Napier, Art Deco Weekend

National Tobacco Company Building

Visited the National Tobacco Company Building in the morning. Built by a rich merchant, Gerhard Husheer,  designed by Louis Hay, one of Napier's  Art Deco architects, it is one of Napier's iconic Art Deco buildings. The National Tobacco Co. avoided the effects of the Depression by producing pipe and cigarette tobacco rather than cigarettes and, during the slump, people would rather roll their own than quit. Thus Husheer was able to spend lavishly on his new building.

View from the Bluff

Next we looked into the Old Customs House, a wooden house which survived the earthquake. The earthquake demolished all the Victorian stone and brick buildings in the centre of town. Some wooden buildings survived the quake, only to be destroyed by the subsequent fires that raged through the the town for two days after the quake. Most of the residential property, however, was wooden buildings, built on the Bluff, the steep hill that is in the heart of Napier, and these buildings survived both quake and fire. Thus the merchants and business men of Napier still had their homes and were anxious to rebuild the business centre of the town as quickly as possible.

Then we drove up to the top of the Bluff, where there is a lookout point providing superb views over the docks and the bay. Lots of nice old wooden houses on the Bluff.

Air display

In the afternoon we went back to the town-centre festivities - a long weekend of fancy dress.  Imagine some 10,000 people in the costumes of the 20s and 30s: boas, boaters, blazers, flapper dresses and anything that looked that way, false or genuine.  There seemed to be hundreds of pre-1940 vintage cars, almost all in better condition that when they left the showroom, from Rolls Royces to the comparatively modern Austin 7s.

Several men with their flying machines exhibited their skill, from an original Gypsy Moth to a team from the NZ RAF in their presumably post 1940s acrobatic planes.

Great Gatsby Picnic

The feature of the day was the Great Gatsby Picnic - al-fresco lunching, beside your vintage car, if you had one, under a portable gazebo, with your vintage silver and china picnic set, if you had one, and the obligatory champagne.  There must have been at least a hundred such gazebos,with judging for the most authentic.  More jazz came from the Shell Centre bandstand.

Parkers Chambers, another Louis Hay builidng,
has Scotch thistle motifs

In the afternoon, we enrolled for a guided tour of Napier's Art Deco buildings, mainly seen from the outside, because it was Sunday, but we did see some interiors, the theatre in particular.  You've had some of the history in yesterday's blog.  The Guide was good, informative but not too garrulous, pointing out the design features and giving us snippets of history. More photographs, of course.  The weekend's events came to an end and going into town for an evening meal the place seemed almost deserted.

Emerson Street, after the festivities