New Zealand Odyssey: Napier Post-Earthquake Art Deco

'New Zealand Odyssey', published in 1989 by Heinemann, was authored by me, Don Donovan (who did the text and illustrations) and Euan Sarginson, who did the photography and design. In this series of blog posts, I will publish some of my drawings.

Napier suffered a monumental earthquake in 1931 which killed something like 250 people and laid the town to waste. With brilliant perspicacity the powers-that-be decided that the city should be rebuilt and that its architectural style should be art deco, a fashion that was worldwide at the time and has since become as classical as Bauhaus, art nouveau or Palladian.

I could have illustrated many Napier buildings for our book but chose just two typically art deco designs: the doorway of the Masonic Hotel with its leaded glass pelmet and the first storey balcony of the Central Hotel whose almost Egyptian themes might readily be seen on cinemas all over the world.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

New Zealand Odyssey: Houses on Marine Parade, Napier

'New Zealand Odyssey', published in 1989 by Heinemann, was authored by me, Don Donovan (who did the text and illustrations) and Euan Sarginson, who did the photography and design. In this series of blog posts, I will publish some of my drawings.

The basic front elevation of these houses is exactly the same except that the fourth and fifth from the left have been flipped over horizontally. But because of their colour and enhancements they manage to look different, each from its neighbours. They lie in a row at Marine Parade, Napier and face out to sea - next stop Chile! I drew them in 1987 and suspect that they look much the same today.

Without doing much research, I estimated that they were older than Napier's renaissance after the earthquake that devastated the city in 1931, they have a late nineteenth century look about them. About 250 people died in that earthquake (a similar number to that of 2011 in Christchurch). So badly damaged were its buildings that Napier was substantially rebuilt in the art deco style; one wonders what 'style' might be applied to Christchurch's reconstruction.

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz