St George Tavern

The St George Tavern at 531 Princes Highway in Rockdale is a very nice example of a classic Australian Art Deco pub.

It was originally called the Rockdale hotel and was one of the many designed by Sidney Warden who was the principal architect for Tooth & Co in the 1920's and 30's. It is very unfortunate that someone decided to "improve" the look of the building and had the original brickwork painted over! My personal feeling is that the brickwork should have been left unpainted. The building looked far better with raw brick as can be seen in the photo below and in the many other examples listed in this blog.

This is how the Rockdale hotel looked before it had all its brickwork and Art Deco features painted over. It certainly looked grand in those days.

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The St George Tavern main corner facade today. There is now garish blur strip lighting on the facade to highlight the Art Deco features of the building. A modern *fad* which is unfortunate.

The current Princes Highway facade detail. I hope that sometime in the future someone will remove all the paint and restore the raw brick facade. These wonderful buildings don't need paint to highlight the aspects of their design. It was all done through skillful brick laying and textured surfaces and tiles.

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Sources:

• Historical photographs from the Noel Butlin Archives Centre at the ANU

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