February 25, 2025

Napier, New Zealand

We docked in Napier this morning, and like yesterday we had another cruise ship in port with us. This morning it is the Holland America Noordam.  Not quite as large as yesterday’s Carnival Splendor. The Noordam has the capacity to carry 1,916 guests. Two-thirds of the rooms have verandas on the Noordam, as opposed to Regent’s 100%. It is slightly larger at 936 feet in length and 105 feet beam. The guest – crew ratio is 2.395, the Mariner’s is 1.525.

Looking across the water to the adjoining pier to which the Noordam is docked, she doesn’t look like a much larger ship. By length and width, she is about one-third larger than the Mariner. The striking difference is the size of the verandas. There are so many of them. Room measurements weren’t discoverable in a reasonable amount of time online. Not so sure we like sharing a port with another ship.

Napier is a unique city due to the concentration of 1930s Art Deco, and to a lesser extent Spanish Mission, architecture. Much of the city was destroyed by the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake and accompanying fire. Very similar to what happened in San Francisco in 1906. The 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, also known as the Napier earthquake, occurred at 10:47 am on 3 February. It lasted for two and a half minutes and had a magnitude of 7.8; San Francisco was estimated to be a 7.9. Also, like San Francisco the earthquake resulted in a fire spreading through the city and destroying much or more than the actual earthquake.

The death toll in San Francisco is a subject of much debate. It is estimated to be between 700 and 3,000, although just a few years ago the Board of Supervisors officially set the death toll at 3,000. San Francisco was a city of about 410,000 in 1906; therefore which ever number you put on the death toll, the percentage was much less than 1% of the population. In contrast the population of Napier was just over 16,000 with the earthquake and fire killing 256 or about 1.5% of the population. Of course, both earthquakes injured thousands and devastating the region.

The Art Deco movement was a movement in architecture and the decorative arts. The name is said to be derived from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, where the style was first exhibited in 1925. The Art Deco designs represented modernism and progress into the future. The distinguishing features of the style are simple, clean shapes, often with a “streamlined” look; ornamentation that is geometric or stylized from representational forms; and unusually varied, often expensive materials, which frequently include man-made substances (plastics, especially Bakelite; vita-glass; and ferroconcrete) in addition to natural ones (jade, silver, ivory, obsidian, chrome, and rock crystal).

Art Deco objects were rarely mass-produced, the characteristic features of the style reflected admiration for the modernity of the machine and for the inherent design qualities of machine-made objects (e.g., relative simplicity, planarity, symmetry, and unvaried repetition of elements). Unfortunately for the Art Deco movement, it really came into fashion just as the Great Depression took over the world.

The Napier earthquake, the Great Depression and the Art Deco movement collided in 1931. After the earthquake the rebuilding of Napier would be slow but would follow the progressive elements of the Art Deco movement. This is why so many of the buildings in Napier are in or have the elements of Art Deco design. Art Deco designs represented modernism and progress into the future, just what Napier needed in 1931. And why Napier is often called the Art Deco capital of the world.

A major difference between the San Francisco and Napier is what happened geologically. In Napier and the Hawks Bay region the local landscape changed dramatically. The coastal areas around Napier being lifted by around six and a half feet. This uplifting caused of some 9,900 acres of sea-bed to become dry land. This included Ahuriri Lagoon, which was lifted more than nine feet and resulted in the draining of 5,500 ares of the lagoon. Today, this area is the location of Hawkes Bay Airport, housing and industrial developments and farmland.

A great deal of land was created in San Francisco, but it was from using the rubble from the destroyed buildings, often unreinforced masonry, to fill in the tidal area of the bay. The San Francisco marina district today only exists because of the filling in of the bay after the 1906 earthquake.

This morning’s excursion is a combination of a bus tour and walking tour through Napier’s famous Art Deco districts.  and see the results of the city’s remarkable 1931 rebuild. The bus took us to Ahuriri, the lagoon which was created by the 1931 Earthquake. The area is a mix of a wide variety of architectural styles, but there are a number of them done in the Art Deco style. One of the Art Deco landmarks National Tobacco Company building. This is a larger commercial factory and warehouse which is definitely in the Art Deco style. The carving on the door is amazing.

The bus then took us though the streets of Marewa, an Art Deco residential neighborhood. It is easy to imagine what this neighborhood must have looked like in the 1930s. The homes are very small by today’s standard, after all they were built just after a major disaster and during an economic depression when materials and money were scarce. One street looked much like a typical track neighborhood where all the homes look very much alike, just in this case they were all Art Deco. Unfortunately for today's family a three-room house just doesn’t make the grade. Many of the charming Art Deco homes are being remodeled or replaced with more modern styles.

Then it was a ride down Marine Parade a wide well laid out boulevard lined with rows of Norfolk Pines along the sea wall. This lead us to the official Art Deco quarter of the city; the original downtown from the 1930’s. Here we stopped at the Art Deco Trust Building, a group bent of protecting and preserving the eclectic mix of period buildings.

There was a brief movie about Napier’s history, then we divided into smaller groups and set off on a guided half-mile tour through the old downtown. The old downtown could easily serve as a 1930’s era film set. They would have to strip some of the signs off; after all there weren’t any Starbucks in 1930. Most of the buildings could be used without much modification, it is definitely an eclectic mix of period buildings in the Spanish Mission, Stripped Classical and, of course, streamlined Art Deco styles.

We didn’t get to go into many buildings to see the interior. The old AMP Building and ASB Bank were normally stops to see the Art Deco interiors, but it is Sunday and things are closed. We did get to walk through a public section of the Masonic Hotel where Queen Elizabeth II stayed during her visit here 1953. The interior design included a great deal of carved woodwork and tin ceilings in the Art Deco style.

Each year the Art Deco Trust hosts two Art Deco festivals.  The biggest and brightest in February, the world-famous Tremains Art Deco Festival Napier, where 40,000 people arrive dressed in Deco attire, and take part in four fabulous days of Art Deco festival fun. The second one is billed as more intimate and indulgent, the Winter Deco Weekend each July. Yes, the seasons here are upside down. Unfortunately, we have arrived one week late for this year’s summer festival.

Napier lives up to its nickname is 'The Art Deco Capital of the world'. If you are into Art Deco this is probably the place to be. It would be fun to be here for one of the festivals.

Modern Napier has about 67,500. Napier is the nexus of the largest wool centre in the Southern Hemisphere, and it has the primary export seaport for northeastern New Zealand. The Hawke’s Bay region is the largest producer of apples, pears, and stone fruit in New Zealand. It’s now the second largest wine producing region in New Zealand after Marlborough. So you would have a lot of things to do and see.

Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico