UNWIND in a speedy bathroom - red and black tiles flash at you as you walk in, with black loo, black-tiled shower and black basin dazzling back at you from a black-framed mirror. Thin red vertical tiles run up the black-tiled walls, with sparkling black floor.

Or upstairs, another bathroom is a maze of small mirrors, with small tiles in shades of pink, white, and blue-grey, with a pale pink bath, loo and basin. Then get out the bath and do your hair at a tall arched mirror and put your brush down on a flashy mirror table in front of it.

The Grant Andrews House in Eton Road, Parktown, is a double-storey white house with a protruding round balcony dominating the façade, and railings that are reminiscent of Egyptian lines but also the speed lines of ocean liners

These bathrooms epitomise the luxury, elegance and decadence of the Art Deco style, which is evident throughout Johannesburg, and in which you can immerse yourself in the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust tour. And, if you're wild about Art Deco and have R5-million to spare, the house in which these bathrooms reside, the Grant Andrews house in Parktown, could be yours.

Art Deco hit South Africa a decade later than it took off in the rest of the world. America and Europe in the 1920s saw the birth of the Art Deco movement, with its eclectic style capturing industrial modernity and, in contrast, fantasy.

The depression of 1929 slowed things, but South Africa was buoyed by gold at that time, and Johannesburg experienced a boom, as reflected in the rush of new buildings that went up in the city centre.

In 1922 Tutankhamen's tomb was discovered and the world marvelled at his treasures, and soon elements of Egyptian art - the squareness of the head decoration, the vertical lines suggested by the figures - appeared in architecture.

Other events in the 1920s and 1930s influenced the style: the land speed record was broken, air travel took off, luxury passenger liners with their sleek metallic lines took to the seas, movies and the cinema introduced glamour, and whites in America discovered jazz, a movement which caught on in South African townships like Sophiatown in Johannesburg.

"It was a comprehensive movement and invaded every form of art - dance, jewellery, furniture, literature, and was captured in a zest for living, and living life at speed," says Raimundo Cardoso, a conservation architect and guide for the tour.

It was also a reaction against colonialism and the classical architecture that had dominated the world for centuries. When Europe was recovering from World War 1, America was establishing itself as a superpower, and the "roaring 20s" were so named for good reason.

The Grant Andrews House in Eton Road, Parktown is a wonderful example of an Art Deco house in Johannesburg. It is a double-storey white house with a protruding round balcony dominating the façade, and railings that are reminiscent of Egyptian lines but also the speed lines of ocean liners.

You walk into the house on shiny wooden floors, topped by rounded skirtings and fluted ceiling with subtle, concealed lighting.

The house was originally built in 1936 for Michael Millar, co-founder of OK Bazaars, who demolished an earlier house on the site, Stoneleigh. After a succession of owners, Grant Andrews, office furniture designers and manufacturers, bought the house in 1986. It contained a bowling green and croquet lawn, both taken up now with extensions and parking.

"This building is stamped by Art Deco, which started inside houses, climbed out the windows and crept up buildings and exploded on top of the buildings and then cascaded down them again," says Cardoso, looking up reflectively.

Down the driveway is a white concrete head, very clearly patterned on Egyptian art, with a square-shaped headdress, an elongated piece under the chin, and splayed, diagonal-lined collar up from the shoulders.

"It was rescued by Millar from the demolition of the old Colosseum, another Art Deco building, and brought to this house," says Cardoso.

Johannesburg had a number of wonderful Art Deco "palaces" built in the 1930s, relating to the cinema and radio explosions of the period - the Colosseum (1933), His Majesty's (1944), the Empire (1933) and Broadcast House (1937), all in Commissioner Street.

The Colosseum was an Art Deco masterpiece, with the façade containing plenty of verticals and Egyptian symbols, although with hints of classicism in its columns and statues. The inside of the theatre was a fantasy world: a medieval scene with sparkling stars on the ceiling, and walls of medieval houses whose windows were lit from behind with yellow lights. These lights faded as the show began.

The double volume foyer had lotus columns and Art Deco lighting. The Colosseum was demolished in the 1960s.

His Majesty's was a replacement of the 1903 His Majesty's Theatre, and took up a whole block. It was the home of the first radio broadcasting service in South Africa, and with local artist and sculptor Rene Shapshak's panels, friezes, and vertical lines, it makes a handsome Art Deco building in the city centre.

His Majesty's was completed in 1944, and reaching out from its centre were three office towers of 11, 14 and 18 storeys, with its height reinforcing the long, vertical lines of Art Deco.

"By the beginning of the 1940s Commissioner Street, from Broadcast House in the east to the new His Majesty's in the west, had taken on the distinct appearance of a lesser Broadway," says Clive Chipkin in his Johannesburg style, architecture and society.

These buildings dominated Commissioner Street and had matching neon name signs. All were there largely because of Isadore William Schlesinger.

An American from New York, Schlesinger landed in Cape Town in 1894, aged 23. Initially an insurance salesman, he founded African Consolidated Theatres, which controlled all the major cinemas in South Africa and was responsible for 43 movies made between 1916 and 1922.

Schlesinger moved into the fifth floor of the old Carlton Hotel (1906, corner Eloff and Market Streets) and consolidated his business interests.

He actively promoted Americanisation and modernisation in Johannesburg - importing American ideas and artefacts - and once he'd acquired the Carlton Hotel, proceeded to add three storeys and modernise the building. He built the gracious Polana Hotel in Maputo, the elegant Edward in Durban and the Riviera on the Vaal in Vereeniging.

He offered an alternative to the post-Edwardian and post-Victorian architecture of early Johannesburg. As Chipkin says: "That was Schlesinger's way. He made everything else look outdated."

There are other buildings in Commissioner Street worth looking at - drive down from Rissik Street, and enjoy the Union Castle Building with its wonderful panels representing industry, a tropical scene and a sea scene, amongst others.

The tour heads for the northern section of the city, where there are many Art Deco residential buildings to marvel at. Roehampton Court in Bree Street, with its natural forms and African motifs, is a "sculpture for the streets", says Cardoso.

Around the corner in Plein Street, Stanhope Mansions is typical Art Deco, with its plaster relief panels depicting plant and sun images.

Several blocks further east in Delvers Street is the truly dreamy Normandie Court, built in 1938 and taking its name from the French ocean liner, the Normandie. And it looks as close as a building can get to an ocean liner: it is dominated by the tenth storey captain's deck overhanging the corner of the building, with its smooth roundness echoed in rounded balconies and edges and a row of double porthole windows down the building.

The exterior is in need of a coat of paint, but the foyer retains its splendour: bright yellow walls welcome the visitor, there is a framed poster of the Normandie and further in, brown marble walls, recessed lighting, and sandblasted images of the Normandie on the glass doors.

The lift is a work of art: four horizontal chrome lines run around it at shoulder height, interrupted by three chrome-framed pictures of the liner and its emblem, with a dark green roof and a round light, emulating the ocean liner shapes.

"This is a beautiful example of an Art Deco building," says Flo Bird, chairman of the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust.

Around the corner in Jeppe Street is another Art Deco building: Elgin Mansions, by the same architect as Normandie Court, Leopold Grinker. And a block down the road is the Jeppe Street Post Office, built in 1935, an impressive building in light grey granite with tall attractive verticals and large ground floor windows. The public halls are in marble with large murals depicting scenes of Park Station and the mine dumps.

Further down Plein Street is Johannesburg's equivalent of New York's Chrysler building -

Astor Mansions - Johannesburg's equivalent of New York's Chrysler building

Astor Mansions. Built in 1932, it echoes the round arch inset at the top of the Chrysler, with "Astor Mansions" in the arch. At the time, with its two spires and flagpole - a reminder of ocean liners - and its 11 storeys, it was the tallest building in the city.

Its wrought iron balconies, simple columns at street level and threesome horizontal lines up the building make it a valuable Art Deco building in the city.

But Astor Mansions didn't hold the title of tallest building for long - by 1933 Castle Mansions was complete. Advertised as "another magnificent city building", although only 10 storeys high, its tall flagpole helped it take the honour. Described by Chipkin as "a massive ocean liner of a building", it was as long as a whole block, but as with so many of Johannesburg's great buildings, it has been demolished.

On the corner of Jeppe and Joubert Streets is Manners Mansions. With its rounded wings and rounded windows on either side of its recessed flat inner section, and rounded overhanging deck on the top floor, it pulls one up to its flagpole visible from the street. On the ground floor is a marble frontage (partly covered by mosaic tiles) and polished brass window frames, and an island shop that used to be Smokers' Corner, which served smokers for years.

"I remember that pleasant smell of tobacco for years in the vicinity of the shop," says Cardoso.

Ansteys, built in 1937, is now a national monument

Opposite Manners Mansion is Ansteys, built in 1937, now a national monument. Spoilt by a modern look to its first three to four floors, it used to be the Norman Anstey & Company department store, and "was famous for its gorgeous and elegant window-dressing seen from the pavement through large plate glass shop-fronts . . ." according to Chipkin.

The foyer contains some of its old splendour: big floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and several brass frames with climbing brass monkeys - very decorative.

Schlesinger tried to establish the suburb of Killarney as a Jewish suburb, says Cardoso, and it has some great examples of Art Deco architecture - Mentone Court, Daventry Court, Killarney Mansions, and Gleneagles.

Other suburbs in Johannesburg contain traces of Art Deco buildings: Helvetia Court in Bellevue, with wonderful mosaic floors; Lauriston Court in Louis Botha Avenue with its protruding semi-circular bay windows; Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital in Braamfontein with its rounded balconies; and in Yeoville there's Diamond Court, Genoa Court and Granville Court.