The Daily Advertiser walked the city's main streets alongside GPG architect Gioia Gianniotis and delved into the architectural and societal history of iconic buildings dotted throughout Central.
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"I get a bit excited about it because people do not notice these specific features of buildings," Ms Gianniotis said.
Romanos
Formerly The Commercial Hotel, was extensively damaged by fire in the Second World War and Mr Romano's bought the building in a fire sale.
The building was dilapidated and hard to renovate, but Mr Romano's had a lot of money and he rebuilt the building through the black market at the time. It was then renamed Romano's.
President of the Wagga District Historical Society Geoff Burch said it was one of the earliest hotels and remains iconic.
Australian Arcade
Located at 54-56 Fitzmaurice Street, the Australian Arcade was first established in 1857 by Thomas Byrnes and his father-in-law William Broker.
According to the Wagga District Historical Society president Geoff Burch, it contained 22 rooms as well as a large ball or concert room and stables at the rear.
The original building was demolished in 1911 and rebuilt in 1912 and it remained as a hotel until the 1960s, when it was remodelled to become the Australian Arcade.
Mr Burch said this was "always one of the leading hotels" in town.
"Like the Commercial Hotel and the Australian Hotel, this building was also occupied by the RAAF during World War 2," he said.
Ms Gianniotis said the 1960s facade has remained on the building today. "It's very minimalist in nature and modernist," she said.
"It's a modernist style that really embraces minimalism and rejects ornament.
"The facade essentially tucks behind the interior of the facade but at the same time it shows the facade via the vertical windows, and those tall vertical windows when combined together create horizontal banding on the building."
Ms Gianniotis said this banding represents the levels that are located behind the facade and this is the representation on the streetscape.
Bank district
The Commercial Bank was built by Charles Hardy in 1881 and was built in the Classic Revival style, which indicated the growing wealth and importance of the town.
Ms Gianniotis said the Commercial Bank and the Old Post Office Building reflected a classical past.
"The roots go back to Ancient Greek and Roman architecture and comprises of a series of very conventional forms, with the most notable being the columns," she said.
"The columns have very fixed proportions and the building's symmetry is important as well as the relation to different parts of the building to each other.
"You can start to see the base forms of the columns relating back to the upper level where you have more slender line columns."
Ms Gianniotis said one of the main differences between the two buildings is the style of the colonnade.
"If you look at the Old Post Office, the column heads are in the Tuscan order," she said.
"If you look across to the Old Commercial Bank - the columns are iconic and they actually have the top level of feature and these columns are more slender and sit on stronger, more rectangular bases."
The Commercial Bank was occupied by the National Australia Bank for a five-year period that terminated in January 2003.
The property was purchased by PRD Nationwide in April 2011 and is still occupied by that firm.
The Methodist Church took over the site in 1885 to establish a new post and telegraph office.
Henley Flats
The three-storey brick flats, located on 225 Tarcutta Street, was built in 1939 by Mr and Mrs William Wallace Horsley.
According to the Museum of the Riverina, the name 'Henley' was selected for the flats at the outset by the owners, as Mr Horsley's grandfather (Richard Frederick Horsley) originated from Henley-on-Thames, England, in the mid-19th century.
Ms Gianniotis said this was a "very popular place to live" and exhibits a functionalist style.
"The main idea of a functionalist style is that it represents the internal of the building on the external facade," she said.
"Some of the really important elements that you can see in that style are the circular shaped stair-cor that has the very tall vertical window on it, which is expressing the public domain of the building.
"Then you've got the smaller windows with the very strong vertical lines and that is outlining the residential component of the building."
Ms Gianniotis said the "really unique" element of Henley Court is the strong banding.
"The very simple and minimalist geometric lines are the horizontal banding, which represents the different levels," she said.
"The projecting hoods are showing the building as it steps up, it is clarifying that there are three levels.
"Buildings in this style are elegant and incorporate simple articulation within their facade, which is seen through simple geometric shapes, large areas of glass and flat roofs concealed behind parapet walls."
Corner hotels
The word 'pub' is abbreviated from public house.
The four hotels at the bottom end of Fitzmaurice Street - the Riverina Hotel, Home Hotel, Prince of Wales and Knights - hold similar features which represent the architecture of that era.
"The unique element of all these hotels is that they are stuccoed or rendered buildings and all display the splayed corner," the architect said.
"They also have very regular windows and that is what sets them apart from a domestic type of building."
The Riverina Hotel is the only remaining pub and the awnings are one its major features.
"The awnings are very common in the Colonial era for both commercial and pub-style buildings," Ms Gianniotis said.
According to the WDHS, Knights Meats was originally a hotel that opened in the early 1880s.
It was forced to close by the Licensing Reduction Board in 1922 and later served as a boarding house for many years.
Many men drowned here after visiting as there was no levee and no way of stopping people from getting into the river, which meant that intoxicated people would often fall into the river and drown.
Ms Gianniotis said the Knights building originally was single storey.
"The tower was an idea that came from that Italianate influence, which also is seen with the building being asymmetrical," she said.
"The two sides are uneven and have various parapet heights and various areas that are eaves versus parapet."
Mr Burch said the Prince of Wales was a mud brick single-storey building and was rebuilt as a two-storey brick edifice in 1892.
The building's verandah was removed along with many other buildings except for the Union Hotel, when the Queen visited Wagga in 1954.
Many thought the verandahs made the township appear dated and backwards and removing them would project a modern streetscape.
Ms Gianniotis said while the hotel was built in the Colonial era, it was also influenced from the Italianate style.
"Some of the areas that indicate this are the archways and also the detailed ironware, which you can see on the ground floor," she said.
"The ornamental parapets and they stand out as being an Italianate influence."