IN-DEPTH | Durban Deco
On the corner of Margaret Mncadi Avenue (Victoria Embankment) and Parry Road, looking out over the ocean, the pilasters on a striking yellow building draw the eye ever upwards, past a tiled panel over the doorway and straight up to the sky above.
Victoria Mansions was completed in 1935, an elegant residential building along the popular promenade. It's an arresting example of the Art Deco style, imported from the capitals of Europe in the post-war euphoria. Known initially as Art Moderne, Style Moderne, or simply, the Modern Style, it set up Durban as an alluring, elegant city of the 1930s.
There are more than a handful of Art Deco buildings in the hot, brooding city; many beautifully maintained, others woefully neglected, and still others torn down in the mad scramble for modernity that tore through South Africa in the latter half of the 20th century.
The motifs on the 10-storey Victoria Mansions are a mixed theme of winged lions and dolphins or fish, explains the Durban Art Deco Society. The first floor has
