Symbol of Renewal

“If you believe clouds have silver linings, Napier’s is surely rimmed with neon and chrome, the shiny new materials of the art-deco age,” describes the The Observer’s Nigel Tisdall. “For this was an earthquake that also gave back, tilting the coast up by a couple of metres and draining a huge lagoon that is now filled with fertile farmland, the city airport, and some choice stretches of 30s and 40s suburbia. Downtown Napier, meanwhile, was quickly rebuilt in a colourful, confidence-raising art-deco style that married symbols of renewal – sunbursts, fountains, flowers – with robustly quake-proof  buildings limited to two storeys. Lovers of art deco will find plenty of individual gems to swoon over in metropolises such as Paris, New York and Shanghai, but Napier is exceptional because it offers such an engaging and strollable concentration of provincial 30s edifices.”