Lyal Eales Stores, Maryborough

The Lyal Eales Store in Maryborough, Victoria is an exmple of Australian rural deco. Simple decoration providing a pleasant shopping experience for all visitors to town.

Prince of Wales Hotel, Queenstown

This is the Prince of Wales Hotel on Port Road, Queenstown in Adelaide.

It is a classic two storey streamline Australian pub. The building curves around the corner with the main entrance protected by a large rounded canopy. The underside of the canopy is covered in pressed tin bearing a repeating Art Deco pattern.

Along the Port Road side of the building there is an open balcony with curved ends and a series of three ridged lines providing simple decoration.

Along the facade near the roofline there is decorative frieze consisting of triangles enclosing several rows of wavy lines, horizontal lines with arrowheads and several fleur-de-lis, the symbol of the Prince of Wales.

In these photos, taken in 2005, the decoration is picked out in two shades of bright blue with other elements in a terracotta colour.

Since then, it appears that the hotel has been taken over by the Port Adelaide Magpies Football Club and the building has been painted all over in a dull grey. There is a photo on their website. At least it is only paint.

Blue-Sky Mausoleum, Buffalo

"...a burial facing the open sky ... The whole could not fail of noble effect...".

These words, by Frank Lloyd Wright, are inscribed on the headstone of the Blue-Sky Mausoleum at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo.

Wright designed the mausoleum in 1928 at the request of Darwin D Martin, secretary of the Larkin Soap Company. He had previously designed his residential complex in suburban Buffalo, a summer residence, Greycliff, in nearby Derby and the Larkin Company Headquarters (demolished).

At the time, the mausoleum was not constructed however in 2004, the Forest Lawn cemetery faithfully realised the project.

The mausoleum consists of 24 crypts, aligned in pairs stepping up a grassy slope overlooking a small lake and if you feel the need to be buried in an architectural masterpiece, the crypts are available for purchase.

Asbury First United Methodist Church, Rochester

The Asbury First United Methodist Church in East Avenue, Rochester in upstate New York is quite a late building to be described as Art Deco. According to this case study on the InSpired Associates website,

The church was constructed with an Indiana limestone façade according to plans developed by the Reverend Dr. Weldon Crossland and the architectural firm of Wenner and Fink, Methodist Church Architects, located in Philadelphia.

I like the stepped style of the body of the church, mirrored in the buttresses of the spire.

And this spectacular art deco style 'hand of God' plaque on the face of the spire directly above the main entrance.

former Melbourne Butter Supply, South Melbourne

The inner suburbs of Melbourne are dotted with former dairies and stables dating from a time when family run companies produced dairy products for their immediate neighbourhood.

This building is the former Melbourne Butter Supply building in South Melbourne which given the size of the building must have served a much wider area than the few nearby streets as the smaller dairies would have done.

The building is not overly decorated but the stylised lettering on the company name is marvelous.

Prefcor Building, Durban

This is the Prefcor Building in downtown Durban.

The bulding was originally Payne Bros Department Store. The Facts About Durban website says that when the store opened in 1938 it had the longest escalator in the Southern Hemisphere and local children used to visit the store just to ride on it.

Jardin Botanique de Montréal

The Administration Building at the Botanical Gardens in Montreal were built in 1937. The building was designed by Lucien F Kéroack with reliefs by local Montreal sculptors Henri Hérbert and Joseph Guardo.

There are a series of octagonal-shaped plaques near the roofline along the front of the building but the most eyecatching panels are located on the towers at either end.

The Rosemont tour booklet from the 10th World Congress on Art Deco idenifies Hérbert as the creator of the colour reliefs.

There are four designs each depicting a different Canadian plant.

One panel, L'Érable shows a man pouring sap from a Maple into a barrel.

Another, Le Nénuphar, shows a moose eating Water Lillies.

The other two designs feature Native Americans. Le Mais shows a woman picking corn.

And finally, Le Bouleau, has an Native American man in a birch canoe.