The morning of February 3, 1931, was warm and sunny in the Hawke's Bay province of North Island. But at 10.45am, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck the seaside town of Napier, and within two minutes, many of the town's buildings had crumbled, leaving 162 dead and thousands homeless.
Napier had been a typical colonial town, named after an imperial hero, its streets celebrating eminent British men of letters and science - Carlyle, Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Browning, Faraday and Dalton. Laid out by an English architect, Robert Lamb, its Marine Parade frontage had been based on Brighton and its central business streets were lined with grand Victorian and Edwardian baroque public buildings.
There was inevitably much discussion about how the new Napier should look. Six years earlier, the Californian city of Santa Barbara had suffered a serious earthquake but had been rebuilt in a predominantly Spanish mission style, befitting its Hispanic origins. Both Napier and Santa Barbara shared a long uninterrupted tree-lined foreshore, and a strong lobby was formed in favour of rebuilding Napier in a similar style.
But art deco was in the air. Architectural journals of the day were full of illustrations of art deco buildings. It was the major enthusiasm of young graduates from the Auckland University School of Architecture who flocked to Napier, eager to take up the opportunity to work as the Depression deepened. They were quickly taken on by local practices swamped with work far beyond their pre-earthquake capacities.
Under the direction of a reconstruction committee, work rebuilding the town proceeded rapidly. Streets were widened, their corners splayed, power and telephone lines put underground and service lanes created behind shops.
It soon became clear that although Napier's new buildings were conventional in their planning, most of the facade decoration and interior fittings were in the fashionable art deco style. Decoration on the geometrically severe plain surfaces of buildings consisted of bands of incised abstract motifs usually derived from plant forms. The two most favoured art deco motifs, the sunburst and the chevron (zig-zag), appeared everywhere.
The Hotel Central, designed by local architect EA Williams for the Napier Brewery Company in 1931, has many of the classic features - a solid block at the corner of Emerson and Dalton Streets, its entire facade deftly decorated with bands of chevrons and sunbursts. Geometric forms dominate the interior detailing in coloured and clear glass, metal and woodwork, which have been restored to their original state.
The magnificent stripped classical facade of Williams' Daily Telegraph building is one of the most confident in the town with its decorated pilasters and a central wrought-iron balustrade above a grand entry. The mezzanine floor inside is being removed, and it will soon be possible to view the interior in its original, full double-height splendour.
The Masonic Hotel on the Marine Parade, built in 1932 to a design by Wellington architects Prouse and Wilson, is a large and simple symmetrical concrete structure, enlivened only by an elaborate upper-storey wooden pergola facing the sea and a conspicuously deco overhanging pediment above a suspended glass and metal veranda, proclaiming the word "Masonic" in deco capitals of red leadlight. The building's low-lying aspect is emphasised by bands of projecting parallel lines that run along, above and below the set-in windows. The panelled foyer of the hotel is largely unchanged, although the Aqua Seafood Restaurant and Breakers Cafe and Bar now occupy part of the lower floor, both providing pleasant spaces from which to look out on the square outside.
Although Napier's major exponent of the Spanish style was the firm of Finch and Westerholm, it was Williams who also designed Napier's largest Spanish building, the 1932 Criterion Hotel. Its plastered white surface is capped by angled cordova terracotta half tiles instead of a cornice. It's worth going inside to see the lovely little art deco window evoking Napier's Marine Parade with a Norfolk pine, sky and sea.
Further along Emerson Street are some Spanish-style shops including the single-storied Provincial Hotel, whose facade exhibits the full battery of Spanish motifs such as twisted columns, curved parapets and banks of arcaded windows.
Also not to be missed in the same street is the magnificent ASB Bank designed in 1932. The stripped facade is decorated with incised panels featuring Maori rather than art deco motifs, its designers exploiting the similarity between the art deco zig-zag and traditional kowhaiwhai patterns.
Napier's art deco and Spanish mission heritage is not confined to the town's central business district. The earthquake's upthrust created 3,200 hectares of dry land in place of a former marshy lagoon a short drive out of town, and after 1935 moderne deco houses began to spring up in what became the new suburb of Marewa, meaning "gift of the sea" in Maori. Down Tom Parker Avenue, stucco or wood houses alternate between cube-like forms and "hat-box" curves and a huge array of decorative motifs of the period.
Napier's architectural heritage was also significantly enriched by JA Louis Hay, who had been working in the town since 1911, mostly carrying out domestic work in the style of English arts and crafts and Californian bungalow architecture. As a member of the reconstruction committee, he was at the forefront of the rebuilding process, but despite what was going on around him, or maybe because of it, he showed no interest in either of the two preferred styles, relishing instead the opportunity to mine his enthusiasm for the work of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Many of his fine large houses survived the earthquake and can still be visited today. One of them, Mornington, is a beautiful 1921 Californian bungalow, standing just a stone's throw from the city's art deco centre and offering excellent accommodation.
Two of his best buildings date from after the earthquake. The grand AMP Building on the corner of Browning Street and Shakespeare Road has now been fully restored to his original specifications. And the Napier icon he designed in 1932 for the National Tobacco Company is simple in form yet highly decorated, reflecting the many aspects of his architectural enthusiasms, all of them blended into a richly satisfying whole.
· Peter Shaw is the author of A History of New Zealand Architecture, Art Deco Napier: Styles Of The Thirties and Spanish Mission Hastings: Styles Of Five Decades.
Art deco gems of the world
Art deco, or jazz modern, architecture sparkled across the world from the mid-1920s until the early 1950s. I have spotted crumbling art-deco gems in central Havana, jazz modern jewels in Asmara, the Italian-built capital of Eritrea. I have lapped up art-decadent Bollywood films in the voluptuous Indo-deco cinemas of Bombay. Here are five very different cities rich in art deco design.
Prince and princess among art-deco buildings, the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings are only the most famous of a plethora of soaring, sweeping, curving, chrome-plated designs that animate the mighty, wind-blasted streets and avenues of Manhattan. If you can afford to stay at the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue, the city's finest art-deco hotel, then, within easy walking distance, you can take in the McGraw Hill, Chanin, General Electric, Daily News and American Radiator buildings as well as the breathtakingly ambitious Rockefeller Center.
The Miami Beach Art Deco District stretches along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue; here are listed historic monuments one after the other that happen to be ice-cream and candy-coloured. And you stay in them, eat in them, swim in them; architectural conservation has rarely been such fun. The best two new restorations are both hotels. These are The Tides (1220 Ocean Drive; tel: 001 305 604 5000), a highly fashionable hang-out for sun-worshippers whose bodies match the sensuous late 1930s' cream, caramel and cafe-au-lait decor, and The National (1677 Collins Avenue; tel: 001 305 532 2311), a revived design from 1940 boasting a 200ft swimming pool.
Art-deco design shines here and there through The Smoke: the lobbies of the Park Lane and Strand Palace hotels, the former Daily Express building on Fleet Street - all black glass, curves and cinematic chrome - the Hoover Building by Wallis Gilbert on the A40 Western Avenue (now a branch of Tesco), and, best of all, the wondrous Eltham Palace, a magnificent, Hollywood-style house tacked on to medieval remains. Superbly restored by the National Trust, this utterly unexpected art-deco house is a feast of aluminium leaf, bird's-eye maple panelling and lacquered furniture.
Art deco was always a cinematic style, the musicals of Busby Berkeley set in stone; so, to find a city boasting a glittering galaxy of art deco - or Indo-deco - cinemas, is a richly, even gaudily, satisfying experience. In the heart and heat of Bombay, enjoy Bollywood spectacles in the Eros (1938) on Maharashi Karva Road, the Metro (1938) on Mahatama Ghandi Road, and perhaps best of all, the Liberty (1950) opposite Bombay Hospital, which retains its fantasmagoric auditorium as well as a mirrored-wall soda bar with built-in sofas, and musical patterns decorating the least likely surfaces.
By 1930, Shanghai had become the world's fifth largest city, home to 70,000 foreigners including the remarkable Czech-born architect Ladislaus Hudec. A soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, he was made prisoner by the Russians in the first world war, slipped off a train in Siberia and made his way to Shanghai. He endowed the great trading city with many of its best art-deco monuments (and there are many of them in this oriental Manhattan); these include the 22-storey Park Hotel, the Grand Theatre, the Moore Memorial Church and Huadong Hospital along with many apartment blocks. The glistening interior of his swish jazz modern-style Wu Tongwen House on Beijing Xilu (formerly Avenue Road) included, along with a billiard room, a walk-in refrigerator and a Buddhist oratory. It is now a club and restaurant.
Jonathan Glancey, architecture correspondent
· Art Deco 1910-1939 is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2RL (020-7942 2000, vam.ac.uk) from March 27-July 20. Admission £7.50, concessions £4, children under 18 free.
Way to go
Getting there: Air New Zealand (airnz.co.uk) is offering a special Heathrow to Auckland Pacific Class fare (economy) on the web for £667 - must be booked by March 27 for travel between April 21 and September 30. For other offers, call Air New Zealand on freephone 0800 0284149. You can comfortably travel to Napier by bus from Auckland, Wellington and other provincial centres. By car, allow 5 hours from Auckland, four hours from Wellington and 2 hours from Rotorua.
Where to stay: Mornington, 20A Sealey Road (+6 835 4450, mornington.co.nz) doubles NZ$230, single NZ$195. Cobden Villa (tel: +6 835 9065, cobdenvilla.com) is a luxury B&B restored and fully furnished in the art-deco style with four creatively designed bedrooms. It is a 10-minute walk from the centre, NZ$185- NZ$375 per night including breakfast.Criterion Backpackers Inn (tel: +6 835 2059, email: firstname.lastname@example.org) is Napier's biggest hostel. It is set in the town centre, on the first floor of a famous art deco building, formerly a hotel. Free pick-up from the bus station. NZ$25-NZ$75 per night.
Where to eat: Anatoles (+6 835 7800). For award-winning food and the best Hawke's Bay wine. Charlies Art Deco Restaurant (+6 835 3976). Fresh seafood from the bay and good steaks. Closed Sundays.
Where to drink: Grape Escape Tours (freephone: 0800 100 489, grapeescapenz.co.nz). Vineyard Tour $40pp, half day. Visit 4-5 local wineries. Vineyard tours by request. Hawke's Bay Experience $75pp combines food, history and a tour of the Church Road winery and museum. On Yer Bike Winery Tours (+6 879 8735, onyerbikehb.co.nz). $40pp per day. Bookings essential. A fun cycling wine experience. Includes lunch. The whole distance round the Ngatarawa triangle including six wineries is 28km. The terrain is flat and easy. Hawke's Bay in A Glass (+6 836 7427, qualityhb.co.nz). Tailor-made wine and epicurean itineraries. Price dependent on duration, number in the party and any special preferences or requests.
Best time to visit: in February, during Napier's annual Art Deco Weekend.
Further information: The offices of the Art Deco Trust (163 Tennyson Street, opposite Clive Square, tel: +6 835 0022, artdeconapier.com) are housed in the former fire station designed by Hay before the earthquake and then remodelled by him after it. Informative leaflets detail art deco walks in the central business district, visits to Marewa, Ahuriri, Napier's historic port, and the nearby city of Hastings which was also rebuilt after the 1931 earthquake and serves as gateway to the Hawke's Bay Wine Country. Napier Visitor Information Centre, 100 Marine Parade, Napier (+64 6 834 1911, email@example.com). See also hawkesbaynz.com.
Country code: 00 64.
Flight time Heathrow-Auckland: 24hrs.
Time difference: +12hrs.
£1 = 2.72 dollars.