The Auckland Civic Theatre is a large heritage theatre seating 2,378 people in central Auckland

Auckland

The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. First opened on 20 December 1929, it was reopened in 2000 after a major renovation and conservation effort. It is a famous example of the atmospheric theatre

Atmospheric theatre

An atmospheric theatre is a type of movie palace which has an auditorium ceiling that is intended to give the illusion of an open sky as its defining feature...

 style, in which lights and design were used to convey an impression of being seated in an outdoor auditorium

Auditorium

An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...

 at night, creating the illusion of an open sky complete with twinkling stars.

Significance

The Auckland Civic Theatre is internationally significant as the largest surviving atmospheric cinema in Australasia (and also one of the only seven of its style remaining in the world) and as the first purpose-built cinema of this type in New Zealand. It is also known for its Indian-inspired foyer, which includes seated Buddhas, twisted columns and domed ceilings. The main auditorium was designed in a similar style, imitating a Moorish

Moors

The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...

 garden with turrets, minarets, spires and tiled roofs as well as several famous Abyssinian panther statues. It could hold 2,750 people at its opening, and even at its reduced current seating, is still the largest theatre in New Zealand.

History

The Auckland Civic Theatre was the creation of Thomas O'Brien, who built a movie empire in Auckland's inner suburbs in the 1920s and brought the atmospheric cinema to New Zealand when he opened Dunedin

Dunedin

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...

s Moorish-style Empire De Luxe Theatre in 1928. (It is now the Rialto multiplex housing several small cinemas inside the original one in Moray Place.) He persuaded a group of wealthy Auckland businessmen to build a massive atmospheric cinema in Queen Street

Queen Street, Auckland

Queen Street is the major commercial thoroughfare in the Auckland CBD, Auckland, New Zealand's main population centre. It starts at Queens Wharf on the Auckland waterfront, adjacent to the Britomart Transport Centre and the Downtown Ferry Terminal, and runs uphill for almost three kilometres in a...

 and also managed to secure a $180,000 loan from the Bank of New Zealand

Bank of New Zealand

Bank of New Zealand is one of New Zealand’s largest banks and has been operating continuously in the country since the first office was opened in Auckland in October 1861 followed shortly after by the first branch in Dunedin in December 1861...

. The cinema was built by Fletcher Construction

Fletcher Construction

Fletcher Construction Limited is a leading New Zealand construction company. It is owned by Fletcher Building Limited and has three main divisions:*Building and interiors *South Pacific...

. However, the BNZ loan and soaring construction costs caught the attention of Parliament

Parliament of New Zealand

The Parliament of New Zealand consists of the Queen of New Zealand and the New Zealand House of Representatives and, until 1951, the New Zealand Legislative Council. The House of Representatives is often referred to as "Parliament".The House of Representatives usually consists of 120 Members of...

, while the final price tag ballooned to over $200,000. The Civic opened amid great fanfare in December 1929, but the onset of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 contributed to disappointing attendances - as did O'Brien's stubborn insistence on showing British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 rather than the more popular American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 films, and he eventually became bankrupt

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

. After several modifications during the following decades, the theatre was eventually restored to very near its original design in the late 1990s.

The theatre recently also gained some insider fame by being used for the scenes representing a New York Theater in Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson

Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...

's King Kong

King Kong (2005 film)

King Kong is a 2005 fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson. It is a remake of the 1933 film of the same name and stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody. Andy Serkis, through performance capture, portrays Kong....

remake.

External links

• Mighty Civic Theatre (official website)
• The Civic (website including 3D floor plan
  3D floor plan
  A 3D floor plan, or 3D floorplan, is a virtual model of a building floor plan, depicted from a birds eye view, utilized within the building industry to better convey archtitectural plans. Usually built to scale, a 3D floor plan must include walls and a floor and typically includes exterior wall...
  
  s)