Monday, July 26, 2010

Australia-based blog features Deco buildings around the world!

If you love Art Deco buildings, then you'll easily spend hours browsing the Art Deco Buildings website, bearing the sub-title, Look up for inspiration and beauty.

The site features buildings from hundreds of cities and towns in Australia, as well as overseas. (For instance, it has 49 posts for Canada.) All buildings are categorized by city and by country, and each comes with informative descriptions.


The site also links with countless other Deco-related blogs of interest. Check it out!

Step on it, Toronto!

I've recently discovered three wonderful examples of terrazzo flooring in Toronto that I didn't know about previously. (Terrazzo is a hard-surface flooring made of fine chips of coloured marble, divided by metal strips, that has been ground smooth. It can be found indoors or out, and is ideally suited to high-traffic areas like foyers or entryways.) Check out these pics, and share other examples with us using the comments box!

Second floor lobby of Concourse Building, 100 Adelaide Street West, Toronto. Notice the 'mountain' motif at the rear, the projecting rays of energy, and the inlaid brass stars of different shapes. For more info about the building, see pp. 9-11 in Art Deco Architecture in Toronto book.
Inside foyer of The Royal cinema, 608-610 College Street, Toronto, designed in 1939 by Benjamin Swartz. This building was formerly The Pylon; see page 130 in Art Deco Architecture in Toronto book.
This convenience store at Yonge and Chatsworth, Toronto, was once a pharmacy.

Help save streamlined Australian cinema!

Please help preserve the Glenelg Ozone Cinema in Glenelg South Australia by signing the online petition!

This cinema is an outstanding example of the Art Deco style and possibly the earliest remaining air-conditioned, fully Art Deco designed cinema in the region. Faced in Basket Range freestone, featuring horizontal fins and a prominent vertical signage element (both originally neon lit) it is the only Art Deco theatre in Australia constructed with a stone front. The building was designed in 1936 by F. Kenneth Milne, a prominent interwar architect, after visiting the United Kingdom in the early 1930s.

Update on Maple Leaf Gardens renovation

Ryerson University is making good progress in its creation of its athletic centre in a new space above the ice surface of the former 'hockey shrine.' Click here for the latest details of Ryerson's renovation.

For article and photos of the Gardens in its unrenovated (abandoned) state, click here

For initial articles outlining the plans for Ryerson and Loblaws to share the building, click here

Artist's rendering of the finished building, with Ryerson using main Carlton Street entrance and Loblaws store having a new entrance at the southeast corner of the building.
Artist's rendering of the finished Ryerson University ground-level foyer (Carlton Street at right).

Welcome to the new blog!

Hello Art Deco lover:
I'm delighted you've visited this blog, and I hope you'll bookmark it, and tell your Decophile friends about it as well. Cheers, Tim