I Took the Pictures When I Got Picked Up

I cannot believe I forgot my camera in Napier.

Or rather, I forgot my camera before Napier. I left it in the car when Mike dropped me off. He was spending the weekend with friends working a nearby white river rafting joint. Faced with a choice between spending the next few days with a bunch of unknown Canucks and getting to see arguably the best city-wide example of Art Deco architecture in the world, I chose Art Decoville.

And I forgot my camera.

Napier's architecture is the silver lining of a disaster that just celebrated its 77th anniversary. On February 3rd, 1931 (ah, Wikipedia), Hawke's Bay was hit with a 7.9 earthquake. The ruination was thorough, and at least 256 people died. But with the slate thus wiped clean, Napier set about a tremendous rebuilding.



Now, as far as tragedies go, this one had much more upside than the average. First off, it drained a nearby lagoon, enlarging the city's footprint by a good 40 km^2. It also had damn fine timing. Art Deco was a hot new style and there were heaps of talented architects with greatly depressed careers willing to travel halfway across the world for a pretty little devastated port town. A decade or two ago, people took notice of those buildings under the faded paint. Napier held a few bake sales, tidied itself up, and became New Zealand's first World Heritage Site.



And my, how people took notice. I stayed at a place called the Criterion Art Deco Backpackers, which was just down the street from Deco Retail, Art Deco Salon, and, of course, the Art Deco Center. It was the top floor (the city held itself to an unofficial two-story limit; sensible, but given that my biggest touchstone for Art Deco architecture is the Chrysler Building, a damn shame) of a charming Spanish Mission building, had a spacious common room and always felt as though it only held half as many guests as were actually booked. I was still feeling fairly sore and wilted from the previous day's epic, so I spent most of my time relaxing here. I wandered around looking at buildings, of course, and visited the aquarium, where I walked through a glass tunnel under the oceanarium ogling sharks and saw the corpse of a Giant Squid (and I forgot my camera!).

But Napier was still somehow underwhelming. It's hard to pin down exactly why-- it was a gorgeous, sunny city by the ocean, it was incredibly aesthetically consistent and interesting, it was cleverly planned and charming almost to a fault. Part of it was the over-use of pastels, however period-correct. Mostly, though, it just felt too self-conscious as a city. Coming in, I flirted with the notion of staying here if Wellington didn't work out. Coming out, it felt like living here would be a bit like marrying Tammy Faye Bakker*. Napier was awfully pretty; if only it took off its makeup and relaxed a bit, it would be ideal.



*Yes, I realize how flawed this analogy is, but I couldn't think of a more iconic wearer of makeup, so it's the analogy you're getting.