The art of Napier

Napier rose from the ashes of the 1931 earthquake in a style celebrating jazz and art deco. The anniversary is now a weekend-long party, reports MEGAN SINGLETON.

Napier will be aflutter with feather boas and top hats as more than 12,000 people from all over the world descend on the city for the Art Deco Weekend on February 15 and 16.

They'll be marking the 1931 earthquake that devastated the city and celebrating the art deco architecture that emerged out of the ruins.

Monday, February 3, is the anniversary of the earthquake. A devastating 7.8 on the Richter scale, it struck at morning tea time, destroying the city, heaving the land 2m out of the sea and causing fires which razed anything that survived the shake.

There were more than 150 aftershocks in the following 12 hours.

Nearby Hastings and Wairoa were badly damaged, but Napier city centre was wrecked. Water pipes were broken, enabling fires to rage unabated, while people tended to the injured and tried to rescue those trapped in buildings.

The nurses' home on Napier Hill crumbled down, killing nearly half the nursing staff from Napier hospital, who were sleeping after the night shift. A total of 258 people were killed in Hawkes Bay that day.

Seventy-two years on, many survivors live in Hawkes Bay rest homes and still share vivid memories of the carnage.

A 16-year-old farm hand, left in charge while the owners were out of town, remembers the horrific sight of the hillside slipping away and the sea retreating.

His first thought was how he was going to explain it to his boss as 2230 hectares of land was raised to sea level and fish flapped about on what is now Hawke's Bay Airport.

Moments before the quake, my friend's grandfather walked up the steps of a bank in Hastings just as a hurried-looking woman raced for the door. He chivalrously held it open for her.

Suddenly there was an almighty roar and part of the building came crashing down, killing her and many people inside.

Families camped along Marine Parade and in a tent city in Clive Square with their most precious things and basic food supplies, too frightened to return home as the earth shook for several more days.

The economic outlook was bleak in 1931. The world was in the grip of the Depression, and the building industry was all but dead.

But the following year, in a surge of optimism, the people of Napier began employing builders and labourers, and so began the restoration of the city.

The four architects' practices in Napier banded together, favouring the era's fashionable art deco, Spanish mission and Frank Lloyd Wright styles. In three years Napier was the smartest and most modern city on the globe.

Art deco style, born in California, epitomises the jazz age - sleek cars and elegantly attired ladies and gents. Napier added its own twist, using Maori motifs along with Egyptian, Aztec and Mayan themes.

Symbols of power and freedom such as lightning flashes, speed lines, zig-zags and sun rays were etched into walls and pressed into the undersides of the metal verandah awnings lining the streets.

Lead-light glazing was used on the windows and mosaic-tiled street names were set into the footpath on each street corner.

Neon lighting was an exciting addition to the 1930s nights and the original neon lights are still used in the Municipal Theatre today. The theatre's carpet, which had to be replaced due to wear, was woven to the original design.

Growing up in Hawke's Bay, I never fully appreciated its stylish history. I thought the buildings housing Napier's shops and offices were embarrassingly old-fashioned. It was all about jumping dolphins at Marineland and the Lilliput miniature railway for our family.

But I wasn't alone. Napier's unique buildings were hardly appreciated by anyone until the early 1980s. Napier was the only city in the world to have been entirely built in the 1930s. But by the 80s the buildings were being demolished to make way for the next modern wave - 80s-style pink-and-grey offices.

In 1985 the Art Deco Trust was founded to preserve the heritage and pretty soon its buildings became a drawcard for tourists and an architects' dream holiday destination.

Nowadays the booming art deco tourism industry in the once funny little coastal town of Napier is celebrated by thousands of visitors each year.

Art Deco Napier