Page 93 - Tropic Magazine Issue 13

LIFESTYLE • ARCHITECTURE

Tropical Art Deco comes
alive on Cassowary Coast

Just one hour south of Cairns lies the richest Art Deco
precinct Australia has to offer - the Cassowary Coast. With
a unique urban beauty where streets are lined with Art
Deco treasures, the Cassowary Coast is rich with a high
concentration of stunning Art Deco buildings, uniquely
adapted to the area’s tropical climate.
In 1918, a devastating cyclone hit the region, leaving behind
just those structures built with reinforced concrete. This
tragedy led to the rebuilding of the region, and the beginning
of Art Deco in the Cassowary Coast. Art Deco is the
decorative style launched in the early 1900s and popularised
at the international exposition of modern decorative and
industrial arts held in Paris in 1925. It symbolised the new
spirit of the early 20th century, characterising power and
speed such as lightning flashes and symbols of freedom. It
was a design philosophy reflecting the dawn of a new age.
Many of our region’s buildings deviate from traditional Art
Deco in that they have pitched roofs and local adaptations
responding to our tropical climate. Beneath these buildings
live powerful stories of the past and how the Cassowary
Coast thrived in that era. A century later, the community has
a new-found love for the region’s buildings and its stories
under the banner of Tropical Art Deco.
The Cassowary Coast invites you to take a step back in time
to the roaring ‘20s to discover the hidden tales behind the Art
Deco buildings.

MORE: cassowarycoast.qld.gov.au/tropical-art-deco

Top: National Bank/Commercial Banking Company Building / Crn
of Rankin & Edith Streets, Innisfail - built during the 1920s and 1930s
building boom
Right: Queens Hotel / 74-78 Rankin Street, Innisfail - built by the Van
Leeuwen Bros in the 1930s

93 • tropicnow.com.au