Sydney Art Deco Heritage

The Charing Cross Hotel at 81 Carrington Road in Waverley is little changed since it replaced an inn built on the site by William Newland in 1857. Originally known as Newlands Inn, its name was changed to the Charing Cross Hotel in 1859. The original hotel was demolished and rebuilt circa 1935. The newer building, designed by Sidney Warden, was featured in the journals "Decoration and Glass", Vol. 2, No. 3, July 1936.(see below) The hotel is one of three Art Deco hotels in the immediate vicinity. The Robin Hood hotel is directly opposite on Bronte Road while the Tea Gardens hotel is just a 10 minute walk towards Bondi Junction. Facade detail Upstairs verandah "The Public Bar, where glass and stainless steel sing the triumph of modernity and modern materials.White opal glass is used in the unusual light fittings which conceal the structural support of the glass and steel canopy." "Decoration and Glass", Vol. 2, No. 3, July 1936."

Originally known as Askeys and then as Caseys until March 1940, the Century Hotel was purchased by Tooth & Company in July 1923. Located at 389 George Street Sydney it was originally only two storeys. On completion of rebuilding in January 1941 the Century Hotel was a six storey brick structure, with a malthoid roof and a fully tiled ground floor exterior. The architectural style is known as P. & O. Ship style because of its similarities to ocean liner forms. It is historically significant as part of a group of hotels like the Great Southern Hotel further along George Street, and the Hotel Broadway. It was an important building in the professional career of the architectural partnership of Rudder and Grout, most noted for their hotel designs. It is aesthetically significant as a rare and outstanding example of a highly intact original Art Deco Hotel with an exterior and some intact interiors of high quality design. The Liverpool street facade is shown below I

There are five buildings that make up the complex still popularly known as James Smith's. The main corner building was designed by architects Penty and Blake, and was constructed in 1907 for George Winder, an ironmonger and importer who had owned the land since 1898. The location was formally known as "Winder's Corner". James Smith purchased the site in 1921 and, in 1932, architects King and Dawson supervised a complete refurbishment of the building, including a new facade. The heavy Edwardian character of the original building can still be guessed at in the arrangement of windows, particularly in the paired round-headed windows of the top (fourth) floor. Otherwise the style is now Art Deco, with emphatic vertical piers, stepped skyline, fluted frieze at parapet level, and typical 1930s lettering that runs vertically down the central column on the Cuba Street/Manners Street corner. This character follows through into the interior spaces. A picture of an interi

St Paul's Anglican Catherdral on the corner of Molesworth and Hill Streets in Wellington, New Zealand, was designed by Cecil Wood, appointed by the Wellington Diocese as the architect of the new cathedral in 1938. Cecil Wood died in 1947 and though he never lived to see the Cathedral so much as begun, the building today is still very much as he envisaged it. The first stage of the new Cathedral, finished in 1964, was considerably shorter than its present exterior length of 88 metres. 1998 saw the dedication of the completed Cathedral by Bishop Thomas John Brown, 10th Bishop of Wellington, on May 31st. In 2001 the Cathedral was consecrated on the 15th of October by Bishop Thomas Brown, 10th Bishop of Wellington. On the 24th of February 2002 Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, unveiled the Consecration stone, her planned visit in October 2001 having been postponed because of security concerns after the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Sources: Wellington Cathedral webs

The charming Challenger House is located in the New Zealand capital of Wellington at 136 The Terrace. Dwarfed by its neigbours, most at least thirty years younger, Edmund Ancombe's fine 1938 Art Deco apartment block has survived because of its quality. Originally and best known as Franconia, this building has had several names over the years including ‘Lintas House’, ‘Invincible House’ and ‘Challenger House’. It is six storeys high, the ground floor plinth surmounted by four principal floors and a top level, with the lift machine room projecting above the main roof. It is solidly constructed in reinforced concrete with a rendered finish and is trimmed out with steel windows and doors, balcony rails and the like. Although the interior has been progressively modified over the years, its outward appearance has changed little since its construction in 1938. Edmund Ancombe designed many Art Deco buildings in Wellington including the Post and Telegraph building in Herd Street. During

The heritage listed AGM Glass Factory at 851 South Dowling Street in Moore Park was constructed in 1938 to the design of Mitchell Henry Potter, an AGM Company Engineer. It was completed in 1940. The building is of aesthetic significance as a highly intact outstanding example of a landmark industrial building of the Interwar Functionalist style. It totally dominates the corner site opposite the Moore Park Super Centre. It “was regarded as the architectural flagship of the Company as the building encompassed a modern stylishness and efficient image.” (Godden Mackay Logan) Below shows some detail of the South Dowling street facade while the other photo indicates the dominance the building has looking from the Super Centre corner. Sources: Sydney Heritage Listings Do.co,mo.mo-Australia

The Hotel St George, situated at 124 Willis Street, is one of several outstanding examples of the Art Deco style located in Wellington. In the 1850s the Union Bank of Australia built a branch here. In 1877 the bank building was bought by the famous early settler and businessman John Plimmer who converted it into one of Wellington’s most celebrated hotels. On the facade were the carved impressions, in timber, of the faces of prominent Wellingtonians of the time, including Plimmer himself. In 1929 the property was bought by the Grand Central Buildings Ltd who demolished the hotel. The hotel was designed by William Prouse and its vertical proportions enhance its townscape significance. The Hotel St George opened in December 1930 to considerable fanfare. THe photo on the right shows the hotel not long after it opened. It operated as a hotel for the following 65 years, although it was seconded for use as a base by American marines during World War II. Probably its most famous gues