Hands up if you don't like Art Deco style buildings. Right, you as a minority can leave the room then.
We are losing too many Art Deco buildings to rapacious developers and negligent authorities
Modest but still quite deco at Heape Court and Little Lonsdale Street, soon to be redeveloped. Note the old ad with a six digit phone number. We now have eight digit phone numbers but well in the 1990s Myer department store had a five digit phone number. The first two numbers would have once been letters, such WB 4753. I've no idea why. As for Phillips Shirts, the good old days when we made shirts in Australia.
279 Little Collins Street
309 Little Collins Street
306 Little Collins Street
212 King Street
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Development so often doesn't mean progress.
ReplyDeleteEC, change is fine, when it is for the better.
DeleteIt is always a thrill to spot a good deco building.
ReplyDeletePat, I can't remember too many in your city, so if they are there, they need to protected and not have overwhelming towers built behind them, let alone demolished.
DeleteMy old house was of an art deco design. We had to leave it because the maintenance cost was too great. You have found quite a few nice buildings in cbd
ReplyDeleteRoentare, I can well imagine, nay know the cost of maintaining older properties. We've been there. Do you know about the demolition of Lonsdale House. We attended a protest meeting and wrote letters and emails, to no avail.
DeleteDevelopers only care about one thing and that is not our architectural heritage.
ReplyDeleteGenerally that is the case YP.
DeleteOf all the lectures I gave over decades, the Deco series were by far the most popular. So I was a bit anxious when you wrote "we are losing too many Art Deco buildings to rapacious developers and negligent authorities". Surely heritage buildings are registered and protected!
ReplyDeletePerhaps it was easier to preserve picture theatres, petrol stations and blocks of flats than it was to preserve business buildings in the centre of the city.
Hels, I am not surprised about the popularity. The first building I showed is nothing too special but it is the area that is special and very unsuited to high rise development. I hope I am wrong but I don't know that there has been devotion to formally protrect art deco in our city.
DeleteI like 306 Little Collins Street. We had a few Deco homes for sale recently in Adelaide and I thought about mentioning them to you, just to look at, but then I thought again and decided not. Most were quite small and not modernised in anyway, although a couple were on the larger side and quite nice.
ReplyDeleteRiver, 306 is a stunner and I spent a few minutes looking for information about it, but probably in the wrong places. Of course you should have mentioned them to me. It is always about the basic bones of a building and can they be returned to glory.
DeleteI think it was Whelan the Wrecker who destroyed so many beautiful buildings in Melbourne before someone saw the light and slapped heritage listings on them.
ReplyDeleteIndeed it was Caro, and the company proudly erected the sign Whelan was Here. Across the Kingsway intersection from us is a modern building know as Iloura. It replaced the old mansion of the same name and in book one of the team who brought it down expressed his real sorrow at the time as he was destroying such a property.
DeleteThe rounded corners give the buildings that distinctive elegant look as well as some of the bold flat fronts.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever get to or have been to Napier NZ you would have the time of your life. Art Deco capital of the world!
Cathy, it was on our itinerary for out NZ cruise in 2019 but some nasty business happened in Christchurch and we missed stopping at Napier. I have seen lots of photos and of course the reason it is so art deco is an earthquake.
DeleteI hope all these buildings are now protected.
ReplyDeleteMarie, I am not at all confident that they are.
DeleteNice buildings! I love those curved windows in Deco buildings. I think the letters at the beginning of the old phone numbers used to stand for the exchange -- like MU for Murray Hill in New York, for example.
ReplyDeleteSteve, I've never checked about the letters. It was before my time but there were still a lot displayed. I think you are right about the exchange.
DeleteWhat a crime to lose these gorgeous buildings. ~sigh~ Thanks for the photos.
ReplyDeleteDarla, aside from the first, I hope none of the others will be lost.
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