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The Agelessness of Style: Art Deco in Durban

The Agelessness of Style: Art Deco in Durban

Author: Jo Rushby
Date: 2022-01-26

Art Deco! The words conjure a world of colour that merges into innovation into beauty. It stands in sharp contrast to some contemporary architecture marked by drabness and sameness. The houses of faux Italian rubble cloned from the one before, the walls all shades of grey, and the plastic hedges trimmed to within a millimetre of the handbook. The International Convention Centres must look just like the one in Los Angeles which looks just like the one in Lagos and Laos.


In the city of Durban, there are Art Deco buildings whose pastel hues, angular contours, curves and intricacies of detail make one think of those maddeningly enticing material shops that stood on the edge of Ajmeri Arcade. One of the beauties of Art Deco is that nothing is sacrosanct. Like a good curry, it carries the pungent aroma of a dip of this and a sliver of that. While Paris or America might claim its inspiration, in the 1930s, it travelled across the world, reinventing and reimagining its style and form in India, Australasia and across the African continent.


Buildings tell stories, but often the minute they change hands and names, their histories are erased. Luckily for us, a book has just been published that tells the story of this wondrous architectural movement in our very own city. Durban Art Deco: Heritage of a Sub-tropical African City takes us on a mesmerising historical and photographic journey along the Esplanade, into the city centre, and onto the Berea. In Durban, these new buildings reflect the meeting of the city's cultures; griffons, eagles and lions peer imperiously from the outer edges and traces of Egyptian, Classical, Hindu, Islamic and Imperial motifs happily intermingle, while sunburst patterns illuminate from above. "These buildings remain, spared the detonator and some recently re-licked with a palette of mint, lemon and peach, glazed with Bombay crush. They remind us of a time that was and could still be. Follow the pages of this book and see your city for the first time. As Paul Auster wrote 'Even if it is for the hundredth time, you must encounter each thing as if you have never known it before. No matter how many times, it must always be the first time.'


Durban Art Deco is available at Ike's Books, 48a Florida Road. Tel: 031 3039214 or at https://www.ikesbooks.com