In the 1800s most hotels looked much like the other businesses and large houses of the time. A distinctive hotel architecture only really developed at the beginning of this century.

Ironically, the growing power of the hotel licensing court from the turn of the century contributed most to that development. The licensing court was set up in response to pressure from the powerful temperance lobby. It aimed to reduce the numbers of hotels in a bid to reduce the amount of drinking in NSW. From 1920 it was actually known as the Licences Reduction Board, and every year proudly published a list of the hotels it had put out of business.

By setting strict standards on design and construction, the licensing court fostered a boom in hotel building during the first half of this century. In 1929 the NSW licensing bench reported that 'there are architects who may fairly be called specialists in designing hotel buildings'.2 Most of these architects and the buildings they designed were paid for by the breweries, who responded to the reduction In hotel numbers by building bigger hotels which catered for a larger clientele.

The internal layout of hotels was more or less standardised by the 1880s: the ground floor housed the bars, and the upper floors the living quarters. The main element to change over the succeeding decades was the exterior decoration, which borrowed contemporary styles to ensure that pubs stood out in any row of shops. According to Peter Rudder, whose father's architectural firm Rudder & Grout was one of those used by Tooth's, the brewery insisted that its hotels not 'fall behind' other commercial buildings.

Facade decoration above street level had much the same function as the advertising mirrors or paintings below. Tooth's architects were as much a part of the advertising industry as any commercial artist. A rebuilt or remodelled hotel meant beer sales increased by about 20% at that hotel.

Appearance had to be compatible with the other demands of the brewery, and of the licensing court. The court insisted that pubs have a certain number of bedrooms. But Tooth's usually wanted the number of bedrooms kept to a minimum, as accommodation was less profitable than bars.

It was an architectural challenge to design an impressive building when the upper floors contained only twelve bedrooms. The Criterion Hotel, built in 1936 on Park Street, was designed with 'the minimum number of bedrooms to produce three storeys, making it possible to add further bedrooms at the rear if required by the Court'. The Criterion's design was dictated by its external appearance, rather than its internal function, so that it would have the 'fine bold appearance' essential for a major city sit. A lofty parapet increased the height of the building, and the vertical emphasis of the art deco decoration made it look taller still.

Only in the bars on the Criterion's ground floor was function a major consideration. As in most 1930s hotels, easily-maintained surfaces were used to cope with the 'six o'clock swill', the drinking frenzy that swept through Australian pubs as closing time approached. Hence the tiles, which found their way into virtually every pub in the state. In its guidelines for architects, Tooth's specified "at least 8 feet (if possible) behind the counters for public standing space", and long counters for speedy service.

In the second half of the 1930s, low building and property prices encouraged a new boom in hotel building. Tooth & Co built over 100 new hotels at

this time, remodelled or renovated hundreds more, and financed the building or rebuilding of numerous privately owned pubs. The brewery regularly used the same few architects for its work. As Tom Watson, Tooth's general manager, put it in 1937, "these architects have been trained to our requirements to do our work and it is not our policy to go outside of them, while they are showing enterprise and keeping in step with new trends". Tooth's hotel program was severely curtailed by postwar building costs and shortages. The company could no longer afford expensive flourishes. By the time building prices stabilised in the 1960s, hotels were no longer the major drinking venues. Their value as advertisements declined. So did the quality of their architecture. Tooth's 1930s hotels, scorned as "toilet-tile" architecture, steadily fell into disrepute and disrepair.

Taken from "Refreshing! Art off the Pub Wall By Charles Pickett.

Civic Hotel
386-388 Pitt Street, Sydney

Great Southern Hotel
George St, Sydney

The Imperial Hotel
35 Erskineville Rd
Erskineville

Clovelly RSL & Airforce Club
263 Clovelly Road, Clovelly

Woollahra Hotel
116 Queen St
Woollahra

The Vauxhall Hotel
Church St Parramatta