Art Deco Architecture

A… Australia

PPL Building, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Photo by raaen99

Sculptured Deco building.

From Flickr:

Although not famous for its Art Deco architecture, the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat, which was established between the 1860s and 1880s when the area was at the centre of a gold rush, does have some fine examples of interwar and post war architecture when the gold boom was replaced with wealth generated through grazing and agriculture.

During the 1920s and 1930s, those people thriving from farming or local industry had plenty to spend in local shops. This wonderful Art Deco facade (circa 1925 - 1930) belongs to the PPL Building in Ballarat’s main shopping thoroughfare, Sturt Street. Whilst the street level may have fallen victim to the changes in marketing, the upper floors remain unchanged by fickle owners. It still retains its striking minimalist Art Deco design. It features the building’s name in a rounded cartouche on the building’s corner facade which overlooks Albert Street. The PPL Building has a stylised stepped roofline, long spandrels with rounded edging and glass brick windows, all of which were popular architectural features of the Art Deco movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The rounded edges are very representative of the Streamline Moderne movement, and the building is everything a smart and successful business would want in the booming interwar years in Australia.

Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, Australia
by williambullimore

The other side of Melbourne’s war memorial. Originally built after WWI, by the time it was completed it was just about ready to start memorializing those lost to WWII.

The inscription reads:

This monument was erected by a grateful people to the honored memory of the men and women of Victoria who served the Empire in the Great War of 1914-1918.

Public Bar, N. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Submitted by utopianfunk

Another nice submission, although a sad story.

From utopianfunk:

The Pubic Bar, 238 Victoria Street, North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Shutting down this month after opening in 93 due to a decrease in popularity and therefore not enough money to stay open. It’s pretty sad to see it close. Not sure what’s going to become of the building. I’ll be quite upset if it gets knocked down.
The venue’s website here.

Facade Detail, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
by Hillwalker-ca

Fabulous deco detail. A wider shot of it here.

Photographer notes and Flickr comments provide some background:

Hillwalker-ca:
Gateway on Pandora street. I catch the bus to work across the street from this gate, and watched it being constructed. The mosaic covered the main electrical connection for the building.

Comment:
This mosaic was made using molds taken fromart deco murals on the old Kresge building (Douglas and View), before it was torn down

Hillwalker-ca:
That’s very interesting, I’m glad to hear that information was preserved. There were several old buildings I knew in Vancouver that I would have liked to try molding on.

Another Commenter:
Yay ! I wondered where they went too.

(Source: klg19)

Glenferrie Oval, Hawthorn, Australia
From posting on SkyScraperCity

Glenferrie Oval (1938), once Hawthorn AFL club’s home ground. More info on this 30s sports venue, now out of use, over on Wikipedia.

Art Deco clock tower, which in this shot is looking exactly like some 1930s poster.

allthingsartdeco:

Clock Tower of City Visitors Center, Victoria | Photo by  Metropol 21