Napier, New Zealand's Art Deco city, steps back in time

By David Barber Jan 31, 2012, 3:06 GMT

Napier, New Zealand - The New Zealand city of Napier, which bills itself as the Art Deco capital of the world, steps back in time every February to salute its heritage.

Visitors from all over the world join thousands of locals to put on outrageous fashions of the 1930s, including slinky short dresses, feathery boas, white tuxedos, exotically striped blazers and straw boaters, and kick up their heels in true flapper style.

Jazz bands share the streets lined with architecture of a bygone age with vintage cars while vintage aircraft take to the skies over the port city on the east coast of the North Island.

And it is all due to a massive magnitude-7.8 earthquake which razed the former city to the ground, killing 256 people, on February 3, 1931.

It remains New Zealand's worst natural disaster and most of the dead were victims of the resulting fire which devoured wooden buildings or masonry falling from blocks decorated with wrought iron or moulded concrete parapets in the elaborate Victorian style of the country's British colonial settlers.

Architects who rebuilt the city turned not to ancestral England for their inspiration, but to America, where Art Deco public buildings, banks, hotels and skyscrapers had transformed the New York cityscape. Inside three years, a new Napier arose, featuring the Art Deco style of sunbursts and fountains, leaping nudes, zig-zag lightning flashes and geometric and skyscraper shapes, which was all the rage of the jazz age.

Claimed to be the only city in the world to have been entirely built in the Depression, Napier contains the most concentrated and significant group of Art Deco buildings on the globe. There is even an Art Deco McDonald's in a revamped hotel in suburban Taradale.

Any day of the year visitors can take guided tours to see the architectural highlights, but on the third weekend of every February the city celebrates its unique heritage with age-old fashions, wine, dance and song. The official programme of events has grown so much over the years that it cannot be confined to a weekend and this year's activities will get under way on February 16.

The four days which the city's Art Deco Trust dubs 'a not-too-serious celebration of the Art Deco style' include elaborate champagne breakfasts and dinner banquets by the beach and balls at which the Charleston, Black Bottom and Dixieland jazz are de rigueur.

The programme includes a vintage car parade, a bathing belles contest, jitterbug lessons, a Gatsby-style picnic under the massive Norfolk pines that line Marine Parade and special screenings of movies starring John Barrymore, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

There will be street parties, a golf tournament (plus-fours may be worn), a silver slipper ball, a soap box derby, starlight suppers and a Twilight Toe Tap jazz street dance.

Those who want to transport themselves back in time can travel to the event by steam train from many parts of the island or take rail excursion trips.

A more sombre memorial will see the bell of the British navy ship HMS Veronica, which was in port at the time and helped survivors of the quake, paraded through the streets with full military honours to the city's cathedral for a 'Swing and a Prayer' musical remembrance ceremony.

Napier is well-equipped for celebrations, being situated in the heart of Hawke's Bay, one of New Zealand's leading grape-growing areas with nearly 30 wineries.

Art Deco fans who cannot reach Napier in February have another chance to see the city celebrate on the weekend of July 21-22 when a satellite DIY-Deco festival will be held following the success of its debut last year.

More information: www.artdeconapier.com