A House on the Golf Links Estate, Camberwell

This house is on a large corner block on the Golf Links Estate in Camberwell. The property is surrounded by a low wall with regularly spaced piers topped with a simple stepped geometric form.

This house also demostrates an interesting feature of the Golf Links Estate with a narrow flowerbed between the wall and the footpath bringing the private garden outside the property to the public space. In some streets this etra garden space is well used while in others it is a bit hit and miss with some owners extending the width of the footpath to fill-in the flowerbed.

The house itself is rendered and painted in a cream colour with decoration provided through the use dark bricks in irregular patterns on the corners of the building and around the front entrance.

Bow House, London

In 2009 English Heritage listed Bow House, the former Poplar Town Hall, at Grade II level.

At the time,the BBC website carried this story about the building and several others in Tower Hamlets that also received Grade II listing.

The story quotes Ewart Culpin, who designed the building with his son, Clifford as saying the building was "the first town hall in this country to be erected in the modern style".

Along the face of the canopy above the entrance there is a mosiac with four figures representing literacy and educational subjects such as art, reading and geography. The mosiac also includes Poplar Borough Council coat of arms and a zig-zag water motif representing Poplar's location on the River Thames.

The underside of the canopy shows various locations along the Thames with representations of ships and many of the cargoes they transported up the river.

The major piece of decoration on the front of Bow House in a series of friezes depicting various trades and professions.

Rogano, Glasgow

Rogano is Glasgow's old surviving restaurant.

Even on a cold, wet Scottish evening, when I took this photo, the class of its 1935 Art Deco frontage shines through.

Planters @ Art Gallery & Museum, Castlemaine

This is the Castlemane Art Gallery & Museum (1931) by Percy Meldrum.

I've written about it before, so today I want to highlight the two large, clunky, concrete planter boxes that sit on the raised area in front of the gallery.

They feature Australian animals that I'm sure you'll recognise.

Koalas


Parrots


Kangaroo


Kookaburras

Warehouse Market, Tulsa

I recently came into contact with artist Celeste Vaught and found out about Tulsa Brick x Brick, an ambitious project to highlight Tulsa's rich architectural heritage through Celeste's paintings and contributed stories about the buildings.

Her blog includes a painting of the Warehouse Market Building. I like how Celeste is able to simplify the image yet still capture the essence of the building whereas my photos show the building in all its realistic glory (or not).

The Warehouse Market is a fabulously decorated Art Deco building from 1929. It was designed by B Gaylord Noftsger and the tower makes it a relatively low-rise landmark on the edge of downtown Tulsa.

The terracotta surrounding the door is stunning. The lettering above the door spelling out 'Public Market' has been chipped off leaving some scaring but the rest of the artwork is so good that the damage is barely noticable at first glance.

In close-up, the detail and colours get even better.

Two medallions, one on either side of the entrance depict representation of Industry and Agriculture.

Q&A with me on Inside Out Magazine's Blog

I recently completed a Q&A with Inside Out Magazine with the resulting interview appearing on their blog earlier today.

Read my Q&A on Inside Out Magazine's blog

Garden Avenue, East Melbourne

This is one of the blocks of flats in the Art Deco enclave of Garden Avenue in East Melbourne.

Home Savings Bank, Albany

The State Capital of New York, Albany, is the location of this Art Deco bank. The Home Savings Bank from 1927 was designed by architects Dennison & Hirons.

At ground level the main entrance is large and impressive befitting a bank building. The scroll and wreath above the door recalls an earlier style of decoration but elsewhere on the lower level of the building are pure Art Deco.

There are several panels like the one shown above with stylised floral forms. These decorative panels and others on the upper levels were executed by Rene Paul Chambellan who worked on many Art Deco buildings including the Chanin Building in New York City.

Chambellan's coloured terracotta panels near the top of the Home Savings Bank Building are truly spectacular. They depict a Colonial Settler and a Native American facing each other across a beautifully coloured floral panel.