on this Fire Station on the Lisburn Road in Belfast is the rendered arc joining the two small windows on the central part of the facade. It is echoed in the cicular segments above each of the small window on the set-back wings of the building.

It is hard to tell in the photo but there is a chequer-board effect in the brick work on the wings.

The flagpole and the stepped parapet partially hiding the pitched roof round off the deco features.

Burton's Deco Elephants

Before I travelled to Belfast to catch up with my parents who were on holiday there, I found this Belfast Art Deco website about a building in Ann St which had these amazing elephant decorations (above & left).

The website said it was a mystery what the building was so I was thrilled when my Dad guided me to Ann St and on first sight of the building announced that it used to be Burton's the Tailors.

My Dad was born in Belfast and lived there for almost 30 years before we emigrated to Australia. You can't beat local knowledge.

The shop is quite small and bears two such stylised elephant heads as capitals to the columns dividing the windows on the building's facade. Other deco features can be see around the windows and on the cartouche at the top of the building which would have contained the Burton's name.

Belfast Art Deco website has since been updated and notes that the Ann St Burton's store was designed by a Burton's employee N Martin in 1932 while the elephants were designed by E A Moore.

The site also records that there are other Burton's stores in England also bearing elephants.

I discovered this for myself about a month after I returned to London where I was living at the time. I was driving around with a friend from Australia randomly spotting deco buildings when I saw the elephants again in Greenwich.

Later still, I saw them again in Streatham, South london (right & below). They were on a pub but there is no doubt the building is a former Burton's store.

It is bigger than the Belfast store and has four elephants but a lot of the other decoration is identical.

There is however one subtle difference. The elephant's tusks point outwards on the Belfast store and inwards on the Streatham store.

I am not a building expert but it looks to me that the Streatham elephants are cast in concrete where the Belfast ones are perhaps carved from stone. There is certainly more detail in the Belfast elephants and I suspect that those tusks would break off if they tried to produce them using a cast.

A search of flickr (see links below and please take the time to have a look at these great pictures) has revealed to me other locations in England where the Burton's elephants still gather including the Greenwich location where I had first seen them in England. All of the 'English' elephants have tusks that point inwards.

It seems these elephants continue to bring up questions.

Barking, uploaded by bowroaduk
Greenwich, uploaded by bowroaduk
Wolverhampton, uploaded by suselstahl
Oldham, uploaded by Stan.W
Weston-Super-Mare, uploaded by Fray Bentos
Halifax, uploaded by Martinish
Chatham, uploaded by BrianD36

Bank of Ireland Buildings, Belfast

The Bank of Ireland Buildings dominate the view along Royal Avenue in Belfast. It dates from 1928 by architects McDonnell and Dixon.

A clock tower with the main entrance to the bank set in the base at street level dominates the corner. The green oxidised copper dome on top goes well with the darker green under the windows and the main doors.

Asymmetrical wings stretch out from the tower perhaps to make the best use of an irregular shaped city block.

The metal work on main doors to the bank offer a pleasant art deco pattern. Simple rectangles supporting a vertical line of chevrons with a gold coloured piece at the bottom of each one.

The design is repeated in the transom window.

Above the doorway, the name of the buildings is shown in relief highlighted in black.

Another doorway along the side of the buildings is identified by the name of the bank shown in relief above it and again, like the main entrance, the name is highlighted in black. Further above the name of the bank, a relief of a stylised face provides further decoration.

The Belfast Daily Photo featured this building in September 2007 indicating that it was empty at that time and worried about its future. I add my concern and hope that a suitable use can be found for this gem.