The Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia Inc.

Online Presentation: Mumbai, Art Deco Jewel of India
2026-03-12 19:30 - 20:30 (Australia/Melbourne) | Victoria
Date: Thursday 12 March 2026
Time: 7:25 pm for 7:30 pm
Join us online to hear Atul Kumar, Founder Trustee of Art Deco Mumbai Trust, present Mumbai: Art Deco Jewel of India, a 45-minute visual presentation to be followed by a 15-minute Q&A.
Atul will take us on a virtual tour of select Art Deco buildings to help us identify and appreciate their role in making Mumbai’s Art Deco jewels so unique – which would only otherwise be possible by visiting this Indian city.
Mumbai, India’s financial and film capital, boasts the world’s second-largest collection of Art Deco buildings. The style arrived in Mumbai, then known as Bombay, in the early 1930s and continued to develop until the mid-1950s.
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Waking Tour: Travancore
2026-03-22 10:30 - 12:30 | Victoria
Sunday 22 March 2026, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Join us for a walking tour of the small inner-Melbourne suburb of Travancore which was established by the subdivisions of a large pastoral estate in 1918 and the early 1920s. It remains a remarkably intact area of distinctive Art Deco housing styles and streetscapes and was known as the Toorak of the north!
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Online Presentation: Art Deco & the Making of Modern India
2026-04-07 19:30 - 20:30 | Victoria
While India is often discussed in relation to its ancient and medieval architectural heritage, its contribution to 20th-century modernism remains less widely understood.
Art Deco in India offers a compelling point of entry into this story. Far from being a purely imported style, it took root most vividly in Mumbai, where it was rapidly adopted across housing, cinema, commercial and institutional architecture. From here, it spread across the country, becoming a visible marker of modernity.
Art Deco in India is significant not only for its scale and stylistic coherence, but for the role it played as a transitional phase. It introduced new materials, construction techniques and spatial ideas that helped lay the groundwork for the distinctly Indian modernism that emerged in the mid-20th century.
This presentation traces that broader arc of modernism in India, examining how architectural ideas travelled, adapted and evolved across different political, cultural and climatic contexts.
It moves from the imperial planning of New Delhi to the Art Deco urbanism of Bombay (present-day Mumbai) and considers in parallel the iconic modernist vision of Chandigarh under Le Corbusier. Together, these trajectories reveal how India did not simply absorb modernism, but actively reshaped it, producing architectural responses that were at once global in outlook and deeply rooted in local conditions.
Presented by Jon Wright and Professor Sangeeta Bagga, this session also serves as an introduction to a forthcoming expert-led Art Deco & Modernism luxury tour of India organised by Shall We Travel, offering participants the opportunity to experience these sites first-hand.
ADMSA are pleased to be working with Shall We Travel this year to curate a series of educational content about 20th century design in India. Shall We Travel is a boutique experiential travel company based in India, that designs personalised, high-touch tours of India. Co-founder Imran Khan, along with our presenter Jon Wright, led a similar tour of key 20th century architectural locations in 2019 for the UK-based Twentieth Century Society that works on conservation of C20 buildings.
Speakers:
Jon Wright
A heritage consultant and specialist guide based in London, Jon Wright focuses on the history and conservation of 20th-century architecture. He works with Purcell Architecture Ltd, one of the world’s leading firms in the conservation of historic buildings.
Sangeeta Bagga
Professor Bagga is the first woman Principal of the Chandigarh College of Architecture, established as part of the Chandigarh project in 1961. An urban designer by training, she was awarded a PhD for her research on Chandigarh as a heritage city of modernity and serves as an expert member of ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on 20th Century Heritage.This 45-minute presentation will be followed by a 15-minute Q&A session.
Cost: Members $15, Non-members $20.
Note: Please purchase a ticket for your household rather than 2 tickets if 2 or more people are watching from the same home.
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The online presentation will be by Zoom and you will be sent the Zoom link the evening before, Monday 6th April. Join online at 7:25 for a 7:30 pm AEST start.

Presentation: Continental Living – Art Deco and Moderne flats in the City of Port Phillip
2026-04-16 19:30 - 22:00 | The Glasshouse Caulfield (in Caulfield Racecourse), 31 Station Street, Caulfield East, VIC, 3145, Australia
Presentation: Continental Living – Art Deco and Moderne flats in the City of Port Phillip
Thursday 16 April 2026, 7:30 pm for 8:00 pm start.
Join David Helms, City of Port Phillip’s Principal Heritage Advisor, to take us on a journey of continental living in the Art Deco and Moderne flats in Port Phillip.
After World War I Melbourne faced a housing shortage and flats were seen as a solution to the problem. By the mid-1930s almost as many flats as houses were being built across the city and many of these were in St Kilda. By 1947 St Kilda contained 5,500 flats, a quarter of all flats in Melbourne – many built by European migrants and described as ‘The Continental Flat’.
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Walking Tour: Spanish Mission, Ripponlea, Balaclava & Elwood
2026-04-19 10:30 - 12:30 | Victoria
Sunday 19 April 2026, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Ripponlea, Balaclava and Elwood are home to the highest concentrations of Spanish Mission and Mediterranean buildings in Melbourne. Join us to experience the notable and diverse examples of these styles.
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Celebrate World Art Deco Day wherever you are - Drinks and dress ups in Melbourne
2026-04-28 | Nick and Nora’s Melbourne, Entrance 11 Benson Walk, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
The 28th April is World Art Deco Day. Join us to celebrate 101 years of Art Deco at Nick and Nora’s in the Melbourne CBD. If you haven’t been to Nick and Nora’s before, you will feel like you have stepped back to the 1920s in Paris, New York or Shanghai!
You can show off your Art Deco couture and catch up with old and new Art Deco friends.
This is an informal social event where we have secured space for 20 people (without a function minimum spend). You will self cater for your drinks and any food.
If this goes well and people love the venue then we would love to organise a cocktail function at a later date which would be ticketed for the drinks and canapés on a function package.
If you’d like to stay on with dinner, please book directly with Nick and Nora’s – or take a chance and decide on the night.
– Attire – entirely at your discretion: Dress up to celebrate Art Deco with a piece of jewellery or something smart you feel comfortable in
– Entry tickets: $5
– Drinks and food not provided and at your expense
Location:
Nick and Nora’s
Entrance 11 Benson Walk
80 Collins Street
Melbourne, VIC 3000
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Tasmania: Tour - Colonial Mutual Life Building
2026-05-07 15:00 | Colonial Mutual Life Building, 18 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Join the Tasmanian Chapter for a tour of the Colonial Mutual Life Building in Hobart.
Date: Thursday 7 May
Time: 3:00 pm
Location: 18 Elizabeth Street, Hobart
Note: Places are limited to a maximum of 16 people.
Email Jessica Lawrence Design for bookings

Victoria: Walking Tour - Mount Eagle
2026-05-17 10:30 | Victoria
In an exclusive residential enclave, the walk takes us past Interwar properties, several of which could be described as ‘Art Deco’ or ‘Modernist’.
This part of Eaglemont was laid out between 1914 and 1916 by Walter Burley Griffin, the American-born architect who is renowned for designing Canberra as well as Melbourne’s Capitol Theatre and Newman College.
We will walk through one of Burley Griffin’s 7 private park reserves built behind the houses for the community to share, a key principle of Griffin’s utopian principles. We will see one of his larger houses which is startlingly modern for 1927.
The walk is also in the footsteps of the so-called ‘Heidelberg School’ painters who camped in a derelict house that once stood in rural isolation and where they drew inspiration from the landscape and from each other during the 2 ‘Golden Summers’ of 1888 to 1890, developing an Australian version of Impressionism.
An absolute highlight of the walk will be a tour inside one of the 3 pioneering Australian Arts and Crafts houses designed by Harold Desbrowe Annear in 1903. The beautiful and faithfully restored architect’s ‘Own House’ demonstrates the shift from prevailing Italianate and Queen Anne suburban taste as it embraced innovative modern design in the twentieth century.
Walking notes: There are some sloping streets and a short descent along a rough track with steps, so the walk is not suitable for those with mobility problems.
Cost: Members $45, Non-members $50
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Meet: Corner of The Eyrie and Summit Drive between 10:15 and 10:25 am for a 10:30 am start. The walk will finish at the same point.
Driving: Approach The Eyrie from the west (note it is not accessible from the east).
Parking: The Eyrie should have kerbside parking available.
Train: Eaglemont Station on the Hurstbridge line with a 900 metre uphill walk to the starting point.
Bring your water bottle and dress for the weather.

Victoria: Social Function - Post-screening Lempicka Documentary
2026-05-17 18:15 - 19:15 | Sun Theatre, 8 Ballarat Street, yarraville, Victoria, 3013, Australia
We are holding a social function after the Sun Theatre’s one-off screening of the documentary, The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka and The Art of Survival.
Join us in the sumptuous Art Deco Le Salon (6:15 pm to 7:15 pm) to chat with fellow Art Deco lovers to discuss the film while enjoying a post-film snack and grab a drink at bar prices. Don’t forget to dress up for the event to show off a favourite Art Deco outfit! – fun but definitely not compulsory.
Tickets via TryBooking, at $15 each, are ONLY for the after-screening social function.
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BOOK FILM TICKETS with allocated seats (4:30 to 6:10 pm) directly with Sun Theatre, Yarraville (https://www.movietkts.com.au/selectsession.php?siteCode=SUNCIN&movieCode=S256TAMARADELEMP).
The film: A visually stunning and sweeping feature documentary that traces the life and survival of the renowned painter through her powerful paintings – from her rise to international stardom in 1920s Paris, to her move to the United States in 1940, fleeing the rise of fascism, and her revival in the current art market. Tamara de Lempicka was the preeminent Art Deco painter, known for her high-gloss sensual nudes and portraits of high society during the Jazz Age. She was marginalised and gained notoriety for her romantic liaisons with her models and her indulgent, decadent lifestyle, but she was so much more.

Tasmania: Social Function - World Modernism Day
2026-06-10 | Victoria
Dinner and drinks to mark World Modernism Day, 10 June.
Save the date. Venue and time to be confirmed soon.

Tasmania: Tour - State Library and Archives
2026-06-13 10:00 - 12:00 | State Library and Archives of Tasmania, Level 2/91 Murray Street, Hobart, Tasmania, 7000, Australia
Library tour and training to use the State Archives.
State Library and Archives of Tasmania
Level 2/91 Murray Street, Hobart, TAS 7000
10:00 am – 12:00 midday
Save the date! Booking information available soon.

Victoria: Walking Tour - North Balwyn
2026-06-28 10:30 - 12:30 | Victoria
Save the date. Program and ticket details to be available soon.

Tasmania: Tour - State Library and Archives of Tasmania
2026-07-22 16:00 - 17:00 | State Library and Archives of Tasmania, Level 2/91 Murray Street, Hobart, Tasmania, 7000, Australia
Library tour and training to use the State Archives.
State Library and Archives of Tasmania
Level 2/91 Murray Street, Hobart, TAS 7000
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Save the date! Booking information available soon.

Victoria: Presentation - Art Deco Animalia with Peter Sheridan
2026-07-23 19:30 - 22:00 | Victoria
Save the date. Venue and ticket details to come soon.

Victoria: Exclusive Home Tour - East St Kilda
2026-08-16 | Victoria
Save the date. Program and ticket details to come soon.

Annual General Meeting
2026-10-22 19:30 | Victoria
Annual General Meeting
Thursday 22 October 2026, 7:30 pm
Save the date.

Victoria: Tour & Lunch - Castlemaine Art Deco
2026-11-08 | Victoria
Sunday 8 November 2026
Save the date. Program and ticket details to be available soon.
