Blog 5 - Locovisual

 Art Deco is a design style which flourished internationally throughout the 1930s; the James Smith Building is one of many Art Deco style buildings in Wellington. Though erected in 1907 the building was refurbished by Wellington Architects Joseph Dawson (1877-1956) and Jack King (1900-1972). King and Dawson were responsible for several Art Deco buildings erected in Wellington in the 1930s such as 255 Cuba St (1932) and the Ford Motor Company Workshop (1935) in Lower Hutt. When the James Smith Building was redesigned in 1932 it took upon an Art Deco style exterior facade when the firm owning the building decided to modernise the appearance.[1] New Zealand affected by the Great Depression was struggling economically in the 1930s King and Dawson as a firm were no exception from the hardships[2]. When Art Deco was in vogue it portrayed a sense of luxury, modernity and refinement, and perhaps as a style was aspirational to James Smith Ltd, King and Dawson, and the many other people and places that adopted it at the time, such as Napier following the 1931 earthquake.
 It is quoted in a Victoria University Research Report,
           

  “This Art Deco, or modernistic style, was in retrospect, probably the most successful of the pluralistic tendencies of the 1920’s and 1930’s which, simultaneously provided a modern image, while still incorporating traditional standards of planning and composition.”[3]
 

The design of the James Smith Building retains the scale and proportion of the original building, however groups of striking vertical lines and detailed plasterwork, along with a stepped skyline mask the underlying Edwardian profile of the building.

[1]
Kelly, M. (2005). Art Deco Heritage Trail. In Art Deco in the Capital. Retrieved May 31, 2012, from www.wellington.govt.nz/services/heritage/pdfs/artdeco.pdf.

[2], [3]
Gardyne, S. 1981, VUW research report as citied in; Kemp, N. 2012, King and Dawson: an historical study, 1906-1981.


Images photographed myself.