1920s

One hundred years on, Bondi’s Art Deco buildings are a cherished part of its streetscapes, but they were once thought to be a national danger.

Bondi’s much-loved Art Deco apartment blocks were a gift of the Inter-War building boom across Sydney in the 1920s and ’30s.

Bondi, like many parts of the country, had to contend with a shortage of housing which created a demand for high-density living. It resulted in the emergence of Art Deco apartment buildings in areas such as Waverley, Elizabeth Bay and Potts Point. Art Deco was just one of the architecture styles utilised in the Inter-War period.

However, the design aesthetic was not universally embraced. The official war correspondent and historian Charles Bean criticised Bondi’s flats, which were an architectural response to migration, as a ‘national danger’. He had a dire warning: ‘If flats continue to be built across suburban Sydney, the ANZAC spirit would fade.’

Bean argued that these 'mushroom flats' posed a ‘danger to our future citizens’, implying that Australia might fail to produce men like those who had just fought in World War I. The sentiment suggested that true Australians were not renters and that Bondi's surge in condensed apartment living could erode the national identity.

The Art Deco style originated in France around 1912 and gained global prominence in 1925 at the World Fair in Paris. Utilising new building technologies of the time, Art Deco features curved lines, elaborate decorations, coloured glass, reinforced concrete, and geometric motifs, defining its iconic architectural style. Examples of the style can be found throughout Sydney.

Despite Bean’s warnings, Bondi’s Art Deco buildings are today widely celebrated and actively.

Images courtesy Waverley Council, Portrait by George Lambert, 1924.