NZ visual diary - entry 60

Napier - the Art Deco capital of New Zealand

With my 60th post, we leave Auckland for Napier, a city on the east coast of the North Island in the Hawke's Bay region.

My visit to Napier in 2015 amply fed my appetite for all things Art Deco. The brief visit was so memorable that some years later I produced an annotated photographic portfolio on that experience. I have reproduced that essay -- words and images -- here.

My father worked for more than thirty years in the Chanin Building, a handsome example of architecture in the Art Deco style. From the front door of his New York City office dwelling, I could see the Chrysler Building, a glorious gift of Art Deco splendour. With my first visit to Radio City Musical hall, another towering tribute to the Art Deco style, I realised that I was hopelessly smitten. Art Deco is for me visual music.

I have always loved geometries, especially the dizzying patterns of fractals. My design sense gravitates to the seductiveness of a curve, the solidity of a triangle and the power of a diagonal. With its emphasis on stylised geometric forms and complex symmetries, Art Deco captivates me. Furthermore, I revel in its celebration of bold colour. It is an art form that holds in a fierce tension refinement and audacity.

As an architectural photographer, I have sought out buildings that express my love for the beauty of colour, the elegance of line or the rhythmic patterns of complex geometries. And with my chance visit to Napier, located on the eastern coastline of New Zealand’s north island, I discovered why this city has been crowned the Art Deco capital of New Zealand. Napier’s architectural story is one of tragedy, rebirth and resplendent affirmation of the place of art in the life of a city. First, the tragedy.

In the morning of 3 February 1931, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake toppled much of Napier’s town centre. The devastation from the earthquake was magnified by subsequent fires that engulfed what earthquake and its aftershocks had not destroyed. The design parameters for Napier’s reconstruction contained the expectation that all new construction suggest an echo, if not the definitive signatures, of the Art Deco style. Napier’s re-built landscape is a tightly conceived anthem to a singular art form, a style I most adore.

My portfolio attempts to capture the visual wonder of a cityscape, at once unified by the theme of the Art Deco style and yet deliciously varied in its execution. I worked to express in my portfolio images my abiding love for an art form, and for the visual splendour of downtown Napier, which exalts the importance of art in the civic life of a city.