In any New Zealand town, even small country towns, you will find at least one Art Deco house. These were not built by intellectuals using an avant-garde architect as you might have found in the United States. These were built by builders using handbooks for young married couples who didn't have any intellectual pretensions at all. |
It wasn't until the 1980s when we lost several really good buildings to another building boom that we woke up to the value of what we had, |
People were sure that science, education, technology and mass production were going to solve their problems, |
The fact that we were unique and that there was a huge opportunity for Napier to not only save some important heritage but to benefit economically from tourism. |
The people of Napier wanted a new modern city, they didn't want to replace the old city with another city, |
The Trust's attitude had been to always been to save the buildings through tourism because nobody took us seriously when we said that these concrete boxes were important, |
There has been a suggestion that the rebuilding of Napier in a modern style pushes New Zealanders into a greater acceptance of modernism than you would find in many other countries, even though we were quite isolated in those days, |
There was going to be no more poverty, no more ignorance, no more disease. Art Deco reflected that confidence, vigor and optimism by using symbols of progress, speed and power. |
We knew that we had to bring in overseas tourists taking photos of them and admiring them before anybody would believe us. |