Donald Davies – Chairperson of the Durban Art Deco Society – DADS – has invited members to join them on a visit to two interesting properties at the end of August.
Date & time: Sunday 28 August 2016 at 10:00
Meeting Place: Malvern Library Car Park, Queensburgh
Travel together to the first house called IVAN HOE in Escombe
Then onto Ship House, Old Main Road, Kloof (located near top of Fields Hill).
To better understand we asked Donald Davies for a little background and he writes:
Style Moderne is considered by some to be the third period of the four sub periods within the Art Deco Style Period as a whole, which had its source initially in the Art Nouveau period, this being cut short when the great European war started. Then it reinvented itself in the art deco period of ‘Hollywood stucco’ when Tutankhamun’s tomb of the Egyptian Pharaohs, and Machu Pichu mountain fortress of the Inca’s and other Early Civilisations were discovered in the 1920’s.
From the Great War considerable technological developments were forthcoming, and just about everything was designed and manufactured to go faster like planes, trains, automobiles, and ocean liners; and buildings like the Empire State and Chrysler Building in New York were constructed higher; this also being made possible by the developments in Lifts which were a Building Regulation requirement above three floors.
Thus entered the Style Moderne period where the stucco was dispensed with, and replaced with curves to allow every possibility for speed.
So too are the two residences the Art Deco Society will visit on Sunday 28th August 2016, for these are the most significant of the Greater Durban residences designed early in the period.
Some local historians feel that Malvern, Escombe, Queensburgh and the surrounds have an interesting history now sadly part ignored so this is a golden opportunity to visit and partly rectify that. Hardy Wilson
Click to download a pdf of this News Brief No 43 SANS News Brief – 043 – Durban Art Deco Society Outing