Sydney Art Deco Heritage

Formerly known as Flanagan's the Burdekin hotel is still a well known hotel at the beginning of Oxford Street. The site, at 2-4 Oxford Street Darlinghurst, has historical significance because it has been occupied almost continuously by a hotel since the 1840s. It is also significant because of its association with the prominent architectural firm of Rudder & Grout. They designed many Art Deco hotels around Sydney and the Burdekin is a good representative example of a Federation hotel with an interwar Art Deco style overlay. History The original Flanagan's Hotel was a diminutive single storey structure at the start of Oxford Street near Hyde Park. The hotel (picture opposite) was built in the Victorian era but was demolished around 1910 during the "remodelling" or widening of Oxford Street. Several significant buidlings were also demolished for this project including the Albury Hotel. There were several street widening projects occuring around this time in...

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. 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 curr...

The Albury Hotel situated at 2a Oxford Street, Paddington, was once the premier gay hotel on Oxford street. In the 1970's it was sold by Tooheys to Lee Ross Jennings on the 13th June 1980 which made it amongst the first independent establishments not to be run or controlled by Abe Saffron and Dawn O’Donnell. From 1980 it opened as a gay venue and was famous for its drag shows, colourful personalities and boasting a piano bar which was one of the best in Sydney. The Albury's patron numbers were capped at 160 around the mid-late 1990s but before then, they would regularly cram in 300 or more in at a time. So popular was the venue that the crowd overflowed from the bar onto the footpath and even turned the adjacent pub, The Beauchamp, into a gay establishment. The original Albury Hotel, which was also situated on the existing site, sat squarely on the boundary of two Councils. A story was reported in a Sydney Morning Herald article on Saturday 3rd 1930 which read: "...

The site at 106 Oxford Street Paddington on the corner of Hopewell street has had a hotel known as the Unicorn Hotel since the first half of the 1880s. Before this it was occupied by premises known as Croft’s Family Hotel. The Unicorn Hotel was purchased by Tooth and company in February 1936. It was rebuilt by Joy and Pollit architects and completed in August 1941. The Unicorn Hotel was another iconic gay hotel on Oxford street. It had a superb Art Deco dining room with recessed lighting in the ceiling similar to the Albury hotel however it has been destroyed by the new owners. The architectual style was known as P & O Ship style because of the similaity to ocean liner forms. Its current incarnation as The Fringe Bar has an interior which is theatrical kitch with lots of red velvet drapes, mirrors and way too many crystal chandeliers over the bar. Unicorn facade detail Sources: Sydney Heritage Listings

Built in 1939, the Light Brigade Hotel is an exceptional example of Inter War Functionalist style commercial architecture designed by Sidney Warden which dominates the intersection at Jersey Road and Oxford Street in Paddington. It is a prominent landmark in this part of the street. Sidney Warden designed numerous Art Deco hotels around Sydney. The Light Brigade is a hotel which has tried to maintain some of its Art Deco style when the owners renovated. The interior of the Light Brigade hotel is cosy with lots of period touches. There is a nice horse motif on the frosted glass door panels which has an interesting history outlined below. It is just one of the many fine details that are scattered around the hotel. If you are ever in Paddington on a weekend it is well worth dropping in for a refreshment to enjoy the ambience. View of the main bar Another view of the main bar Window motif - Cinq Cheveaux The horse motif on the door glass panel is a reproduction of a mo...

Located at 27-33 Oxford St, Paddington, The Rose, Shamrock & Thistle Hotel was built in 1939 and is an architecturally significant Inter War Functionalist style hotel designed by the prominent specialist firm of Provost and Ancher. It replaced an earlier hotel of the same name that was located nearby. A nice feature of this hotel are the curved windows on the first and second storey verandahs. They mirror the curve of the corner of the hotel and gives the verandahs a much more open feeling than if they were square to the facade. Sources: City of Sydney Heritage Listings

Situated on the corner of Moncur and Queen St in Woollahra, the Woollahra Hotel is a nice, balanced example of an Art Deco style hotel that has a good counter lunch. A particularly nice feature on the hotel facade is the use of different coloured bricks. The three horizontal lines of bricks behind the lettering of the hotel name are accentuated by the dark red brick set back from the paler coloured bricks. The upstairs verandah is still open on the Moncur Street side which gives an idea how the hotel originally looked. Imaginative brick laying is a hallmark of many of the Art Deco pubs around Sydney. The Pymble Hotel comes to mind with its brick sunburst. The hotel was designed by Cyril Christian Ruwald (1895-1959). Ruwald was one of several architects who designed hotels for Tooth & Co during the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Redfern, Sydney, Ruwald attended Sydney Technical College and was indentured to the architects Waterhouse and Lake. In 1917 Ruwald enlisted in the Field...

The Robin Hood Hotel at 203 Bronte Road in Waverley is an excellent example of a modern commercial building in an Ocean Liner/International style designed by Sidney Warden. Sidney Warden designed a vast number of Art Deco hotels and there are many excellent examples described in this blog. The hotel also features Art Deco motifs and detailing which are essentially intact and beautifully maintained. The Robin Hood hotel is one of three Art Deco hotels situated in the immediate vicinity. The Charing Cross hotel is directly across the road while the Tea Gardens hotel is a brisk ten minute walk towards Bondi Junction. View from Carrington Street Sources: Sydney Heritage Listings

Kinselas Hotel at 383-387 Bourke Street, Darlinghurst contains a former funeral chapel within the building that is an important example of the work of major architect C. Bruce Dellit. Despite modifications it remains one of the finest Art Deco style interiors in metropolitan Sydney and New South Wales. In the second half of 1932 the firm of Charles Kinsela engaged the young architect to remodel the building for use as a funeral parlour, to design new chapels, office and residential accommodation, preparatory to taking up occupation of the premises. Today the remaining chapel, despite its modified state, is sufficiently intact to represent an important example of Dellit's work as a major Interwar architect. Further, it is amongst the finest remaining funery spaces in metropolitan Sydney from the 1930s and a fine local example of the Art Deco style. The porch on Bourke Street is also evidence of this phase of the building's history. Photos don't do the space justice so...

The Henson Park Hotel at 91 Illawarra Road in Marrickville was designed by Sidney Warden and built in 1936 on the original site of the Town Hall Hotel by Tooth and Company. It was threatened with closure in 2007 but strong support from locals made council reject the development. Facade detail Window detail Sources: NSW Government "History of the suburbs"

The Mascot Inn at 952 Botany Road, Mascot, was previously known as the Tennyson Hotel. It was designed by Sidney Warden who was the most prolific of the several architects who designed hotels for Tooth & Co. Other architects who worked for Tooth & Co - Sidney Ancher, Sam Lipson, Rudder & Grout - were better known, but none designed so many hotels or so many well-known hotels as Sidney Warden. By his own count, Warden's work encompassed 392 hotels including familiar structures such as the Clare, the Lansdowne, the Broadway, the Henson Park, the Marrickville, the Star, the Native Rose, the Chatswood, the Mayfair, the Oxford, the Light Brigade .... a pub crawl of Warden's hotels would be a lengthy session! Sources: Powerhouse Museum Archives

The Botany View Hotel is located at 597 King Street, Newtown, and was established in 1868 and has always been known as the Botany View Hotel. Although not strictly an Art Deco hotel the front corner treatment above the awning is nice and has a deco feel. View of the hotel in 1930. View of the hotel in 1938 after getting an updated facade. There has been little change to the facade over the except for a coat of paint. Sources: Sydney Heritage Listings ANU Open Research Library

The Union Hotel at 576 King Street, Newtowm, is a good example of an interwar Functionalist style hotel, which dates from the key period of hotel rebuilding by the major breweries in NSW. The Union Hotel is part of an important group of Inter War Hotels located on King Street, which also includes the Marlborough Hotel and the Town Hall Hotel. The building was designed by prominent hotel architechts, Rudder and Grout, who were responsible for many hotels in NSW during the 1920s and 1930s. It was established in 1946 with the license from the former Union Inn, corner of Iredale and Union Streets. Union Hotel facade detail Sources: Sydney Heritage Listings

The Petersham Inn at 386 Parramatta Road in Petersham is a fine interwar hotel was designed by Rudder and Grout to replace the existing hotel on the site which had been purchased by Tooth and Company in the 1930s. In 1940 a major extension to the Phillip street side was built called the Western Lounge. It featured a dramatic Art Deco tower designed by Leslie Soden and remains a local landmark today. A small plaque to the right of the tower notes this information. In 2001 the site was redeveloped to include 92 luxury apartments and studios while maintaining the hotel's original heritage. Petersham Inn facade detail Petersham Inn side entrance Commemorative plague outside side entrance Front Entrance doors Sources: Sydney Heritage Listings Citadel Property Group newsletter

The Alfred Hotel at 51 Missenden Road, Camperdown, was originally established in 1861 as the Grose Farm Hotel and later O’Kanes Grose Farm Hotel. It was renamed The Alfred Hotel in the 1980s. The unique horseshoe-shaped bar and art deco features give the pub its warm and friendly character. The Alfred Hotel is of aesthetic significance as a 1939 hotel design by Copeman, Lemont & Keesing, and as a representative of an interwar Art Deco style hotel. The Alfred Hotel is stylistically similar to the Australian Hotel in Chippendale and features the same tiled façade cladding and is listed on the RAIA register of significant 20th century buildings. Alfred Hotel facade detail Sources: Sydney Heritage Listings

The Lakes Hotel at 307 Gardiners Road in Mascot is a handsome interwar period Functionalist style suburban hotel designed by Architect J Dalziel for Tooth & Co. The builder was CE Paynter and Co. and it was completed on August 1st 1938 The curved wall corners in the upstairs verandah provide an expansive feeling to the building and balance well with the stepped roof line from the main front facade. It has excellent live jazz weekends. Facade detail Upstairs verandah detail Public bar when it first opened Tooths & Co had a formulaic approach to their hotels which is why there is such a similarity between them all. A modern example would be Westfields. No matter which one you go to there is a familiar format that makes you feel quite at home. Of course getting you to spend big (or drink big?) is a great way to make a fortune. Sources: ANU Open Research Library