An earthquake and subsequent fire destroyed downtown Napier in February 1931. With 256 dead and thousands injured, it is the worst natural disaster recorded in New Zealand. The subsequent result was the dominance of art deco architecture styles when the town centre was rebuilt.
You can walk around downtown alone, and there is an app to help, but the regular hour-long guided tours from the I-site are superb. See if you can spot the odd man out, the Frank Lloyd Wright prairie-style building, and the fine example of incorporating Māori motifs into art deco design. Plus, it’s the only way to hear the stories about the waving woman and boy statues on Emerson Street.
The tour also includes an astonishing 20-minute film about the earthquake and its aftermath, including footage shot the day before. Hard to imagine that much of the area was a lagoon that was uplifted and naturally drained or that the town was building a seawall that was made redundant by the earthquake!
