Set back from the road, this wonderfully sleek and stylised Art Deco villa may be found near to Lake Wendouree in the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat.

The clean uncluttered lines of the villa are very Streamline Moderne in design. The mansion is made almost entirely of clinker brick, with the exception of some brown feature bricks along the angular, flat roofline of the enclosed vestibule, the stepped chimney and in-dispersed amongt the clinker bricks of the vestibule columns. The only real decoration other than he feature bricks is a wrought iron grille that is used as ornamentation over a small window. The villa features a wide circular vestibule and very tall chimneys, both signature design elements of Ballarat’s most renowned architect of the 1930s, Herbert Leslie Coburn (1891 – 1956). Streamline Moderne was known in Australia as Modern Ship Style during the 1930s. This nickname was used because the buildings designed in this style often looked very much like the cascading upper superstructures of ocean liners with their towering decks, railings and porthole windows. The rounded enclosed vestibule with its flat parapet and stepped chimney does not look unlike the prow of a ship with its funnel. The whole property is surrounded by its original clinker brick wall with brown feature brick decorated newel posts.

Ballarat born Herbert Leslie Coburn grew up to be a renowned Ballarat architect, practicing from 1905 to 1956. He taught Architecture and Building Construction at the Ballarat School of Mines from 1922, resigning in 1948 due to ill health. The Royal Victorian Institute of Architects awarded Herbert Coburn a Silver Medal for the designs of an Anglican Gothic Suburban Church in 1913 while he was still a student of the institute. In 1917 Herbert became associated with Percy Richards, and they formed a partnership in 1918, Richards, Coburn, Richards, which lasted until 1933, when they separated owing to artistic differences. Whilst Percy Richards wished to retain a more traditional style in keeping with the popular conservative tastes of their clients, Herbert Coburn wanted to be at the vanguard of architectural design and was very interested in following the sleeker and stylised designs of the Streamline Moderne movement which was coming out of Europe. Herbert Coburn therefore started his own architectural practice. Coburn studied for formal qualifications by correspondence with the International Correspondence School, obtaining an architectural diploma two years later. His rooms were in the Clyde Chambers at 313 Sturt St, Ballarat. He was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. Some of Herbert Coburn's architectural achievements include: St Patrick's Primary School in Drummond Street Ballarat (1935), the Shire of Wimmera Council Offices in Firebrace Street Horsham (1936), Paterson's Furniture Store in Horsham (circa 1936), the Railway Hotel in Maryborough (1938) and the clock tower of the Stawell Town Hall (1939). In addition to these, there are many beautiful, well designed and executed modernist Art Deco villas around Ballarat that bear his distinct architectural style.

The community minded Herbert Coburn was elected a Councillor with the City of Ballarat in 1938, and Mayor in 1945. Herbert’s motivation was the 'proper development and advancement of his city.' He held the position of Councillor until 1952.

Set back from the road in a simple, yet well established garden on a large block, "Avalon" is a wonderfully sleek and stylised Art Deco mansion that may be found in the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat.

The clean uncluttered lines of "Avalon" are very Art Deco in design. The mansion is made almost entirely of red clinker brick, with the exception of a few brown feature bricks and the semi-circular vestibule which is built of concrete with reeded pillars. The rear section of "Avalon" has a more traditional roofline, whereas the front has a more architecturally avant-guarde flat roof, usually associate with late 1930s architecture. Also very Art Deco in spirit is the front stepped chimney that looks like a New York skyscraper, and the geometrically patterned air vent in the ornamental pagoda tower. "Avalon's" wide circular portico and a very tall chimneys are signature design elements of Ballarat’s most renowned architect of the 1930s, Herbert Leslie Coburn (1891 – 1956).

Ballarat born Herbert Leslie Coburn grew up to be a renowned Ballarat architect, practicing from 1905 to 1956. He taught Architecture and Building Construction at the Ballarat School of Mines from 1922, resigning in 1948 due to ill health. The Royal Victorian Institute of Architects awarded Herbert Coburn a Silver Medal for the designs of an Anglican Gothic Suburban Church in 1913 while he was still a student of the institute. In 1917 Herbert became associated with Percy Richards, and they formed a partnership in 1918, Richards, Coburn, Richards, which lasted until 1933, when they separated owing to artistic differences. Whilst Percy Richards wished to retain a more traditional style in keeping with the popular conservative tastes of their clients, Herbert Coburn wanted to be at the vanguard of architectural design and was very interested in following the sleeker and stylised designs of the Streamline Moderne movement which was coming out of Europe. Herbert Coburn therefore started his own architectural practice. Coburn studied for formal qualifications by correspondence with the International Correspondence School, obtaining an architectural diploma two years later. His rooms were in the Clyde Chambers at 313 Sturt St, Ballarat. He was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. Some of Herbert Coburn's architectural achievements include: St Patrick's Primary School in Drummond Street Ballarat (1935), the Shire of Wimmera Council Offices in Firebrace Street Horsham (1936), Paterson's Furniture Store in Horsham (circa 1936), the Railway Hotel in Maryborough (1938) and the clock tower of the Stawell Town Hall (1939). In addition to these, there are many beautiful, well designed and executed modernist Art Deco villas around Ballarat that bear his distinct architectural style.

The community minded Herbert Coburn was elected a Councillor with the City of Ballarat in 1938, and Mayor in 1945. Herbert’s motivation was the 'proper development and advancement of his city.' He held the position of Councillor until 1952.

Although all the rooms of the Rone - Empire installation exhibition are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. As a well proportioned and elegant space, it runs over half of the original Burnham Beeches floor plan. It features two long tables covered in a Miss Havisham like feast of a trove of found dinner table objects from silverware and glassware to empty oyster shells and vases of grasses and feathers.

The Dining Room installation I personally found especially confronting. In 1982, I visited Burnham Beeches when it was a smart and select hotel and had Devonshire tea in the dining room at a table alongside the full length windows overlooking the terraces below. I was shocked to see a room I remember appointed with thick carpets and tables covered in gleaming silver and white napery, strewn with dust and leaves, and adorned with Miss Havisham's feast of found dining objects.

Melbourne based street artist Rone (Tyrone Wright) used the decaying glory of the 1933 Harry Norris designed Streamline Moderne mansion, Burnham Beeches in the Dandenong Ranges' Sherbrooke, between March the 6th and April 22nd to create an immersive hybrid art space for his latest installation exhibition; "Empire".

"Empire" combined a mixture of many different elements including art, sound, light, scent, found objects, botanic designs, objects from nature and music especially composed for the project by Nick Batterham. The Burnham Beeches project re-imagines and re-interprets the spirit of one of Victoria’s landmark mansions, seldom seen by the public and not accessed since the mid 1980s. According to Rone - Empire website; "viewers are invited to consider what remains - the unseen cultural, social, artistic and spiritual heritage which produces intangible meaning."

Rone was invited by the current owner of Burnham Beeches, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, to exhibit "Empire" during a six week interim period before renovations commence to convert the heritage listed mansion into a select six star hotel.

Rone initially imagined the mansion to be in a state of dereliction, but found instead that it was a stripped back blank canvas for him to create his own version of how he thought it should look. Therefore, almost all the decay is in fact of Rone's creation from grasses in the Games Room which 'grow' next to a rotting billiards table, to the damp patches, water staining and smoke damage on the ceilings. Nests of leaves fill some spaces, whilst tree branches and in one case an entire avenue of boughs sprout from walls and ceilings. Especially designed Art Deco wallpaper created in Rone's studio has been installed on the walls before being distressed and damaged. The rooms have been adorned with furnishings and objects that might once have graced the twelve original rooms of Burnham Beeches: bulbulous club sofas, half round Art Deco tables, tarnished silverware and their canteen, mirrored smoke stands of chrome and Bakelite, glass lamps, English dinner services, a glass drinks trolley, photos of people long forgotten in time, walnut veneer dressing tables reflecting the installation sometimes in triplicate, old wire beadsteads, luggage, shelves of books, an Underwood typewriter, a John Broadwood and Sons of London grand piano and even a Kriesler radiogramme. All these objects were then covered in a thick sheet or light sprinkling of 'dust' made of many different things including coffee grinds and talcum powder, creating a sensation for the senses. Burnham Beeches resonated with a ghostly sense of its former grandeur, with a whiff of bittersweet romance.

Throughout the twelve rooms, magnificent and beautifully haunting floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall portraits of Australian actress Lily Sullivan, star of the Foxtel re-make of Picnic at Hanging Rock, appear. Larger than life, each portrait is created in different colours, helping to create seasonal shifts as you move from room to room.

Although all the rooms are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. The Study is the other. It features walls of books covered with a portrait of Lily Sullivan, and the entire room is partially submerged in a lake of black water with the occasional red oak leaf floating across its glassy surface.

I feel very honoured and privileged to be amongst the far too few people fortunate enough to have seen Rone's "Empire", as like the seasons, it is ephemeral, and it will already have been dismantled. Rone's idea is that, like his street art, things he creates don't last forever, and that made the project exciting. I hope that my photographs do justice to, and adequately share as much as is possible of this amazing installation with you.

The theater, which opened in 1950 and closed in the 1970s, is being renovated. Love the Moderne style. Love the curving marquee with its rings of neon. Love the tower (60 feet tall!) Summary: Love.

Oakland, CA Leimert Blvd. home

Although all the rooms of the Rone - Empire installation exhibition are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. As a well proportioned and elegant space, it runs over half of the original Burnham Beeches floor plan. It features two long tables covered in a Miss Havisham like feast of a trove of found dinner table objects from silverware and glassware to empty oyster shells and vases of grasses and feathers.

The Dining Room installation I personally found especially confronting. In 1982, I visited Burnham Beeches when it was a smart and select hotel and had Devonshire tea in the dining room at a table alongside the full length windows overlooking the terraces below. I was shocked to see a room I remember appointed with thick carpets and tables covered in gleaming silver and white napery, strewn with dust and leaves, and adorned with Miss Havisham's feast of found dining objects.

Melbourne based street artist Rone (Tyrone Wright) used the decaying glory of the 1933 Harry Norris designed Streamline Moderne mansion, Burnham Beeches in the Dandenong Ranges' Sherbrooke, between March the 6th and April 22nd to create an immersive hybrid art space for his latest installation exhibition; "Empire".

"Empire" combined a mixture of many different elements including art, sound, light, scent, found objects, botanic designs, objects from nature and music especially composed for the project by Nick Batterham. The Burnham Beeches project re-imagines and re-interprets the spirit of one of Victoria’s landmark mansions, seldom seen by the public and not accessed since the mid 1980s. According to Rone - Empire website; "viewers are invited to consider what remains - the unseen cultural, social, artistic and spiritual heritage which produces intangible meaning."

Rone was invited by the current owner of Burnham Beeches, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, to exhibit "Empire" during a six week interim period before renovations commence to convert the heritage listed mansion into a select six star hotel.

Rone initially imagined the mansion to be in a state of dereliction, but found instead that it was a stripped back blank canvas for him to create his own version of how he thought it should look. Therefore, almost all the decay is in fact of Rone's creation from grasses in the Games Room which 'grow' next to a rotting billiards table, to the damp patches, water staining and smoke damage on the ceilings. Nests of leaves fill some spaces, whilst tree branches and in one case an entire avenue of boughs sprout from walls and ceilings. Especially designed Art Deco wallpaper created in Rone's studio has been installed on the walls before being distressed and damaged. The rooms have been adorned with furnishings and objects that might once have graced the twelve original rooms of Burnham Beeches: bulbulous club sofas, half round Art Deco tables, tarnished silverware and their canteen, mirrored smoke stands of chrome and Bakelite, glass lamps, English dinner services, a glass drinks trolley, photos of people long forgotten in time, walnut veneer dressing tables reflecting the installation sometimes in triplicate, old wire beadsteads, luggage, shelves of books, an Underwood typewriter, a John Broadwood and Sons of London grand piano and even a Kriesler radiogramme. All these objects were then covered in a thick sheet or light sprinkling of 'dust' made of many different things including coffee grinds and talcum powder, creating a sensation for the senses. Burnham Beeches resonated with a ghostly sense of its former grandeur, with a whiff of bittersweet romance.

Throughout the twelve rooms, magnificent and beautifully haunting floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall portraits of Australian actress Lily Sullivan, star of the Foxtel re-make of Picnic at Hanging Rock, appear. Larger than life, each portrait is created in different colours, helping to create seasonal shifts as you move from room to room.

Although all the rooms are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. The Study is the other. It features walls of books covered with a portrait of Lily Sullivan, and the entire room is partially submerged in a lake of black water with the occasional red oak leaf floating across its glassy surface.

I feel very honoured and privileged to be amongst the far too few people fortunate enough to have seen Rone's "Empire", as like the seasons, it is ephemeral, and it will already have been dismantled. Rone's idea is that, like his street art, things he creates don't last forever, and that made the project exciting. I hope that my photographs do justice to, and adequately share as much as is possible of this amazing installation with you.

Originally called the “Music Museum and Grainger Museum”, the “Grainger Museum” is a small Streamline Moderne Art Deco building, built between 1935 and 1939, a repository of items documenting the life, career and music of the well known Australian composer, folklorist and pianist, Percy Grainger (1882 – 1961).

Built on one of Melbourne’s grand tree lined boulevards, Royal Parade in Parkville, the autobiographical museum was constructed in two stages between 1935 and 1939, on land provided for the purpose by the University of Melbourne. The Grainger Museum was designed by the staff architect of Melbourne University, John Stevens Gawler (1885 – 1978) through his architectural firm Gawler and Drummond. The building, built of brown clinker bricks is typical of Streamline Moderne design in Australia in the late 1930s, yet it also has undertones of the Arts and Crafts movement. It has very little detailing on the outside, with a severe arched entranceway, two windows featuring Art Deco grillework, a few decorative panels of brickwork (quite typical of John Gawler’s work) and the remaining windows consisting of glass bricks. The name of the museum appears above the main entranceway in stark Art Deco lettering made of cast iron which have been painted black. The museum is circular and features a small central courtyard accessed by two sets of French doors. The courtyard facades are detailed with decorative brickwork.

The Grainger Museum received input from Mr. Grainger in its design as well as its purpose, as well as funding provided by the composer. Mr. Grainger had contemplated establishing an autobiographical museum in the early 1920s, following the sudden suicide of his mother Rose, to whom he was very devoted. The museum contains large quantity of material from Mr. Grainger’s life, including art and furnishings from his home, musical instruments that he used, compositions, recordings, reformist clothing, published scores, field recordings, photographs, books and personal items belonging not only to Mr. Grainger, but also his mother. It also contains a curio case of whips that Mr. Grainger used in sadomasochist sexual acts which were in a trunk given to the museum with strict instructions that it was not to be opened until ten year after his death. The trunk also contained photographs of the composer after sessions of self flagellation. The museum also contains large amounts of material concerning some of his musical contemporaries, many of whom have fallen into obscurity. The Grainger Museum was officially opened in December 1938, and was staffed and maintained by Mr. Grainger throughout his life.

Sadly, the Grainger Museum suffered some initial setbacks with the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, when the building was used for storage for the duration, rather than its original purpose. The museum’s designs were also problematic, as the building was prone to leaks and required extensive waterproofing. The majority of objects were not put on public display until the 1950s when Mr. Grainger visited Australia with the intention of finishing his autobiographical project; something he failed to do as he set sail for his New York home with the task still incomplete. During the 1960s the Grainger Museum was opened to the public regularly for the first time and was sometimes used for concerts and musical workshops for jazz and other avant-garde music, which would have pleased Mr. Grainger, who sadly had died some five years before this eventuality. The Grainger Museum quietly closed its doors in 2003 for extensive renovation, restoration and conservation work. It reopened seven years later 2010, and has been open selectively ever since, showcasing Mr. Grainger’s life and works in a smart, well set out and discreet fashion.

Percy Aldridge Grainger was born in Brighton, Melbourne. He showed precocious talent in music, and at the age of 13 he left Australia to further his ability by attending the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1901 he moved to London, where with the assistance of his mother, he established himself as a successful society pianist, and developed a career as a concert performer and composer. During his time in London, he also collected original folk melodies and helped revive interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th Century. Mr. Grainger left England in 1914, and moved to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life, residing in White Haven, a suburb of New York with his mother, Rose, who was always his greatest supporter and exponent. Mr. Grainger took up American citizenship in 1918. After his mother committed suicide in 1922, he involved himself more with educational work, and created his own experimental and unusual musical compositions. He particularly enjoyed musical experiments with fantastic music machines that he imagined, and perhaps hoped, would supersede human interpretation one day. During this time, he also made adaptations of other composers' musical works. In 1926, while returning to America from a tour, he met Ella Ström, a Swedish-born artist, whom he married before an enraptured audience at one of his concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in 1928. Mr. Grainger already had a great interest in Nordic music, but his wife’s lineage only served to drive his passion for such music even more. As he grew older he continued to give concerts. He also revised and rearranged compositions of his own, preferring this to writing new music, of which he produced little. After the Second World War, he suffered ill health which reduced his productivity and activity in his passions, and he considered his career to be a failure. He gave his final concert in 1960, less than a year before his death. The piece of music with which Percy Grainger is most generally remembered is his pretty piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune “Country Gardens”.

The architectural firm of Gawler and Drummond was a prolific, though rather undistinguished firm that designed a range of domestic, industrial, commercial and church buildings. These include the McRorie house in Camberwell in 1916, the Fitzroy department store Ackmans Ltd in 1918, the Loch Church of England in 1926, the Korumburra Church of England in 1927, the Deaf and Dumb Society's church at Jolimont in 1929 and the Nyora Church of England in 1930. The Percy Grainger Museum is perhaps Gawler and Drummond’s most distinguished work.

The Grainger Museum was open as part of the 2014 Open House Melbourne Weekend.

Although all the rooms of the Rone - Empire installation exhibition are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. As a well proportioned and elegant space, it runs over half of the original Burnham Beeches floor plan. It features two long tables covered in a Miss Havisham like feast of a trove of found dinner table objects from silverware and glassware to empty oyster shells and vases of grasses and feathers.

The Dining Room installation I personally found especially confronting. In 1982, I visited Burnham Beeches when it was a smart and select hotel and had Devonshire tea in the dining room at a table alongside the full length windows overlooking the terraces below. I was shocked to see a room I remember appointed with thick carpets and tables covered in gleaming silver and white napery, strewn with dust and leaves, and adorned with Miss Havisham's feast of found dining objects.

Melbourne based street artist Rone (Tyrone Wright) used the decaying glory of the 1933 Harry Norris designed Streamline Moderne mansion, Burnham Beeches in the Dandenong Ranges' Sherbrooke, between March the 6th and April 22nd to create an immersive hybrid art space for his latest installation exhibition; "Empire".

"Empire" combined a mixture of many different elements including art, sound, light, scent, found objects, botanic designs, objects from nature and music especially composed for the project by Nick Batterham. The Burnham Beeches project re-imagines and re-interprets the spirit of one of Victoria’s landmark mansions, seldom seen by the public and not accessed since the mid 1980s. According to Rone - Empire website; "viewers are invited to consider what remains - the unseen cultural, social, artistic and spiritual heritage which produces intangible meaning."

Rone was invited by the current owner of Burnham Beeches, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, to exhibit "Empire" during a six week interim period before renovations commence to convert the heritage listed mansion into a select six star hotel.

Rone initially imagined the mansion to be in a state of dereliction, but found instead that it was a stripped back blank canvas for him to create his own version of how he thought it should look. Therefore, almost all the decay is in fact of Rone's creation from grasses in the Games Room which 'grow' next to a rotting billiards table, to the damp patches, water staining and smoke damage on the ceilings. Nests of leaves fill some spaces, whilst tree branches and in one case an entire avenue of boughs sprout from walls and ceilings. Especially designed Art Deco wallpaper created in Rone's studio has been installed on the walls before being distressed and damaged. The rooms have been adorned with furnishings and objects that might once have graced the twelve original rooms of Burnham Beeches: bulbulous club sofas, half round Art Deco tables, tarnished silverware and their canteen, mirrored smoke stands of chrome and Bakelite, glass lamps, English dinner services, a glass drinks trolley, photos of people long forgotten in time, walnut veneer dressing tables reflecting the installation sometimes in triplicate, old wire beadsteads, luggage, shelves of books, an Underwood typewriter, a John Broadwood and Sons of London grand piano and even a Kriesler radiogramme. All these objects were then covered in a thick sheet or light sprinkling of 'dust' made of many different things including coffee grinds and talcum powder, creating a sensation for the senses. Burnham Beeches resonated with a ghostly sense of its former grandeur, with a whiff of bittersweet romance.

Throughout the twelve rooms, magnificent and beautifully haunting floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall portraits of Australian actress Lily Sullivan, star of the Foxtel re-make of Picnic at Hanging Rock, appear. Larger than life, each portrait is created in different colours, helping to create seasonal shifts as you move from room to room.

Although all the rooms are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. The Study is the other. It features walls of books covered with a portrait of Lily Sullivan, and the entire room is partially submerged in a lake of black water with the occasional red oak leaf floating across its glassy surface.

I feel very honoured and privileged to be amongst the far too few people fortunate enough to have seen Rone's "Empire", as like the seasons, it is ephemeral, and it will already have been dismantled. Rone's idea is that, like his street art, things he creates don't last forever, and that made the project exciting. I hope that my photographs do justice to, and adequately share as much as is possible of this amazing installation with you.

Originally called the “Music Museum and Grainger Museum”, the “Grainger Museum” is a small Streamline Moderne Art Deco building, built between 1935 and 1939, a repository of items documenting the life, career and music of the well known Australian composer, folklorist and pianist, Percy Grainger (1882 – 1961).

Built on one of Melbourne’s grand tree lined boulevards, Royal Parade in Parkville, the autobiographical museum was constructed in two stages between 1935 and 1939, on land provided for the purpose by the University of Melbourne. The Grainger Museum was designed by the staff architect of Melbourne University, John Stevens Gawler (1885 – 1978) through his architectural firm Gawler and Drummond. The building, built of brown clinker bricks is typical of Streamline Moderne design in Australia in the late 1930s, yet it also has undertones of the Arts and Crafts movement. It has very little detailing on the outside, with a severe arched entranceway, two windows featuring Art Deco grillework, a few decorative panels of brickwork (quite typical of John Gawler’s work) and the remaining windows consisting of glass bricks. The name of the museum appears above the main entranceway in stark Art Deco lettering made of cast iron which have been painted black. The museum is circular and features a small central courtyard accessed by two sets of French doors. The courtyard facades are detailed with decorative brickwork.

The Grainger Museum received input from Mr. Grainger in its design as well as its purpose, as well as funding provided by the composer. Mr. Grainger had contemplated establishing an autobiographical museum in the early 1920s, following the sudden suicide of his mother Rose, to whom he was very devoted. The museum contains large quantity of material from Mr. Grainger’s life, including art and furnishings from his home, musical instruments that he used, compositions, recordings, reformist clothing, published scores, field recordings, photographs, books and personal items belonging not only to Mr. Grainger, but also his mother. It also contains a curio case of whips that Mr. Grainger used in sadomasochist sexual acts which were in a trunk given to the museum with strict instructions that it was not to be opened until ten year after his death. The trunk also contained photographs of the composer after sessions of self flagellation. The museum also contains large amounts of material concerning some of his musical contemporaries, many of whom have fallen into obscurity. The Grainger Museum was officially opened in December 1938, and was staffed and maintained by Mr. Grainger throughout his life.

Sadly, the Grainger Museum suffered some initial setbacks with the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, when the building was used for storage for the duration, rather than its original purpose. The museum’s designs were also problematic, as the building was prone to leaks and required extensive waterproofing. The majority of objects were not put on public display until the 1950s when Mr. Grainger visited Australia with the intention of finishing his autobiographical project; something he failed to do as he set sail for his New York home with the task still incomplete. During the 1960s the Grainger Museum was opened to the public regularly for the first time and was sometimes used for concerts and musical workshops for jazz and other avant-garde music, which would have pleased Mr. Grainger, who sadly had died some five years before this eventuality. The Grainger Museum quietly closed its doors in 2003 for extensive renovation, restoration and conservation work. It reopened seven years later 2010, and has been open selectively ever since, showcasing Mr. Grainger’s life and works in a smart, well set out and discreet fashion.

Percy Aldridge Grainger was born in Brighton, Melbourne. He showed precocious talent in music, and at the age of 13 he left Australia to further his ability by attending the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1901 he moved to London, where with the assistance of his mother, he established himself as a successful society pianist, and developed a career as a concert performer and composer. During his time in London, he also collected original folk melodies and helped revive interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th Century. Mr. Grainger left England in 1914, and moved to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life, residing in White Haven, a suburb of New York with his mother, Rose, who was always his greatest supporter and exponent. Mr. Grainger took up American citizenship in 1918. After his mother committed suicide in 1922, he involved himself more with educational work, and created his own experimental and unusual musical compositions. He particularly enjoyed musical experiments with fantastic music machines that he imagined, and perhaps hoped, would supersede human interpretation one day. During this time, he also made adaptations of other composers' musical works. In 1926, while returning to America from a tour, he met Ella Ström, a Swedish-born artist, whom he married before an enraptured audience at one of his concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in 1928. Mr. Grainger already had a great interest in Nordic music, but his wife’s lineage only served to drive his passion for such music even more. As he grew older he continued to give concerts. He also revised and rearranged compositions of his own, preferring this to writing new music, of which he produced little. After the Second World War, he suffered ill health which reduced his productivity and activity in his passions, and he considered his career to be a failure. He gave his final concert in 1960, less than a year before his death. The piece of music with which Percy Grainger is most generally remembered is his pretty piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune “Country Gardens”.

The architectural firm of Gawler and Drummond was a prolific, though rather undistinguished firm that designed a range of domestic, industrial, commercial and church buildings. These include the McRorie house in Camberwell in 1916, the Fitzroy department store Ackmans Ltd in 1918, the Loch Church of England in 1926, the Korumburra Church of England in 1927, the Deaf and Dumb Society's church at Jolimont in 1929 and the Nyora Church of England in 1930. The Percy Grainger Museum is perhaps Gawler and Drummond’s most distinguished work.

The Grainger Museum was open as part of the 2014 Open House Melbourne Weekend.

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.

The former Ballarat Girls School, now part of Ballarat Secondary College, is a beautiful example of post war Art Deco architecture. Although built between 1954 and 1955, the school's main building of honey yellow clinker bricks is very Art Deco in its design. It features an emphatic vertical fin and a stepped facade and roofline. Minimalist in its decoration, it has Functionalist Steamline Moderne windows. Even its round porch lamp, is very modern in design. All these features give the building a very elegant and striking appearance in comparison to the 1860s architecture surrounding it.

Seen from a terrace on the 30th floor of the Graybar Building's venue space: "The Flight Deck"

The welcome sign directing motorists to the downtown business district in Fillmore, CA

Morecambe, UK

Nashville, IL

Built in 1940; remodeled early in the 21st century.

The moderne Jackson Greyhound terminal is likely one of the oldest in the country still in use. Perhaps the "half way" indicated the station's location halfway between Memphis and Nashville.

Looking up into the stairwell of Empress Court located at 142 Queens Road in Churchgate; designed by G.B. Mahtre.

Located at 1721 Williamson Rd. (US11) in Roanoke, this appears to be a well maintained vintage gas station & auto mechanic.

From Wikipedia:

Carlin's Amoco Station is a historic Amoco service station located at Roanoke, Virginia. It was built about 1947, and remodeled about 1953 in the Streamline Moderne style. The one-story gas station is constructed of concrete block covered with stucco and sits on a concrete slab foundation. Also on the property is an associated repair shop constructed about 1947.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

Originally called the “Music Museum and Grainger Museum”, the “Grainger Museum” is a small Streamline Moderne Art Deco building, built between 1935 and 1939, a repository of items documenting the life, career and music of the well known Australian composer, folklorist and pianist, Percy Grainger (1882 – 1961).

Built on one of Melbourne’s grand tree lined boulevards, Royal Parade in Parkville, the autobiographical museum was constructed in two stages between 1935 and 1939, on land provided for the purpose by the University of Melbourne. The Grainger Museum was designed by the staff architect of Melbourne University, John Stevens Gawler (1885 – 1978) through his architectural firm Gawler and Drummond. The building, built of brown clinker bricks is typical of Streamline Moderne design in Australia in the late 1930s, yet it also has undertones of the Arts and Crafts movement. It has very little detailing on the outside, with a severe arched entranceway, two windows featuring Art Deco grillework, a few decorative panels of brickwork (quite typical of John Gawler’s work) and the remaining windows consisting of glass bricks. The name of the museum appears above the main entranceway in stark Art Deco lettering made of cast iron which have been painted black. The museum is circular and features a small central courtyard accessed by two sets of French doors. The courtyard facades are detailed with decorative brickwork.

The Grainger Museum received input from Mr. Grainger in its design as well as its purpose, as well as funding provided by the composer. Mr. Grainger had contemplated establishing an autobiographical museum in the early 1920s, following the sudden suicide of his mother Rose, to whom he was very devoted. The museum contains large quantity of material from Mr. Grainger’s life, including art and furnishings from his home, musical instruments that he used, compositions, recordings, reformist clothing, published scores, field recordings, photographs, books and personal items belonging not only to Mr. Grainger, but also his mother. It also contains a curio case of whips that Mr. Grainger used in sadomasochist sexual acts which were in a trunk given to the museum with strict instructions that it was not to be opened until ten year after his death. The trunk also contained photographs of the composer after sessions of self flagellation. The museum also contains large amounts of material concerning some of his musical contemporaries, many of whom have fallen into obscurity. The Grainger Museum was officially opened in December 1938, and was staffed and maintained by Mr. Grainger throughout his life.

Sadly, the Grainger Museum suffered some initial setbacks with the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, when the building was used for storage for the duration, rather than its original purpose. The museum’s designs were also problematic, as the building was prone to leaks and required extensive waterproofing. The majority of objects were not put on public display until the 1950s when Mr. Grainger visited Australia with the intention of finishing his autobiographical project; something he failed to do as he set sail for his New York home with the task still incomplete. During the 1960s the Grainger Museum was opened to the public regularly for the first time and was sometimes used for concerts and musical workshops for jazz and other avant-garde music, which would have pleased Mr. Grainger, who sadly had died some five years before this eventuality. The Grainger Museum quietly closed its doors in 2003 for extensive renovation, restoration and conservation work. It reopened seven years later 2010, and has been open selectively ever since, showcasing Mr. Grainger’s life and works in a smart, well set out and discreet fashion.

Percy Aldridge Grainger was born in Brighton, Melbourne. He showed precocious talent in music, and at the age of 13 he left Australia to further his ability by attending the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1901 he moved to London, where with the assistance of his mother, he established himself as a successful society pianist, and developed a career as a concert performer and composer. During his time in London, he also collected original folk melodies and helped revive interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th Century. Mr. Grainger left England in 1914, and moved to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life, residing in White Haven, a suburb of New York with his mother, Rose, who was always his greatest supporter and exponent. Mr. Grainger took up American citizenship in 1918. After his mother committed suicide in 1922, he involved himself more with educational work, and created his own experimental and unusual musical compositions. He particularly enjoyed musical experiments with fantastic music machines that he imagined, and perhaps hoped, would supersede human interpretation one day. During this time, he also made adaptations of other composers' musical works. In 1926, while returning to America from a tour, he met Ella Ström, a Swedish-born artist, whom he married before an enraptured audience at one of his concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in 1928. Mr. Grainger already had a great interest in Nordic music, but his wife’s lineage only served to drive his passion for such music even more. As he grew older he continued to give concerts. He also revised and rearranged compositions of his own, preferring this to writing new music, of which he produced little. After the Second World War, he suffered ill health which reduced his productivity and activity in his passions, and he considered his career to be a failure. He gave his final concert in 1960, less than a year before his death. The piece of music with which Percy Grainger is most generally remembered is his pretty piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune “Country Gardens”.

The architectural firm of Gawler and Drummond was a prolific, though rather undistinguished firm that designed a range of domestic, industrial, commercial and church buildings. These include the McRorie house in Camberwell in 1916, the Fitzroy department store Ackmans Ltd in 1918, the Loch Church of England in 1926, the Korumburra Church of England in 1927, the Deaf and Dumb Society's church at Jolimont in 1929 and the Nyora Church of England in 1930. The Percy Grainger Museum is perhaps Gawler and Drummond’s most distinguished work.

The Grainger Museum was open as part of the 2014 Open House Melbourne Weekend.

Opened 1949 as a regular movie theater built in the streamline moderne style. By 1973, it was showing porn films, switched back to a non porn in 1977, only to have the adult films return a year later, which the theater showed as such until 2000, when it was shut down by the County of Santa Clara. The theater has been stripped of it's seats and the screen by the new owner, but not much can operate in the building given the lack of parking at the theater site.

After the Great War (1914 - 1918), higher costs of living and the "servant problem" made living in the grand mansions and villas built in the Victorian and Edwardian eras a far less practical and attractive option for both those looking for new housing, and those who lived in big houses. It was around this time, in answer to these problems, that flats and apartments began to replace some larger houses, and became fashionable to live in.

This stylish Art Deco block of two flats, featuring one dwelling above the other with an interconnecting staircase would have suited those of comfortable means who could afford to live in Trvancore (the suburb in which these flats are located), and dispense with the difficulties of keeping a large retinue of staff.

This cottage style block with its roof in a mixture of tiles in different shades, red brick walls with picked out brown feature bricks in geometric patterns, stylised stepped edgeing beneath the eaves, Streamline Moderne iron balustrade and "Mock Tudor" lamp above the stairs follow the less cluttered lines of Metroland Art Deco architecture that came out of England after the war.

Travancore is a bijou suburb named after a beautiful Victorian mansion erected in 1863. The mansion's grounds were subdivided in the late 1890s to form the new suburb, which consists only of only about five streets. With commanding views of Royal Park, the area was much sought after by aspiring middle and upper middle-class citizens.

Although all the rooms of the Rone - Empire installation exhibition are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. As a well proportioned and elegant space, it runs over half of the original Burnham Beeches floor plan. It features two long tables covered in a Miss Havisham like feast of a trove of found dinner table objects from silverware and glassware to empty oyster shells and vases of grasses and feathers.

The Dining Room installation I personally found especially confronting. In 1982, I visited Burnham Beeches when it was a smart and select hotel and had Devonshire tea in the dining room at a table alongside the full length windows overlooking the terraces below. I was shocked to see a room I remember appointed with thick carpets and tables covered in gleaming silver and white napery, strewn with dust and leaves, and adorned with Miss Havisham's feast of found dining objects.

Melbourne based street artist Rone (Tyrone Wright) used the decaying glory of the 1933 Harry Norris designed Streamline Moderne mansion, Burnham Beeches in the Dandenong Ranges' Sherbrooke, between March the 6th and April 22nd to create an immersive hybrid art space for his latest installation exhibition; "Empire".

"Empire" combined a mixture of many different elements including art, sound, light, scent, found objects, botanic designs, objects from nature and music especially composed for the project by Nick Batterham. The Burnham Beeches project re-imagines and re-interprets the spirit of one of Victoria’s landmark mansions, seldom seen by the public and not accessed since the mid 1980s. According to Rone - Empire website; "viewers are invited to consider what remains - the unseen cultural, social, artistic and spiritual heritage which produces intangible meaning."

Rone was invited by the current owner of Burnham Beeches, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, to exhibit "Empire" during a six week interim period before renovations commence to convert the heritage listed mansion into a select six star hotel.

Rone initially imagined the mansion to be in a state of dereliction, but found instead that it was a stripped back blank canvas for him to create his own version of how he thought it should look. Therefore, almost all the decay is in fact of Rone's creation from grasses in the Games Room which 'grow' next to a rotting billiards table, to the damp patches, water staining and smoke damage on the ceilings. Nests of leaves fill some spaces, whilst tree branches and in one case an entire avenue of boughs sprout from walls and ceilings. Especially designed Art Deco wallpaper created in Rone's studio has been installed on the walls before being distressed and damaged. The rooms have been adorned with furnishings and objects that might once have graced the twelve original rooms of Burnham Beeches: bulbulous club sofas, half round Art Deco tables, tarnished silverware and their canteen, mirrored smoke stands of chrome and Bakelite, glass lamps, English dinner services, a glass drinks trolley, photos of people long forgotten in time, walnut veneer dressing tables reflecting the installation sometimes in triplicate, old wire beadsteads, luggage, shelves of books, an Underwood typewriter, a John Broadwood and Sons of London grand piano and even a Kriesler radiogramme. All these objects were then covered in a thick sheet or light sprinkling of 'dust' made of many different things including coffee grinds and talcum powder, creating a sensation for the senses. Burnham Beeches resonated with a ghostly sense of its former grandeur, with a whiff of bittersweet romance.

Throughout the twelve rooms, magnificent and beautifully haunting floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall portraits of Australian actress Lily Sullivan, star of the Foxtel re-make of Picnic at Hanging Rock, appear. Larger than life, each portrait is created in different colours, helping to create seasonal shifts as you move from room to room.

Although all the rooms are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. The Study is the other. It features walls of books covered with a portrait of Lily Sullivan, and the entire room is partially submerged in a lake of black water with the occasional red oak leaf floating across its glassy surface.

I feel very honoured and privileged to be amongst the far too few people fortunate enough to have seen Rone's "Empire", as like the seasons, it is ephemeral, and it will already have been dismantled. Rone's idea is that, like his street art, things he creates don't last forever, and that made the project exciting. I hope that my photographs do justice to, and adequately share as much as is possible of this amazing installation with you.

Set back from the road in a simple, yet well established garden, this wonderfully sleek and stylised Art Deco mansion may be found near to Lake Wendouree in the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat.

The clean uncluttered lines of the mansion are very Streamline Moderne in design. The mansion is made almost entirely of clinker brick, with the exception of some brown feature bricks along the angular, flat roofline. It features a wide circular sun deck balcony and a very tall chimney, both signature design elements of Ballarat’s most renowned architect of the 1930s, Herbert Leslie Coburn (1891 – 1956). Built in 1939 for a well-to-do member of Ballarat’s interwar society it cost £1,800.00, no small amount of money in the late 1930s. It has very functionalist windows which flood the mansion’s rooms with light. Aside from a small amount of wrought iron balustrading, a matching grille on the front door and the small band of feature bricks, it is entirely devoid of decoration. The whole property is surrounded by its original clinker brick wall with brown feature brick decorated newel posts.

Ballarat born Herbert Leslie Coburn grew up to be a renowned Ballarat architect, practicing from 1905 to 1956. He taught Architecture and Building Construction at the Ballarat School of Mines from 1922, resigning in 1948 due to ill health. The Royal Victorian Institute of Architects awarded Herbert Coburn a Silver Medal for the designs of an Anglican Gothic Suburban Church in 1913 while he was still a student of the institute. In 1917 Herbert became associated with Percy Richards, and they formed a partnership in 1918, Richards, Coburn, Richards, which lasted until 1933, when they separated owing to artistic differences. Whilst Percy Richards wished to retain a more traditional style in keeping with the popular conservative tastes of their clients, Herbert Coburn wanted to be at the vanguard of architectural design and was very interested in following the sleeker and stylised designs of the Streamline Moderne movement which was coming out of Europe. Herbert Coburn therefore started his own architectural practice. Coburn studied for formal qualifications by correspondence with the International Correspondence School, obtaining an architectural diploma two years later. His rooms were in the Clyde Chambers at 313 Sturt St, Ballarat. He was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. Some of Herbert Coburn's architectural achievements include: St Patrick's Primary School in Drummond Street Ballarat (1935), the Shire of Wimmera Council Offices in Firebrace Street Horsham (1936), Paterson's Furniture Store in Horsham (circa 1936), the Railway Hotel in Maryborough (1938) and the clock tower of the Stawell Town Hall (1939). In addition to these, there are many beautiful, well designed and executed modernist Art Deco villas around Ballarat that bear his distinct architectural style.

The community minded Herbert Coburn was elected a Councillor with the City of Ballarat in 1938, and Mayor in 1945. Herbert’s motivation was the 'proper development and advancement of his city.' He held the position of Councillor until 1952.

Set back from the road, this wonderfully sleek and stylised Art Deco villa may be found near to Lake Wendouree in the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat.

The clean uncluttered lines of the villa are very Streamline Moderne in design. The mansion is made almost entirely of clinker brick, with the exception of some brown feature bricks along the angular, flat roofline of the enclosed vestibule, the stepped chimney and in-dispersed amongt the clinker bricks of the vestibule columns. The only real decoration other than he feature bricks is a wrought iron grille that is used as ornamentation over a small window. The villa features a wide circular vestibule and very tall chimneys, both signature design elements of Ballarat’s most renowned architect of the 1930s, Herbert Leslie Coburn (1891 – 1956). Streamline Moderne was known in Australia as Modern Ship Style during the 1930s. This nickname was used because the buildings designed in this style often looked very much like the cascading upper superstructures of ocean liners with their towering decks, railings and porthole windows. The rounded enclosed vestibule with its flat parapet and stepped chimney does not look unlike the prow of a ship with its funnel. The whole property is surrounded by its original clinker brick wall with brown feature brick decorated newel posts.

Ballarat born Herbert Leslie Coburn grew up to be a renowned Ballarat architect, practicing from 1905 to 1956. He taught Architecture and Building Construction at the Ballarat School of Mines from 1922, resigning in 1948 due to ill health. The Royal Victorian Institute of Architects awarded Herbert Coburn a Silver Medal for the designs of an Anglican Gothic Suburban Church in 1913 while he was still a student of the institute. In 1917 Herbert became associated with Percy Richards, and they formed a partnership in 1918, Richards, Coburn, Richards, which lasted until 1933, when they separated owing to artistic differences. Whilst Percy Richards wished to retain a more traditional style in keeping with the popular conservative tastes of their clients, Herbert Coburn wanted to be at the vanguard of architectural design and was very interested in following the sleeker and stylised designs of the Streamline Moderne movement which was coming out of Europe. Herbert Coburn therefore started his own architectural practice. Coburn studied for formal qualifications by correspondence with the International Correspondence School, obtaining an architectural diploma two years later. His rooms were in the Clyde Chambers at 313 Sturt St, Ballarat. He was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. Some of Herbert Coburn's architectural achievements include: St Patrick's Primary School in Drummond Street Ballarat (1935), the Shire of Wimmera Council Offices in Firebrace Street Horsham (1936), Paterson's Furniture Store in Horsham (circa 1936), the Railway Hotel in Maryborough (1938) and the clock tower of the Stawell Town Hall (1939). In addition to these, there are many beautiful, well designed and executed modernist Art Deco villas around Ballarat that bear his distinct architectural style.

The community minded Herbert Coburn was elected a Councillor with the City of Ballarat in 1938, and Mayor in 1945. Herbert’s motivation was the 'proper development and advancement of his city.' He held the position of Councillor until 1952.

Painted in crisp white, "Alan'ca" is a stylish Streamline Moderne Art Deco mansion in the Melbourne suburb of North Caulfield. The flat roof over the right hand side of the mansion, the rounded wall treatment and semicircular enclosed vestibule with its stepped parapet, speed lines and the minimal decoration across the building all pay homage to the chic, uncluttered lines of Streamline Moderne Art Deco architecture popular around the world in the 1930s. It almost has an elegant Hollywood mansion style about it as it basks in the sun. Even the angular, arrow like wrought iron in the narrow, elongated vestibule windows is very much in the spirit of the Jazz Age. A small piece of wrought iron in the Juliet balcony above the vestibule is equally Art Deco, as is the rounded, almost nautical porch light in its wrought iron frame. The original low fence with its wrought iron gate is also very Jazz Age and typical of the era.

"Alan'ca" has a smart terraced garden to complement the mansion.

Alan'ca is a place with a very small population in the province of Bilecik, Turkey. The closest major cities include Eskisehir, Bursa, Gebze and Istanbul. Perhaps the original owners went to Alan'ca before their home was built, thus inspiring the name emblazoned in elegant script on the front fence next to the gate.

Melbourne based street artist Rone (Tyrone Wright) used the decaying glory of the 1933 Harry Norris designed Streamline Moderne mansion, Burnham Beeches in the Dandenong Ranges' Sherbrooke, between March the 6th and April 22nd to create an immersive hybrid art space for his latest installation exhibition; "Empire".

"Empire" combined a mixture of many different elements including art, sound, light, scent, found objects, botanic designs, objects from nature and music especially composed for the project by Nick Batterham. The Burnham Beeches project re-imagines and re-interprets the spirit of one of Victoria’s landmark mansions, seldom seen by the public and not accessed since the mid 1980s. According to Rone - Empire website; "viewers are invited to consider what remains - the unseen cultural, social, artistic and spiritual heritage which produces intangible meaning."

Rone was invited by the current owner of Burnham Beeches, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, to exhibit "Empire" during a six week interim period before renovations commence to convert the heritage listed mansion into a select six star hotel.

Rone initially imagined the mansion to be in a state of dereliction, but found instead that it was a stripped back blank canvas for him to create his own version of how he thought it should look. Therefore, almost all the decay is in fact of Rone's creation from grasses in the Games Room which 'grow' next to a rotting billiards table, to the damp patches, water staining and smoke damage on the ceilings. Nests of leaves fill some spaces, whilst tree branches and in one case an entire avenue of boughs sprout from walls and ceilings. Especially designed Art Deco wallpaper created in Rone's studio has been installed on the walls before being distressed and damaged. The rooms have been adorned with furnishings and objects that might once have graced the twelve original rooms of Burnham Beeches: bulbulous club sofas, half round Art Deco tables, tarnished silverware and their canteen, mirrored smoke stands of chrome and Bakelite, glass lamps, English dinner services, a glass drinks trolley, photos of people long forgotten in time, walnut veneer dressing tables reflecting the installation sometimes in triplicate, old wire beadsteads, luggage, shelves of books, an Underwood typewriter, a John Broadwood and Sons of London grand piano and even a Kriesler radiogramme. All these objects were then covered in a thick sheet or light sprinkling of 'dust' made of many different things including coffee grinds and talcum powder, creating a sensation for the senses. Burnham Beeches resonated with a ghostly sense of its former grandeur, with a whiff of bittersweet romance.

Throughout the twelve rooms, magnificent and beautifully haunting floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall portraits of Australian actress Lily Sullivan, star of the Foxtel re-make of Picnic at Hanging Rock, appear. Larger than life, each portrait is created in different colours, helping to create seasonal shifts as you move from room to room.

Although all the rooms are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Study features walls of books covered with a portrait of Lily Sullivan, and the entire room is partially submerged in a lake of black water with the occasional red oak leaf floating across its glassy surface. The Dining Room features two long tables covered in a Miss Havisham like feast of a trove of dinner table objects from silverware and glassware to empty oyster shells and vases of grasses and feathers.

The Dining Room installation I found especially confronting. In 1982, I visited Burnham Beeches when it was a smart and select hotel and had Devonshire tea in the dining room at a table alongside the full length windows overlooking the terraces below. I was shocked to see a room I remember appointed with thick carpets and tables covered in gleaming silver and white napery, strewn with dust and leaves, and adorned with Miss Havisham's feast of found dining objects.

I feel very honoured and privileged to be amongst the far too few people fortunate enough to have seen Rone's "Empire", as like the seasons, it is ephemeral, and it will already have been dismantled. Rone's idea is that, like his street art, things he creates don't last forever, and that made the project exciting. I hope that my photographs do justice to, and adequately share as much as is possible of this amazing installation with you.

Opened in 1947 as Standard Radio, this store was the post-World War II equivalent of the Apple Store, and its products were as much in demand as the iPhone and iPad are today. In the seventies and eighties, it was converted to a record and hi-fi store and was like that as long as I could remember.

And yet, it's coming down. The Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board decided that the building did not qualify as a historic landmark. And so the light rail is coming through and they're bulldozering the whole block for a new rail station. They cant even be bothered to keep the facade, turning this awesome architecture into a cool entrance that at the same time honored the neighborhood's past.

But no, down it comes. And Seattle loses a little bit more of it's personality.

Melbourne based street artist Rone (Tyrone Wright) used the decaying glory of the 1933 Harry Norris designed Streamline Moderne mansion, Burnham Beeches in the Dandenong Ranges' Sherbrooke, between March the 6th and April 22nd to create an immersive hybrid art space for his latest installation exhibition; "Empire".

"Empire" combined a mixture of many different elements including art, sound, light, scent, found objects, botanic designs, objects from nature and music especially composed for the project by Nick Batterham. The Burnham Beeches project re-imagines and re-interprets the spirit of one of Victoria’s landmark mansions, seldom seen by the public and not accessed since the mid 1980s. According to Rone - Empire website; "viewers are invited to consider what remains - the unseen cultural, social, artistic and spiritual heritage which produces intangible meaning."

Rone was invited by the current owner of Burnham Beeches, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, to exhibit "Empire" during a six week interim period before renovations commence to convert the heritage listed mansion into a select six star hotel.

Rone initially imagined the mansion to be in a state of dereliction, but found instead that it was a stripped back blank canvas for him to create his own version of how he thought it should look. Therefore, almost all the decay is in fact of Rone's creation from grasses in the Games Room which 'grow' next to a rotting billiards table, to the damp patches, water staining and smoke damage on the ceilings. Nests of leaves fill some spaces, whilst tree branches and in one case an entire avenue of boughs sprout from walls and ceilings. Especially designed Art Deco wallpaper created in Rone's studio has been installed on the walls before being distressed and damaged. The rooms have been adorned with furnishings and objects that might once have graced the twelve original rooms of Burnham Beeches: bulbulous club sofas, half round Art Deco tables, tarnished silverware and their canteen, mirrored smoke stands of chrome and Bakelite, glass lamps, English dinner services, a glass drinks trolley, photos of people long forgotten in time, walnut veneer dressing tables reflecting the installation sometimes in triplicate, old wire beadsteads, luggage, shelves of books, an Underwood typewriter, a John Broadwood and Sons of London grand piano and even a Kriesler radiogramme. All these objects were then covered in a thick sheet or light sprinkling of 'dust' made of many different things including coffee grinds and talcum powder, creating a sensation for the senses. Burnham Beeches resonated with a ghostly sense of its former grandeur, with a whiff of bittersweet romance.

Throughout the twelve rooms, magnificent and beautifully haunting floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall portraits of Australian actress Lily Sullivan, star of the Foxtel re-make of Picnic at Hanging Rock, appear. Larger than life, each portrait is created in different colours, helping to create seasonal shifts as you move from room to room.

Although all the rooms are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Study features walls of books covered with a portrait of Lily Sullivan, and the entire room is partially submerged in a lake of black water with the occasional red oak leaf floating across its glassy surface. The Dining Room features two long tables covered in a Miss Havisham like feast of a trove of dinner table objects from silverware and glassware to empty oyster shells and vases of grasses and feathers.

The Dining Room installation I found especially confronting. In 1982, I visited Burnham Beeches when it was a smart and select hotel and had Devonshire tea in the dining room at a table alongside the full length windows overlooking the terraces below. I was shocked to see a room I remember appointed with thick carpets and tables covered in gleaming silver and white napery, strewn with dust and leaves, and adorned with Miss Havisham's feast of found dining objects.

I feel very honoured and privileged to be amongst the far too few people fortunate enough to have seen Rone's "Empire", as like the seasons, it is ephemeral, and it will already have been dismantled. Rone's idea is that, like his street art, things he creates don't last forever, and that made the project exciting. I hope that my photographs do justice to, and adequately share as much as is possible of this amazing installation with you.

The building dates from the 1930's and began being used as a museum in 1987. Any further details welcome.

The Golden Gate Bridge spans 8,981 feet across the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean, connecting San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County. Designed by engineer Joseph Strauss and architect Irving Morrow, it was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it opened on May 27, 1937. It has since been surpassed by eight other bridges, but still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York.

Before the bridge was built, the only practical route across the Golden Gate was by boat, which held San Francisco's growth rate below the national average. However, many experts believed that the 6,700-foot strait could not be bridged. It had strong swirling tides, strong winds, and reached depths of 500-feet at its center.

In 1916, former engineering student James Wilkins wrote an article with a proposed design for a crossing in the San Francisco Bulletin. The City Engineer estimated the cost at an impractical $100 million and challenged bridge engineers to reduce costs. Joseph Strauss, an ambitious but modestly accomplished engineer, responded with a plan for bookend cantilevers connected by a central suspension segment, which he promised could be built for $17 million. Strauss spent the better part of the next decade drumming up support and construction began on January 5, 1933.

As chief engineer in charge, Strauss, with an eye towards self promotion downplayed the contributions of his collaborators who were largely responsible for the bridge's final form Architect Irving Morrow designed the overall shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme and Art Deco elements, and used the International Orange color as a sealant. And Charles Alton Ellis, collaborating remotely with Leon Moisseiff, was the principal engineer, producing the basic structural design, introducing Moisseiff's "deflection theory" by which a thin, flexible roadway would flex in the wind, greatly reducing stress by transmitting forces via suspension cables to the bridge towers

In 2007, the Golden Gate Bridge was ranked #5 on the AIA 150 America's Favorite Architecture list.

California Historical Landmark No. 974, San Francisco Landmark No. 222 (5/21/1999)

photo taken shortly after opening showing the futuristic art deco facade that must have been sensational in the 1930's in such a sedate london suburb.

Amazingly this still survives intact behind the current sheet metal covering.

Set back from the road behind its original low brick garden wall, this wonderfully sleek and stylised Art Deco villa may be found near to Lake Wendouree in the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat.

The clean uncluttered lines of the villa are very Streamline Moderne in design. The villa is made almost entirely of clinker brick, with the exception of some brown and red feature bricks along the angular planter boxes enclosing the front entranceway. It features a wide circular porch and a very tall chimney, both signature design elements of Ballarat’s most renowned architect of the 1930s, Herbert Leslie Coburn (1891 – 1956). Built in 1939 for a middle class family, it cost £950.00, not an insignificant sum in the late 1930s. It has very functionalist windows and once had an oeil de boeuf window to the right of the front porch. The difference in colour of the mortar makes where it once was just discernable. Aside from the small band of feature bricks, it is entirely devoid of decoration.

This style of house would have appealed to the up and coming middle-classes of Ballarat whose money came from local merchant trade, the wool or farming industries that developed in the Twentieth Century. Comfortable and very English, it would have shown respectablity and a certain level of avant garde style and modernism that money could provide.

Ballarat born Herbert Leslie Coburn grew up to be a renowned Ballarat architect, practicing from 1905 to 1956. He taught Architecture and Building Construction at the Ballarat School of Mines from 1922, resigning in 1948 due to ill health. The Royal Victorian Institute of Architects awarded Herbert Coburn a Silver Medal for the designs of an Anglican Gothic Suburban Church in 1913 while he was still a student of the institute. In 1917 Herbert became associated with Percy Richards, and they formed a partnership in 1918, Richards, Coburn, Richards, which lasted until 1933, when they separated owing to artistic differences. Whilst Percy Richards wished to retain a more traditional style in keeping with the popular conservative tastes of their clients, Herbert Coburn wanted to be at the vanguard of architectural design and was very interested in following the sleeker and stylised designs of the Streamline Moderne movement which was coming out of Europe. Herbert Coburn therefore started his own architectural practice. Coburn studied for formal qualifications by correspondence with the International Correspondence School, obtaining an architectural diploma two years later. His rooms were in the Clyde Chambers at 313 Sturt St, Ballarat. He was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. Some of Herbert Coburn's architectural achievements include: St Patrick's Primary School in Drummond Street Ballarat (1935), the Shire of Wimmera Council Offices in Firebrace Street Horsham (1936), Paterson's Furniture Store in Horsham (circa 1936), the Railway Hotel in Maryborough (1938) and the clock tower of the Stawell Town Hall (1939). In addition to these, there are many beautiful, well designed and executed modernist Art Deco villas around Ballarat that bear his distinct architectural style.

The community minded Herbert Coburn was elected a Councillor with the City of Ballarat in 1938, and Mayor in 1945. Herbert’s motivation was the 'proper development and advancement of his city.' He held the position of Councillor until 1952.

Although all the rooms of the Rone - Empire installation exhibition are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. As a well proportioned and elegant space, it runs over half of the original Burnham Beeches floor plan. It features two long tables covered in a Miss Havisham like feast of a trove of found dinner table objects from silverware and glassware to empty oyster shells and vases of grasses and feathers.

The Dining Room installation I personally found especially confronting. In 1982, I visited Burnham Beeches when it was a smart and select hotel and had Devonshire tea in the dining room at a table alongside the full length windows overlooking the terraces below. I was shocked to see a room I remember appointed with thick carpets and tables covered in gleaming silver and white napery, strewn with dust and leaves, and adorned with Miss Havisham's feast of found dining objects.

Melbourne based street artist Rone (Tyrone Wright) used the decaying glory of the 1933 Harry Norris designed Streamline Moderne mansion, Burnham Beeches in the Dandenong Ranges' Sherbrooke, between March the 6th and April 22nd to create an immersive hybrid art space for his latest installation exhibition; "Empire".

"Empire" combined a mixture of many different elements including art, sound, light, scent, found objects, botanic designs, objects from nature and music especially composed for the project by Nick Batterham. The Burnham Beeches project re-imagines and re-interprets the spirit of one of Victoria’s landmark mansions, seldom seen by the public and not accessed since the mid 1980s. According to Rone - Empire website; "viewers are invited to consider what remains - the unseen cultural, social, artistic and spiritual heritage which produces intangible meaning."

Rone was invited by the current owner of Burnham Beeches, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, to exhibit "Empire" during a six week interim period before renovations commence to convert the heritage listed mansion into a select six star hotel.

Rone initially imagined the mansion to be in a state of dereliction, but found instead that it was a stripped back blank canvas for him to create his own version of how he thought it should look. Therefore, almost all the decay is in fact of Rone's creation from grasses in the Games Room which 'grow' next to a rotting billiards table, to the damp patches, water staining and smoke damage on the ceilings. Nests of leaves fill some spaces, whilst tree branches and in one case an entire avenue of boughs sprout from walls and ceilings. Especially designed Art Deco wallpaper created in Rone's studio has been installed on the walls before being distressed and damaged. The rooms have been adorned with furnishings and objects that might once have graced the twelve original rooms of Burnham Beeches: bulbulous club sofas, half round Art Deco tables, tarnished silverware and their canteen, mirrored smoke stands of chrome and Bakelite, glass lamps, English dinner services, a glass drinks trolley, photos of people long forgotten in time, walnut veneer dressing tables reflecting the installation sometimes in triplicate, old wire beadsteads, luggage, shelves of books, an Underwood typewriter, a John Broadwood and Sons of London grand piano and even a Kriesler radiogramme. All these objects were then covered in a thick sheet or light sprinkling of 'dust' made of many different things including coffee grinds and talcum powder, creating a sensation for the senses. Burnham Beeches resonated with a ghostly sense of its former grandeur, with a whiff of bittersweet romance.

Throughout the twelve rooms, magnificent and beautifully haunting floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall portraits of Australian actress Lily Sullivan, star of the Foxtel re-make of Picnic at Hanging Rock, appear. Larger than life, each portrait is created in different colours, helping to create seasonal shifts as you move from room to room.

Although all the rooms are amazing for many different reasons, there are two major standouts. The Dining Room is one. The Study is the other. It features walls of books covered with a portrait of Lily Sullivan, and the entire room is partially submerged in a lake of black water with the occasional red oak leaf floating across its glassy surface.

I feel very honoured and privileged to be amongst the far too few people fortunate enough to have seen Rone's "Empire", as like the seasons, it is ephemeral, and it will already have been dismantled. Rone's idea is that, like his street art, things he creates don't last forever, and that made the project exciting. I hope that my photographs do justice to, and adequately share as much as is possible of this amazing installation with you.

By Sam Runchie, opened 5th October 1938. Art Deco former cinema built for Stirling Cinema & Variety Theatres Ltd.; acquired by Caledonian Associated Cinemas in 1969. Following a fire in the 1970s, the building was subdivided with bingo in the former stalls area and two smaller cinemas side by side in the circle.

The building was purchased in the late-1990’s by Carlton Bingo, who own numerous bingo halls, but this was their only cinema operation. The Carlton Cinema showed films until closure in 2008. It is currently still in use as a bingo hall and also a church.

Originally called the “Music Museum and Grainger Museum”, the “Grainger Museum” is a small Streamline Moderne Art Deco building, built between 1935 and 1939, a repository of items documenting the life, career and music of the well known Australian composer, folklorist and pianist, Percy Grainger (1882 – 1961).

Built on one of Melbourne’s grand tree lined boulevards, Royal Parade in Parkville, the autobiographical museum was constructed in two stages between 1935 and 1939, on land provided for the purpose by the University of Melbourne. The Grainger Museum was designed by the staff architect of Melbourne University, John Stevens Gawler (1885 – 1978) through his architectural firm Gawler and Drummond. The building, built of brown clinker bricks is typical of Streamline Moderne design in Australia in the late 1930s, yet it also has undertones of the Arts and Crafts movement. It has very little detailing on the outside, with a severe arched entranceway, two windows featuring Art Deco grillework, a few decorative panels of brickwork (quite typical of John Gawler’s work) and the remaining windows consisting of glass bricks. The name of the museum appears above the main entranceway in stark Art Deco lettering made of cast iron which have been painted black. The museum is circular and features a small central courtyard accessed by two sets of French doors. The courtyard facades are detailed with decorative brickwork.

The Grainger Museum received input from Mr. Grainger in its design as well as its purpose, as well as funding provided by the composer. Mr. Grainger had contemplated establishing an autobiographical museum in the early 1920s, following the sudden suicide of his mother Rose, to whom he was very devoted. The museum contains large quantity of material from Mr. Grainger’s life, including art and furnishings from his home, musical instruments that he used, compositions, recordings, reformist clothing, published scores, field recordings, photographs, books and personal items belonging not only to Mr. Grainger, but also his mother. It also contains a curio case of whips that Mr. Grainger used in sadomasochist sexual acts which were in a trunk given to the museum with strict instructions that it was not to be opened until ten year after his death. The trunk also contained photographs of the composer after sessions of self flagellation. The museum also contains large amounts of material concerning some of his musical contemporaries, many of whom have fallen into obscurity. The Grainger Museum was officially opened in December 1938, and was staffed and maintained by Mr. Grainger throughout his life.

Sadly, the Grainger Museum suffered some initial setbacks with the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, when the building was used for storage for the duration, rather than its original purpose. The museum’s designs were also problematic, as the building was prone to leaks and required extensive waterproofing. The majority of objects were not put on public display until the 1950s when Mr. Grainger visited Australia with the intention of finishing his autobiographical project; something he failed to do as he set sail for his New York home with the task still incomplete. During the 1960s the Grainger Museum was opened to the public regularly for the first time and was sometimes used for concerts and musical workshops for jazz and other avant-garde music, which would have pleased Mr. Grainger, who sadly had died some five years before this eventuality. The Grainger Museum quietly closed its doors in 2003 for extensive renovation, restoration and conservation work. It reopened seven years later 2010, and has been open selectively ever since, showcasing Mr. Grainger’s life and works in a smart, well set out and discreet fashion.

Percy Aldridge Grainger was born in Brighton, Melbourne. He showed precocious talent in music, and at the age of 13 he left Australia to further his ability by attending the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1901 he moved to London, where with the assistance of his mother, he established himself as a successful society pianist, and developed a career as a concert performer and composer. During his time in London, he also collected original folk melodies and helped revive interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th Century. Mr. Grainger left England in 1914, and moved to the United States, where he lived for the rest of his life, residing in White Haven, a suburb of New York with his mother, Rose, who was always his greatest supporter and exponent. Mr. Grainger took up American citizenship in 1918. After his mother committed suicide in 1922, he involved himself more with educational work, and created his own experimental and unusual musical compositions. He particularly enjoyed musical experiments with fantastic music machines that he imagined, and perhaps hoped, would supersede human interpretation one day. During this time, he also made adaptations of other composers' musical works. In 1926, while returning to America from a tour, he met Ella Ström, a Swedish-born artist, whom he married before an enraptured audience at one of his concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in 1928. Mr. Grainger already had a great interest in Nordic music, but his wife’s lineage only served to drive his passion for such music even more. As he grew older he continued to give concerts. He also revised and rearranged compositions of his own, preferring this to writing new music, of which he produced little. After the Second World War, he suffered ill health which reduced his productivity and activity in his passions, and he considered his career to be a failure. He gave his final concert in 1960, less than a year before his death. The piece of music with which Percy Grainger is most generally remembered is his pretty piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune “Country Gardens”.

The architectural firm of Gawler and Drummond was a prolific, though rather undistinguished firm that designed a range of domestic, industrial, commercial and church buildings. These include the McRorie house in Camberwell in 1916, the Fitzroy department store Ackmans Ltd in 1918, the Loch Church of England in 1926, the Korumburra Church of England in 1927, the Deaf and Dumb Society's church at Jolimont in 1929 and the Nyora Church of England in 1930. The Percy Grainger Museum is perhaps Gawler and Drummond’s most distinguished work.

The Grainger Museum was open as part of the 2014 Open House Melbourne Weekend.

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.

The former Ballarat Girls School, now part of Ballarat Secondary College, is a beautiful example of post war Art Deco architecture. Although built between 1954 and 1955, the school's main building of honey yellow clinker bricks is very Art Deco in its design. It features an emphatic vertical fin and a stepped facade and roofline. Minimalist in its decoration, it has Functionalist Steamline Moderne windows. Even its round porch lamp, is very modern in design. All these features give the building a very elegant and striking appearance in comparison to the 1860s architecture surrounding it.

The Cardozo Hotel was built in 1939 in the Streamline Style with wrap-around windows, long eyebrows and horizontal banding. In fact, the eyebrows extend well past the windows!

The entrance gives a nod to art deco with the classic threes: three stories and three sections.

In 1931 Sidney Myer (1878 – 1934) Russian émigré turned Melbourne businessman and philanthropist decided to reinvigorate his store the Myer Emporium by redeveloping his flagship Bourke Street store at 314-336 Bourke Street. Part of this included a new façade in the prevailing interwar style of the time – Art Deco and the addition of several more floors to what was already a very large department store. On the sixth floor a chic European style ballroom with soaring ceilings, sweeping stairs and parquet flooring was planned for use by the emporium’s patrons as a dining room by day and in which Myer could host Parisian fashion shows and hold exclusive Melbourne society events by night. The Myer Mural Hall, so called because of an impressive collection of ten murals by Australian artist Napier Waller, was the realisation of Sidney Myer’s dream.

The Mural Hall, a dining hall suitable for a sitting for one thousand people and a venue for fashion parades and performances, was completed in 1933 as part of the sixth floor which was set aside for dining. It is a large rectangular space with a decorative plaster ceiling and balconies and wall panels in a Streamline Moderne style. However, it is the decoration of ten murals by renowned artist Napier Waller (1893-1972) that are the Mural Hall’s claim to fame. The murals took a little over a year to complete and were painted at Napier Waller’s home at Fairy Hills in Ivanhoe before being transported to the department store where they were hung. Completed in 1934, just after Sidney Myer’s death, eight of the murals are almost floor to ceiling, whilst the remaining two are located over the two side entrances. All pay homage to the seasons and to women and their achievements through history in the areas of art, opera, literature, dance, sport and fashion.

The western wall features (running south to north) the full length murals; “Spring – The Dance Through the Centuries”, “Summer – Sports Through the Centuries”, “Autumn – Women in Literature” and the smaller mural “Modes of Transport by Land” above the door. The eastern wall features (running north to south) the full length murals; “Winter – Of Actresses and the Drama from Medieval Times to the Present”, “Pageant of Beautiful Women in History”, “Pageant of Women Famous in History”, “Revelation of Fashion” and the smaller mural “Modes of Transport by Sea” above the door.

At the north end of the hall, a pair of "mannequin stairs" lead down from two balconies and the change rooms to a common landing. A temporary catwalk or stage was installed at this landing level for fashion parades and performances. The balustrading of the stairs is formed from 'Staybrite' stainless steel in an abstract ribbon design and the handrail is polished timber. The original timber flooring was replaced by parquetry in 1960. The hall is lit by three large and elaborate chandeliers from the original decorative scheme which were designed to provide up to ten different lighting effects. The National Trust classified the Myer Mural Hall noting it as “one of the finest Art Deco interiors in Australia and… one of the most impressive with few parallels anywhere in the world”.

Napier Waller (1893 – 1972) was a noted Australian muralist, mosaicist and painter. He served in France from 1916, being so seriously wounded at Bullecourt that he lost his right arm. He was right-handed but learned to use his left hand while recuperating. Back in Australia, he established his reputation by exhibiting more paintings. He is perhaps best known for the mosaics and stained glass for the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, completed in 1958. However, Melbourne has been described as "a gallery of Napier Waller’s work". Pieces of Napier Waller’s works may be found in the Melbourne Town Hall (1927), the State Library of Victoria (1928), the T & G Life Building (1929), Newspaper House (1933), Florentino’s Restaurant (1934), the Wesley Church (1935) and the University of Melbourne (1940) as well as the Myer Mural Hall.

Merced, CA - August 2013

Sitting proudly behind its original low brick garden wall amid a beautiful cottage garden, this wonderfully stylised Art Deco villa may be found near to Lake Wendouree in the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat.

The clean uncluttered lines of the villa are a cross between mainstream Art Deco and Streamline Moderne in design. The villa is made almost entirely of clinker brick, with the exception of some brown and red feature bricks decorating the chimney and under the gable, and three ceramic circles further down the gable. It features rounded porch walls and a very tall chimney, both signature design elements of Ballarat’s most renowned architect of the 1930s, Herbert Leslie Coburn (1891 – 1956). Built in 1939 for a middle class family, it cost £950.00, not an insignificant sum in the late 1930s. It has very functionalist windows except for the arched peep window to the left of the front porch. Aside from the small band of feature bricks, it is entirely devoid of decoration.

This style of house would have appealed to the up and coming middle-classes of Ballarat whose money came from local merchant trade, the wool or farming industries that developed in the Twentieth Century. Comfortable and very English, it would have shown respectablity and a certain level of avant garde style and modernism that money could provide.

Ballarat born Herbert Leslie Coburn grew up to be a renowned Ballarat architect, practicing from 1905 to 1956. He taught Architecture and Building Construction at the Ballarat School of Mines from 1922, resigning in 1948 due to ill health. The Royal Victorian Institute of Architects awarded Herbert Coburn a Silver Medal for the designs of an Anglican Gothic Suburban Church in 1913 while he was still a student of the institute. In 1917 Herbert became associated with Percy Richards, and they formed a partnership in 1918, Richards, Coburn, Richards, which lasted until 1933, when they separated owing to artistic differences. Whilst Percy Richards wished to retain a more traditional style in keeping with the popular conservative tastes of their clients, Herbert Coburn wanted to be at the vanguard of architectural design and was very interested in following the sleeker and stylised designs of the Streamline Moderne movement which was coming out of Europe. Herbert Coburn therefore started his own architectural practice. Coburn studied for formal qualifications by correspondence with the International Correspondence School, obtaining an architectural diploma two years later. His rooms were in the Clyde Chambers at 313 Sturt St, Ballarat. He was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. Some of Herbert Coburn's architectural achievements include: St Patrick's Primary School in Drummond Street Ballarat (1935), the Shire of Wimmera Council Offices in Firebrace Street Horsham (1936), Paterson's Furniture Store in Horsham (circa 1936), the Railway Hotel in Maryborough (1938) and the clock tower of the Stawell Town Hall (1939). In addition to these, there are many beautiful, well designed and executed modernist Art Deco villas around Ballarat that bear his distinct architectural style.

The community minded Herbert Coburn was elected a Councillor with the City of Ballarat in 1938, and Mayor in 1945. Herbert’s motivation was the 'proper development and advancement of his city.' He held the position of Councillor until 1952.

Painted in crisp grey, "Trelawne" is a stylish Streamline Moderne Art Deco mansion that may be found nestled amid a well establish garden of exotics on the corner of Drummond and Webster Streets in the provincial Victorian city of Ballarat.

The flat roof of "Trelawne", the rounded wall treatment, the use of porthole windows and glass brick windows and the minimal decoration across the building all pay homage to the chic, uncluttered lines of Streamline Moderne Art Deco architecture popular around the world in the 1930s.

"Trelawne" has been designed in Modern Ship Style, as Streamline Moderne was known in Australia in the 1930s. This nickname was used because the buildings designed in this style often looked very much like the cascading upper superstructures of ocean liners with their towering decks, railings and porthole windows. The enclosed stairwell of "Trelawne", with its rounded facade, porthole window and banks of glass bricks does not look unlike the prow of a ship. Built in 1930 for manufacturing magnate Herbert John Tippett, "Trelawne" was designed by Herbert Leslie Coburn for the Ballarat architect firm Richards, Coburn and Richards, and is not unlike Harry Norris's Sherbrooke Forest mansion "Burnham Beeches" which he built for millionaire Alfred Nicholas just three years later in 1933. The fence that surrounds the large corner block upon which "Trelawne" is situated is made of bluestone blocks from an earlier house that originally stood on the site.

Ballarat born Herbert Leslie Coburn grew up to be a renowned Ballarat architect, practicing from 1905 to 1956. He taught Architecture and Building Construction at the Ballarat School of Mines from 1922, resigning in 1948 due to ill health. The Royal Victorian Institute of Architects awarded Herbert Coburn a Silver Medal for the designs of an Anglican Gothic Suburban Church in 1913 while he was still a student of the institute. In 1917 Herbert became associated with Percy Richards, and they formed a partnership in 1918, Richards, Coburn, Richards, which lasted until 1933, when they separated owing to artistic differences. Whilst Percy Richards wished to retain a more traditional style in keeping with the popular conservative tastes of their clients, Herbert Coburn wanted to be at the vanguard of architectural design and was very interested in following the sleeker and stylised designs of the Streamline Moderne movement which was coming out of Europe. Herbert Coburn therefore started his own architectural practice. Coburn studied for formal qualifications by correspondence with the International Correspondence School, obtaining an architectural diploma two years later. His rooms were in the Clyde Chambers at 313 Sturt St, Ballarat. He was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. Some of Herbert Coburn's architectural achievements include: St Patrick's Primary School in Drummond Street Ballarat (1935), the Shire of Wimmera Council Offices in Firebrace Street Horsham (1936), Paterson's Furniture Store in Horsham (circa 1936), the Railway Hotel in Maryborough (1938) and the clock tower of the Stawell Town Hall (1939). In addition to these, there are many beautiful, well designed and executed modernist Art Deco villas around Ballarat that bear his distinct architectural style.

Hebert John Tippett was born in 1872 at Newlyn, Victoria. He was a Newlyn farmer and grazier before making his name as an engineer. He joined Ronaldson and Co., a machinery manufacturing company located in Creswick Road, in 1905. The business manufactured chaff cutters and corn crushers. After Mr. Tippet joined the firm and moved up its ranks, he eventually became the director of the business and it was renamed Ronaldson and Tippett. Under his management, it manufactured internal combustion engines and water cooled engines. During the Second World War the company won major contracts to supply, pumps, filters, diesel engines and gun cradles for the war effort. They also made marine engines that were reportedly very quiet, making them excellent to use behind enemy lines. Mr. Tippett died aged 84 at his beloved Streamline Moderne home "Trelawne" in 1957.

The Commodore Hotel was built in 1936 in the Streamline Moderne style. The style is evident by the rows of recessed windows with continuous eyebrows on both street facades.

The hotel has a covered porch that wraps around the corner. Also taking advantage of the corner are the stacked curving windows with eyebrows.

The hotel's nautical motifs are quite playful with graduated circular bosses that give the impression of rising bubbles. The nautical theme continues with portholes on the ground level.

The perfectly-restored children's barber shop of the old Bullock's Pasadena department store. Virtually everything in it looks the same today as it did a half-century ago! I especially remember the framed silhouettes which adorned the walls. The only thing I noticed was missing was the toy chest, where a kid could choose a little trinket to take home with them as a reward for being good.

Macy's Pasadena Plaza on Lake Avenue, Pasadena, CA, September 22, 2011.

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Very cool mix of horizontal and vertical elements on the historic Art Moderne Delastre Apartments at 238 Taiyuan Rd. designed by V. N. Dronnikoff .

avezink.livejournal.com/309408.html

Katya Knyazeva (avezink) wrote 2021-07-01 09:00:00:

Architect I. P. Tomashevsky at work (1932)

Another fabulous find at the MRCSF – and one of the main reasons for my visit – was the collection of photographs and drawings by the architect V. N. Dronnikoff (Владимир Николаевич Дронников; 1913–2010), whom Shanghai audiences know mainly as the creator of Delastre Apartments at 238 Taiyuan Road (because there is a heritage plaque). But he designed more buildings, in Shanghai and in Hong Kong, and in the coming days I'll be unloading the info here and on the Building Russian Shanghai.

Splendid Art Deco styled picture house theatre in Perth town centre.

This stylied Streamline Moderne Art Deco Villa in the Melbourne suburb of Thornbury, has sadly fallen into decay since it was built.

Standing on the corner of a busy main thoroughfare and a much quieter side street, this well proportioned stand alone villa is quite large, and has its original garage behind it. The clean uncluttered lines of the house, and the speed lines around the pedement and columns of the rounded porch are very Streamline Moderne in design, as is the rounded vestibule window built of glass bricks (which would have been very chic in the mid 1930s when this villa was built). Even the swirled grille on the front door and its two flanking windows are very Art Deco in spirit, as is the original eau-de-nil colour scheme.

The whole property is surrounded by a low fence with plain pillars and wrought iron gate featuring a geometric Art Deco pattern.

March 1983.

This is one place I never get tired of visiting. It's a beautiful train station.

Union Station was partially designed by John Parkinson and Donald B. Parkinson who had also designed Los Angeles City Hall and other landmark Los Angeles buildings. They were assisted by a group of supporting architects, including Jan van der Linden. The structure combines Dutch Colonial Revival architecture (the suggestion of the Dutch-born Jan von der Linden), Mission Revival, and Streamline Moderne style.

Daringly Modernist, these three storey flats stand out along Brighton Road in the Melbourne suburb of Elwood.

Built in Streamline Moderne style, they are very representative of all that was "moderne" in the mid 1930s. The clean uncluttered lines of the flats, the building's large windows, use of glass bricks and strong verticals are very Streamline Moderne in design and spirit.

After the Great War (1914 - 1918), higher costs of living and the "servant problem" made living in the grand mansions and villas built in the Victorian and Edwardian eras a far less practical and attractive option for both those looking for new housing, and those who lived in big houses. It was around this time, in answer to these problems, that flats and apartments began to replace some larger houses, and became fashionable to live in.

Flats like these would have suited those of comfortable means who could afford to live in Elwood, and dispense with the difficulties of keeping a large retinue of staff. With clean lines and large windows, it mirrored the prevailing uncluttered lines of architecture that came out of England after the war.

pictionid66068761 - catalogfile0006.jpg - title ford building - filenamefile0006.jpg---Born Digital Image. .Note: This material may be protected by Copyright Law (Title 17 U.S.C.)--Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum