Art Deco features in Mt Victoria

Art Deco features in Mt Victoria

Although many people associate Mt Victoria with Victorian and Edwardian architecture, our suburb has a surprising number of Art Deco buildings, as Joanna Newman of the Mt Victoria Historical Society explains.

Although many people associate Mt Victoria with Victorian and Edwardian architecture, our suburb has a surprising number of Art Deco buildings, as Joanna Newman of the Mt Victoria Historical Society explains.

This year, it’s 100 years since the event which is generally considered to have given birth to the Art Deco movement – the  Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris in 1925.

Mount Victoria has a number of modest but very fine examples of Art Deco buildings, so it’s a good time to celebrate those.  Here are four favourites.

‘Ionian Flats’ at 123 Brougham Street is a beautiful example of streamlined Art Deco, with rounded corners and lines reflecting the fascination for machines and speed. It steps up the hill, like the decks on a cruise liner. The flats were designed by BF Kelly for Arthur Gianoutsos around 1937/38.  Arthur Gianoutsos was part of the first wave of Greeks to migrate and settle in Mt Victoria, and established the famous Rose Milk Bar in Lambton Quay.  His architect, Bertie Kelly, went out on his own after he lost his job in cut-backs at the Public Works Department in 1931.  After his wife died, he joined the Marist Brothers and became Brother Albert.

At the other end of Brougham Street, we have ‘Owd Trafford’ at number 17. These flats were designed by Mitchell & Mitchell in 1940. Allan and Cyril Mitchell both went to Clyde Quay School and on to Wellington College.  In addition to elements of streamlined Art Deco, ‘Owd Trafford’ displays other key characteristics of the style – the bold colours of the plaster, the decorative mouldings on the façade, and metal windows. Other buildings in Wellington by Cyril Mitchell are the Waterloo Hotel and the MLC building.

At the lower end of Hawker Street, numbers 2, 9 and 11 are all Art Deco.  Number 9 was designed by Edmund Anscombe in 1937.  He was also a very well-known architect in Wellington, designing the Centennial Exhibition of 1940 and buildings such as the Herd Street Post Office (now Chaffers Dock apartments).  This building displays typical Art Deco decorative details such as geometric bas relief and, another invention of the style, a new graphic typeface, used here in the name ‘Hamilton Court’.

On the corner of Marjoribanks St and Kent Terrace is another beautiful example of streamlined Art Deco.  This was built as the New City Hotel and designed in 1939 by Francis Swan.  The horizontal fire escapes have been incorporated into the streamlined facade. It’s had an extra storey added in recent years – which is unfortunate, because another of the characteristics of the short-lived but distinctive Art Deco style was proportion and symmetry.

Let’s continue to celebrate our Art Deco treasures, and honour our local architects of this innovative style, by helping to preserve their design integrity in future.