Art Deco in Western Australia
Art Deco architecture and design flourished in Western Australia during the 1930s, adapting to local circumstances and reflecting the region’s social changes and economic conditions. This style left a lasting impact on Perth’s urban landscape, with many Art Deco buildings still standing today. In 1993, Perth hosted the second Art Deco World Congress, highlighting the city’s significant contribution to this architectural style. The Art Deco style in Perth mirrored the city’s growth and optimism during the mid to late 1930s.
Art Deco originated in France prior to World War I and gained prominence in the 1920s and 1930s. The style was showcased at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris, France, between April and October 1925. The exhibition aimed to highlight the new modern style of architecture, interior decoration, furniture, glass, jewellery, and other decorative arts in Europe and throughout the world. It featured 15,000 exhibitors from 20 different countries.
Art Deco features geometric forms, clean lines, curves, and stylized motifs adaptable to various objects and buildings. It represented luxury, glamour, and faith in social and technological progress, often featuring rare materials like ebony and ivory, as well as new materials such as chrome plating, stainless steel, and plastic. Art Deco drew inspiration from a variety of sources, including geometric forms from the Vienna Secession and Cubism, bright colours from Fauvism and the Ballets Russes, and exotic styles from China, Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt, and the Maya. Its influence extended beyond architecture to include furniture, jewellery, fashion, and everyday objects like radios and vacuum cleaners, making it a truly international style.
Art Deco arrived in Western Australia in the late 1920s, with notable early examples including the P & O Building (1930), Atlas House (1931), and Airways House (1932, demolished). However, the Great Depression halted most new construction. It wasn’t until 1934, with post-Depression economic recovery and wealth from the resurgence of the gold industry, that new developments in the Art Deco style flourished in Western Australia, particularly in Perth. This architectural boom was led by a relatively small group of young and energetic architects, including Harold Krantz, Marshall Clifton, Horace Costello, William Bennett, William Leighton, Reginald Summerhayes, Oswald Chisholm, Margaret Pitt Morrison, John Oldham, Colin Ednie-Brown, and John Fitzhardinge.
The lasting impact of Art Deco on Perth’s urban landscape can be seen in a wide variety of buildings, many of which still stand today.
In the late 1920s, a Town Planning Commission in Perth conceded that flats were a necessary solution to the housing shortage. Unlike the Commission, young Perth architect Harold Krantz saw life in small, self-contained dwellings as suitable for some people and not an act of desperation. The construction of flats grew in both scope and artistic expression during the 1930s, particularly in Perth. The west end of St George’s Terrace and Mount Street saw the emergence of multi-storey blocks of flats, each with distinct character, turning the area into an Art Deco precinct.
Art Deco’s influence extended to commercial, industrial, and civic buildings. Two major public projects, delayed by the Great Depression, were completed in the 1930s in an advanced Art Deco style: the High School for Girls and the Institute for the Blind. The Emu Brewery, planned in 1935-6 and completed in 1937, was a significant industrial building on Milligan Street and Mounts Bay Road, designed by Oldham, Boas, and Ednie Brown. Shell House was another prominent post-Depression building featuring Art Deco elements. Civic buildings like Applecross District Hall, Guildford Town Hall, courthouses, and banks also adopted the Art Deco style, with Public Works Department architects contributing to this trend. Other notable buildings include the Gledden Building and Lawson Apartments.
Western Australia enjoyed a prevalence of Art Deco cinemas, purpose-built or remodelled, funded by the recovery of gold mining. As a result, Perth retains more 1930s cinema buildings than any other Australian capital city. The 1930s saw a surge in cinema construction, with architects like Samuel Rosenthal and William Leighton designing modern cinemas that incorporated Art Deco elements. William Leighton designed eight cinemas between 1936 and 1938, including the Piccadilly Theatre and Arcade, Claremont District Pictures, and Como Theatre. Leighton’s designs often featured asymmetry and innovative elements like a projector on rails. He and other architects incorporated distinctive motifs such as stylized flowers and wave patterns, often crafted by sculptor Edward Kohler.
Prior to Art Deco, Perth was relatively low-rise, but buildings like the CML Building (now gone), Lawson Apartments, and Gledden Building helped the city emerge from the 1930s with a distinctive skyline.
What is Art Deco?
The Art Deco name refers to several variations of style in art, design and architecture popular in the era between the two world wars (1920-1940), and for a number of years before and after. In all its guises Art Deco reflects the essence of popular twentieth century design.
Decorative Style
Art historians confine the term to the decorative style created by French designers and culminating in the Paris Exhibition Arts Decoratif (1925) It principally is a geometric stylization and abstraction of natural forms in what has been called “the last decorative style”. Cubist, Jazz and “primitive ” motifs influenced
the style, particularly when it came to America, where it also came under the influence of streamlining.
Streamline Moderne
The 1920s fascination with speed led to the development of streamlined automobiles, trains and ocean liners and this in turn was applied to everything from pencil sharpeners to architecture. USA had the technology and the manufacturing processes to realize the shapes and blended these with the Art Deco fashions. These adapted fashions were then rapidly spread around the world by magazines and the seductive Hollywood movie. Cinema buildings became almost recognisable expression of Art Deco for many members of the public.
International Modern
The purist approach of Bauhaus and the pioneer European architects Walter Gropius and LeCorbusier abandoned all spurious decoration, concentrating on developing forms that that sprung from the new materials and techniques of the twentieth century. Nevertheless aspects of their work were absorbed into the populist examples of 1930s architecture often incorporating stylised decorative elements and are now frequently considered under the umbrella of Art Deco.
Typical characteristics of Decorative Deco.
Illustration copyright Ron Facius.
Typical characteristics of Streamline Moderne.
Illustration copyright Ron Facius.
GOVERANCE
The Art Deco and Modernist Society of Western Australia is an incorporated association and registered charity. The Society is a membership-based organisation managed by an elected management committee, with support from several working groups—all made up of dedicated and passionate volunteers.
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