Kalingrad, East Melbourne

I call this block of flats in East Melbourne Kalingrad but I really don't have a clue. The name on the gate post reads Kalingr so I've added a few letters to come up with a suitably exotic name. If anyone knows the real name I've love to hear it.

Like so many flats built in Melbourne between the wars, this is a only three storeys tall because local building regulations would have required a lift to be installed if it was any taller.

It is lovely to see the original open balconies have not been enclosed like you see on many other flats of this type. I especially like the lines around the balonies denoting the floors. Three lines on the top floor, two lines on the middle and one at ground level.

Kalingrad is a little deco gem and even if I have got the name wrong, it will always by Kalingrad to me.

Art Deco 1910 - 1939, NGV, Melbourne

It's been a big few days for Art Deco in Melbourne.

Last Thursday saw the official opening of the the latest Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition, Art Deco 1910 - 1939 by the Premier of Victoria, John Brumby.

The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) have worked with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London since it was exhibited there in 2003 to bring many of the fabulous Art Deco treasures to Melbourne.

By necessity, not all of the pieces from the V&A exhibition have travelled to Australia but the major display from the V&A has. The reconstructed foyer from the Strand Palace Hotel has been shipped out and now takes pride of place at the NGV. Staff from the V&A saved this fantastic Art Deco structure when the hotel was being demolished in the late 1960s.

The exhibition also includes many items from the NGV collection and from private collectors and there is a separate section dedicated to Australian deco.

Another undeniable highlight is the rare Cord 812 Westchester Sedan. Only 3000 were manufactured between 1936 and 1937 and the one in the exhibition is one of only 60 right-hand drive models manufactured and one of only 16 in Australia.

There are over 300 exhibits including Cartier jewellery, Hollywood film clips and multimedia slide shows.

On Saturday, the exhibition opened to the public and the NGV hosted an Art Deco symposium which was booked out weeks ago. Judging by the numbers of people attending the first day, it should be a major success. The 2003 V&A exhibition was their most popular ever.

This morning, the Art Deco Society conducted a walking tour of Melbourne deco buildings. It was well attended and attracted visitors from interstate and the USA.

So I should be all deco-ed out but I'm still excited about the exhibition and the 99 days that it still has to run. That's because they used some of my photos in the multimedia slide shows to illustrate Art Deco buildings from around the world.

I can't deny it was a thrill to see my photos among all those great Art Deco pieces and eavesdropping on the visitors conversations as each building appeared on the screen.

If you love deco and can get to Melbourne before October 5th, do it, you won't regret it. And if you can't, you can always have a look at The Age Art Deco page presented to complement the exhibition.


Links:
Art Deco 1910 - 1939, NGV website
Art Deco Society website
The Age Art Deco page

former Coles Store, Adelaide

Architect Harry Norris designed a number of stores for the Coles retail chain from the late 1920 through to about 1940.

This store, located in Adelaide's Rundle Mall was designed towards the end of this period. It is no longer a Coles store and now serves as a retail arcade.

Norris completed the building in caramel coloured faience tiles providing a smooth surface. The metal frames of the horizontal bands of windows are painted a similar colour.

Above the top row of windows a row of cream tiles, set perpendicular to the facade, provide some measure of shading.

For me, this building demonstrates simple elegance as it curves around the corner with virtually no decoration.

Skyline Business Institute, Nairobi

I snapped this photo of the Skyline Business Institute from my hotel window in Nairobi.

It is quite an interesting building. It is four storeys tall with horizontal bands of windows running the length of the building on each level. The windows appear to be metal-framed shaded by a concrete eyebrow.

At the right-hand end of the building there are a series of concrete ribs running vertically up the facade, almost certainly identifying an entrance.

The roofline consists of a simple parapet that curves with the building around the street corner. There is, however, an unusual break in the parapet towards the left-hand end of the building and what looks like a portion of a conventional pitched roof.

It would be great to know more, if anyone out there has any further details.

Beacon Hotel, Miami

The Beacon Hotel on Miami's Ocean Drive was built in 1937 from a design by New York architect Harry O. Nelson.

The night-time neons highlight some of the deco features of the hotel's facade. The strong vertical columns above the entrance and the decoration along the roofline.

Underneath each window there are three broad bands in relief protraying the rule of three, a deco standard.

The etched doors (below) are magnificent. Semi-circular glass panes create a full circle when the doors are closed. The design features a mirror image of flamingoes and tropical plants.

Mayfair Theatre, Kaikoura

Kaikoura is a small tourist town on the South Island of New Zealand and it was lovely to see their local cinema, the Mayfair Theatre, is Art Deco in style.

A simple stepped roofline and decoration around the doors highlight the Mayfair name.

Unfortunately I didn't stay long enough to catch a flick here but I did get to see wome whales and dolphins which was fantastic.

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

A Bar in Asmara

This is a great building. Virtually no decoration but a fantastic overall shape. The curved front could be the bow of a ship.

A thin eyebrow running aroun the whole building provides shade for the windows along the side but it is interesting to see a second eyebrow just above the two front windows.

Giuseppe Arata deigned the building in 1936 an it was built on the course of the Mai Bela River so the comparison with a ship is quite appropriate.

Today the ground floor is used as a bar with the area at the front providing a shaded seating area for customers to enjoy a cool beer.

Reference:
Asmara: Africa's Secret Modernist City~ Edward Denison, Guang Yu Ren & Naigzy Gebremedhim