Tasmania's modern architecture is often overlooked, but one man has spent the past 20 years taking a step back and appreciating it.
From the brutalism of buildings like Launceston's Henty House and Hobart's former Murray Street offices to quirky suburban Art Deco, Thomas Ryan has been capturing the art movement of modernism through his lens.
The visual artist and architectural photographer documents everyday modernism and tells the stories behind the buildings.
"I'm trying to create a human angle that people can connect to," Mr Ryan said.
"I often think a photo can't save a building but it's a driving obsession and it becomes a visual memory of place."
He interviews people who have connections with buildings and has befriended some of the architects behind them, like the late Dirk Bolt who designed Hobart's 10 Murray Street government offices
He also befriended the foreman of the demolition project.
"I got inside when they were literally ripping it to shreds," Mr Ryan said.
Mr Ryan aims to tell all angles of a building's story and wants to celebrate and protect the era of design through his project Tasmanian Modernism.
"There is a larger appreciation and protection of Art Deco buildings now, but modernist designs throughout Tasmania are lacking in listing and are at risk of being lost."
Mr Ryan said it wasn't long ago that Art Deco buildings weren't in vogue and were threatened with demolition.
"What we see today as history and heritage will change over time so it’s important to see heritage as more than just sandstone."
What is modernism?
Mr Ryan's project includes the Art Deco movement, which in Tasmania represents the period of design between 1930 and 1945, which was later than the European movement.
Modernism is the period after World War II and continued well into the 1980s.
"Within modernism, there are all kinds of different styles like mid-century modern, brutalism; they all sit within that context," Mr Ryan said.
"The Art Deco movement focused on decoration and ornamental qualities such as the former Hydro Electric Commission headquarters and the modernist movement stripped decoration from buildings."
The modernism design principle was "form follows function", Mr Ryan said.
He said there were many excellent examples of Art Deco in Tasmania, pointing to Holyman House in Launceston and the Colonial Mutual Life building with its gargoyles and terracotta detailing in Hobart's CBD.
"Modernist examples include the State Library in Hobart from the 1960s with its glass curtain wall panels," he said.
"The latter part of the 20th century witnessed design influences shift to experimenting with concrete."
Examples include buildings such as the Lands Building in Hobart, Don College in Devonport and Henty House in Launceston.
The Supreme Court in Hobart was designed by the same Tasmanian architect, Peter Partridge.
A boom period
Mr Ryan has been working on the modernism project for 20 years and aims to have his work made into a book.
He thinks his passion for the era stems from growing up in Far North Queensland before moving to Tasmania.
"Looking back, I was probably homesick, and you familiarise yourself with what you remember and know, and a lot of those kind of buildings were in north Queensland," he said.
It wasn't Tasmania's historic sandstone buildings that caught his eye.
"A lot was done of that earlier architecture period, but I grew up with this other period of architecture and it's part of my story," Mr Ryan said.
"The more you looked into it historically, it was such a boom period.
"It all really took off post war and with immigration and it's a unique story to be told and it hasn't been looked at much before."
The Star Theatre
Mr Ryan said the 1936 Star Theatre in Launceston was a great example of streamline Art Deco.
"It had a relatively short life as a cinema, closing its doors in 1969 just 33 years after it started showing its first movies," he said.
"Many cinemas struggled to stay open due to the advent of television."
He said Launceston lost a grand Art Deco theatre to the wrecking ball in the 1960s, and many others around Australia met with the same fate.
"The Star operated as a charity shop for decades afterwards until in 2018 it was reopened as a cinema again," Mr Ryan said.
"With its recent reopening as a cinema, it's a case of back to the future for the Star."
