Sydney Art Deco Heritage

The first Petersham Town Hall was built on this site at 105 Crystal Street in Petersham in 1882. In 1937 a plan for a new town hall, prepared by architects Rudder & Grout, was accepted and the old hall demolished. The new building was opened in July, 1938. Much of the interior has been retained and the hall itself has some nice detailing. The building is listed in the RAIA Register of significant 20th century buildings. The hall had a brush with fame when some of the flamboyant dancing scenes from director Baz Lurhmann's 1992 film "Strictly Ballroom" were filmed in its main auditorium. The Clock Tower detail The imposing Art Deco interpretation of a classic Greek temple entrance The auditorium above left and detail of the ceiling lights Sources: Sydney Heritage Listing Marrickville Council website

A Rockdale landmark, the Rockdale Town Hall at 448 Princes Highway was designed by Douglas Babbington Gardiner and built in 1940 to replace the original hall (designed by William Kenwood) on the site. This was all part of a general road widening scheme for the Princes Highway at the time. The building has simplified Art Deco details on the exterior which are similar to the Petersham Town Hall. The interior of the hall has elaborate art deco plaster details on the walls and ceiling. The building is associated with public events such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. It is listed in the RAIA 20th Century Register Of Significant Buildings. Clock tower detail View of the auditorium Auditorium ceiling light Sources: NSW Heritage Database

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