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Regent Theatre (Brisbane)
Encyclopedia
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
is a multi-cinema picture palace, in what was once one of the original Hoyts
Hoyts
The Hoyts Group is an Australian company consisting of Hoyts Exhibition, Hoyts Distribution and Val Morgan.Hoyts Exhibition manages 450 screens across 40 Australian and 10 New Zealand cinema complexes; making it Australia's second largest cinema chain. Val Morgan, the cinema advertising arm of the...
' Picture Palaces from the 1920s. It is located at 167 Queen Street on the popular Queen Street Mall.
Origins
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, and was one of many operated by Hoyts
Hoyts
The Hoyts Group is an Australian company consisting of Hoyts Exhibition, Hoyts Distribution and Val Morgan.Hoyts Exhibition manages 450 screens across 40 Australian and 10 New Zealand cinema complexes; making it Australia's second largest cinema chain. Val Morgan, the cinema advertising arm of the...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Other significant Regent Cinemas around Australia were the Regent in George Street, Sydney
George Street, Sydney
George Street is one of Sydney's most notable city streets. There are more high rise buildings and more ASX 100 companies located here than anywhere else in Australia, and is well known for being busy around-the-clock...
, now demolished, the Regent on the Rundle Mall in Adelaide which is now converted into a shopping mall and the Regent Melbourne
Regent Theatre, Melbourne
The Regent Theatre is a 2162 seat theatre in Melbourne, Australia. It is listed by the National Trust of Australia and is on the Victorian Heritage Register.-History:...
on Collins Street, restored in the 1990s and now a major successful live theatre for Melbourne. The Regent Theatre, Dunedin
Regent Theatre, Dunedin
The Regent Theatre is a theatre in Dunedin, New Zealand with a seating capacity of about 1,650. It is in The Octagon, the city's central plaza, directly opposite the Municipal Chambers and close to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery....
in New Zealand was adapted for live performances in the 1970s and continues to be used for those and as a cinema. Smaller Regent cinemas include the Regent in downtown Ballarat, Victoria, now remodelled into a multi-screen complex.
The picture palaces were built to imitate Hollywood's Golden Era and were designed to function as a cinema
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
and theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
. The Regent was designed by Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, Charles N. Hollinshed, with assistance from the Brisbane-based Richard Gailey Junior and Aaron Bolot
Aaron Bolot
Aaron M. Bolot was a Crimean architect. An emigrant to Australia, Bolot contributed to and designed a number of historically significant buildings, including the Flats at Potts Point, registered with the Register of the National Estate for, among other things, its significance in the history of...
. It was erected in 1929 and opened on 8 November. Construction costs totaled ₤300,000.
Architecture
Elizabeth Street, Brisbane
Elizabeth Street in Brisbane, Australia is a major street in the centre of the city. The street was established at the beginning of settlement in Brisbane as a penal colony...
. The original interior decoration was a mixture of spanish Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
. The mezzanine
Mezzanine
Mezzanine may refer to:* Mezzanine , an intermediate floor between main floors of a building* Mezzanine, in technology, can refer to a thin sheet of plastic insulating different parts of circuitry from each other in cramped environments, such as laptop interiors* Mezzanine board, or daughterboard,...
foyer contains a white marble staircase, made from Queensland marble, along with vaulted cathedral ceilings. A total of 2,600 patrons were able to be seated in air-conditioned comfort.
The Theatre in the 70s to the 2000s
In 1978 the Regent was marked for demolition by Hoyts and The University of QueenslandUniversity of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
Mayne Trust, but after lobbying from the Save the Regent campaign, a partial compromise was met. The original building was saved in its entirety and only the interior decorations, mostly being plaster, were removed. A large portion of these interior decorations were later incorporated into the Regent cinemas. The marble staircase and vaulted ceilings of the entrance hall, grand foyer and mezzanine foyer were saved, complete with ceiling murals and many other plaster castings.
The four Regent cinemas were built inside the original 1929 building, as a stand alone structure. Cinema One, later known as the showcase cinema was created using the original decorations, saved from the original theatre auditorium.
The basement car park was rebuilt, housing what was for many years until 2003, the largest McDonalds restaurant in Australia.
The Regent held the honour of housing the largest screens for a cinema in Brisbane for many years, and retained its position as the most popular cinema well into the 2000s.
In 2001, Hoyts and Greater union merged, forcing Hoyts to surrender its activity on the site due to an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is an independent authority of the Australia government. It was established in 1995 with the amalgamation of the Australian Trade Practices Commission and the Prices Surveillance Authority to administer the Trade Practices Act 1974...
ruling. The cinemas were then operated by Greater Union for a period. In 2003, the building was leased by Birch, Carroll & Coyle who refurbished cinemas three and four, giving them two separate colour schemes of blue for cinema three and red for cinema four.
When Birch Carrol Coyle rebuilt the Myer Centre cinema, they lost all interest in maintaining the Regent and allowed the cinemas to run into disrepair. They quickly fell out of favour, leaving the property owners to question the future viability of the site.
In 2007, the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
Mayne Trust sold the property to the Industry Superannuation Property Trust who then commissioned multinational property developer Brookfield Multiplex to redevelop it.
Office tower development
The heritage listed Regent Theatre historic facade, entry and mezzanine foyer are to be retained in a redevelopment of the site. The majority of the building will be demolished to make way for a forty story office tower and carpark. The state government has been criticised for the lack of consultation and intervention regarding the decision, similar to the circumstances of the demolition of the original theatre.A new "Save The Regent" group was formed, reminiscent of the original group formed in the 1970s. The group staged a public battle to save the Regent on the grounds that it continued to perform its original function, screening motion pictures, and that much of the original fabric remained at the site. The Queensland convenor of the Cinema and Theatre Historical Society doesn't believe there is any historical significance remaining after the grand auditorium was removed in 1979.
