The Art Deco PPL Building - Sturt Street, Ballarat
Although not famous for its Art Deco architecture, the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat, which was established between the 1860s and 1880s when the area was at the centre of a gold rush, does have some fine examples of interwar and post war architecture when the gold boom was replaced with wealth generated through grazing and agriculture.
During the 1920s and 1930s, those people thriving from farming or local industry had plenty to spend in local shops. This wonderful Art Deco facade (circa 1925 - 1930) belongs to the PPL Building in Ballarat's main shopping thoroughfare, Sturt Street. Whilst the street level may have fallen victim to the changes in marketing, the upper floors remain unchanged by fickle owners. It still retains its striking minimalist Art Deco design. It features the building's name in a rounded cartouche on the building's corner facade which overlooks Albert Street. The PPL Building has a stylised stepped roofline, long spandrels with rounded edging and glass brick windows, all of which were popular architectural features of the Art Deco movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The rounded edges are very representative of the Streamline Moderne movement, and the building is everything a smart and successful business would want in the booming interwar years in Australia.
The Art Deco PPL Building - Sturt Street, Ballarat
Although not famous for its Art Deco architecture, the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat, which was established between the 1860s and 1880s when the area was at the centre of a gold rush, does have some fine examples of interwar and post war architecture when the gold boom was replaced with wealth generated through grazing and agriculture.
During the 1920s and 1930s, those people thriving from farming or local industry had plenty to spend in local shops. This wonderful Art Deco facade (circa 1925 - 1930) belongs to the PPL Building in Ballarat's main shopping thoroughfare, Sturt Street. Whilst the street level may have fallen victim to the changes in marketing, the upper floors remain unchanged by fickle owners. It still retains its striking minimalist Art Deco design. It features the building's name in a rounded cartouche on the building's corner facade which overlooks Albert Street. The PPL Building has a stylised stepped roofline, long spandrels with rounded edging and glass brick windows, all of which were popular architectural features of the Art Deco movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The rounded edges are very representative of the Streamline Moderne movement, and the building is everything a smart and successful business would want in the booming interwar years in Australia.