Background to the Kings Theatres, in Sydney.

From:

For All The Kings Men. The Kings Theatres of Sydney, NSW.
Ross Thorne & Kevin Cork.
Australian Theatre Historical Society Inc Publication.
1994.
ISBN 0 958806969

INTRODUCTION

The chain of Kings Theatres in Sydney was a phenomenon of the 1930s — the brief period between a crippling economic depression and World War II. It was the period immediately following the acceptance by the film industry of the first major change since the initial public showing of motion pictures some thirty-five years previous - that is, of lip­synchronised sound. It was also the period when new concepts and styles in architecture and building technology were being generally accepted by architects, and were being displayed to a public that was seeking newness, perhaps a rebirth, as it climbed back to what was hoped would be an even footing, with everyone being able to participate in the county’s economy. However, the development of society with its visual symbols of a new modernity (even termed ‘modernistic’ by some writers of the time) was to be squelched at the end of the decade with another world war, worse than the similar occasion that concluded twenty-two years before. Priorities for development, immediately post World War II, would not be commercial in the normal sense: they would be domestic and industrial until the 1950s when general commercial building for offices and recreation again began to appear. As a consequence of the necessary hiccup in some commercial building activity, the ordered progression of design through the 1930s beyond into later decades did not occur. Technology had developed further during the 1940s decade; society had changed and its visual symbols were to change also. The ‘fifties would see a new architectural style emerge, and the film industry would be shaken into a revisionary process with the advent of television in Australia commencing in 1956. The introduction of wide screen, stereophonic sound and an almost universal use of colour film (rather than its exceptional use in the 1930s) stemmed the outgoing tide of the public from the picture theatres to their home lounge rooms to watch black and white television; but the later whole-hearted acceptance of colour television (1976) and video tape recorders would change the cinema-going habits of the public permanently. The picture theatres of the 1920s and 1930s would nearly all be closed, reused for other purposes or, more frequently, demolished.

Location of Kings Theatres in Sydney

The phenomenon of the Kings Theatres in Sydney took place in the decade of the 1930s, but by 1983 it had all but disappeared. None of the chain was still operating as a cinema; most had been literally erased from the earth.

Apart from designing for sound-on-film, including improved acoustic performance of the new cinemas, the distinguishing features of the 1930s picture theatres was the visual characteristics of exterior and interior design — both in shape and decoration. To appreciate the new design styles used in the 1930s, it is necessary to understand how they developed through the earlier decades of the century, otherwise, like a number of authors in and out of the popular press, one may fall for erroneously referring to all the stylistic changes of the decade as Art Deco’. So-called Art Deco is only a part of the visual language used for the Kings and other theatres designed in Australia in that brief period.

Before Art Deco: Traditional ‘Revivalist’ Architectural Styles

The ‘thirties saw a revolutionary change in the design vocabulary used by architects and designers to those that had been used over some centuries prior to the current one.
Ancient Greek and Roman architecture and their design elements had been reworked for Renaissance Baroque and (more so for) Rococo architecture. In the eighteenth century, architects such as Robert Adam, returned to those original examples and produced what was termed a Classical style. In the nineteenth century, some architects returned to the original Greek and now also Gothic architecture, to produce buildings using the same
elements put together in the same proportions as the originals. They revived the old styles often cladding buildings that had functions that did not exist in Ancient Greece or Medieval Erigland as on, for example, banks and railway stations. These styles are generally referred to as revivalist and may consist of building designs that attempted to be archaeologically correct according to how they appeared in the original form, or they may have been compositions of design elements that came from a number of different scources but which usually had a basic theme. For example. the exterior of the Princess Theatre Melbourne (1886), has walls resembling a Florentine palace (Italian Renaissance) but a roof that is derived from some French Renaissance examples (the auditorium interior, as rebuilt almost forty years later, closely follows the Classical style, devised by Robert Adam in the eighteenth century from mainly Ancient Greek and Roman
architecture).

In their education up until the 1930s, architects learnt these styles in detail, virtually rote learning the names of the proportions used. Books on history of architecture were little more than catalogues of styles and dates from Ancient Egypt onwards. [1] Other books, known as pattern books [2], comprised plate after plate of accurately drawn columns, beams, arches, wall openings, panelling and their associated decorative elements from the famous buildings that had been deemed to be good architecture over the ages. Architects and builders used these books as a kind of visual thesaurus right up to and through the 1920s. The various design elements could be plucked from the pattern hooks and put together in a conservative manner as for, say, banks, or in a more flamboyant manner as in the Grand Assembly rotunda area and auditorium of the State Theatre, Sydney. The former contains a strong flavour of French architecture of the period of Louis XIV of France (seventeenth century) while the latter is more indeterminate seeming to favour the heavier elements from the period of Louis XV (hardly that of Louis Seize (XVI) that the theatre’s architect, Henry White, claimed he frequently used).


The Revolt Against Traditional Styles in Art and Architecture

From the early nineteenth century, architects investigated the ruse, or rather the reuse of more exotic styles of old architecture from countries east of Europe, but towards the end of the century a few architects were questioning what was becoming a pastiche of past styles. They were seeking either some kind of rational approach to structure, materials and decoration or a new decorative style. Across Europe from Czechoslovakia to Great Britain and in North America new designs began to appear. From the 1890s into the first decade of the new century there was a small flowering of these designs which some authors lump together under the term Art Nouveau [3] (New Art), although there were marked regional differences.

At the same time the revivalist architects were turning their backs on these designers and denigrating the engineering feats of the time, such as the Eiffel Tower, for what they perceived as their sheer ugliness. [4]. These architects wallowed in their conservativeness, with those teaching at the French architectural school, the Ecole de Beaux Artes, being highly influential in their education of architects in English-speaking countries, particularly the USA. [5]. In fact, designers and architects in the USA largely looked to France and its design philosophies as being the model to copy for their own architecture and decoration. This is possibly one reason why there were no cohesive groups of architects in USA seeking a new art through writing manifestos and practice, as in, say. Czechoslovakia witl its Cubist architects (1910-1925) [6], or Germany with the Bauhaus (1919-1933). [7]. USA had a series of individuals such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright at the turn of the century and beyond, but the great bulk of US architects were adhering to the revivalist tradition instilled through the influence of the Beaux Arts school on American architectal education. This would continue until the end of the third decade of this century. [8].

The kinds of styles or design fashions that led to the 1930 designs of cinemas, like the Kings Theatres, have their seeds in the “New Art of the turn-i of the century’. Such-i a term clearly indicates that it is not restricted to the sinewy, stylised vegetation ar-id flower decorations so often associated with Art Nouveau. At the turn of the century, a set of contradictory themes or ‘schools’ became evident in embryo form. There were the decorators and the anti-decorators. However, today. it appears that the anti-decorators used decoration but they claimed that it was integral to the whole design and not applied, where one decorative theme replaced another on the same architecture as fashion dictated. There was a second set of themes emerging at this time: these can he best termed ‘geometric’ (a design based on simple geometric shapes in some kind of regular repetitive symmetrical or assymetrical arrangement), and ‘geometricist (giving a visual impression of being geometric, but without a coherent geometry - a flavour of geometry). The decorators were more likely to become geometricist in their designs while the anti-decorators designs were more likely to be geometric. The latter appeared tc he displaying their geometric quality earlier than the decorators were showing their geometricist tendencies.

Simplistically viewing the architecture of the New Age of the turn of the century, it will he seen that the Parisian Art Nouveau is largely a new style of decoration with its well-known sinewy forms exaggerated from plant forms. The Glasgow School of designers used geometry as the main visual element (usually rectilinear) with a secondary decoration derived from plants. The German Jugenstil (Youth-style) used plant forms but there were strongly simple geometric elements that lasted through into the Expressionist buildings of the later Modern movement. In USA Frank Lloyd Wright was geometric with his decoration following the same geometry as that used for the building (for example, birds or plants would be so crisply abstracted into geometric forms as to be unrecognisabie as sucn unless one was previously informed). In the first fourteen years of the new century (up until World War I), innovation followed innovation. There would be first, a cross fertilisation between, in particular, both the Glasgow School practitioners and Wright to designers on the European mainland, and second, a number of new philosophers of art and design. In art
“1905 saw the birth of Fauvism and Expressionism, 1908, that of Cubism, 1910, that of Futurism and of metaphysical and abstract painting. Naturally enough, these different movements did not all appear in a single country: while Fauvism and Cubism arose in France, Expressionism was chiefly a German development, and the promoters of Futurism and metaphysical painting were all Italians. With regard to abstract art, for which Fauvism, Expressionism and Cubism jointly prepared the way, it is generally agreed that it originated in Munich, though it soon also emerged elsewhere. “ [9].
Except for abstract art, all these innovations remained figurative or abstractions of figures, objects and landscapes (as for much of Cubism), but innovative architecture at the time, often using the same names, moved quickly to undecorated, usually assymetric compositions of geometric forms and interior volumes (usually referred to as 'spaces' by architects). Adolf Lees became one of the first anti-decorator architects who practised what he preached, by designing a white, unadorned boxy house in 1910 for the Steiner family in Vienna. As he developed a more complex internal organisation of rooms, his exteriors became more assymetrical in their abstract quality. [10]. This type of theme continued for the architects of the Bauhaus and to Le Corbusier. Less austere were the architectural exponents of Futurism and Expressionism. Both produced more romantic, or dynamic compositions of geometric shapes, at times combining portions of cylinders or circles with rectilinear prismatic forms. Still anti-decoration in the traditional sense they did break up wall surfaces by lines of projections or recesses that were integral to the design of those surfaces. The Expressionist architecture built from 1921 to 1930 was highly inflruential to the modernistic style of building of the late 1930s (and can be seen, in particular, in the exteriors of both the Rose Bay and Chatswood examples of the Kings Theatres).
Although the Expressionists of Germany and The Netherlands, and Frank Lloyd Wright of USA were considered as belonging to the all encompassing ‘Modern Movement’ of architects who decried applied ornament and attempted to generate a new philosophy of design that broke with the past, they were not included in the ‘International Style’ as defined first in 1932 by Hichcock and Johnson.
“The distinguishing aesthetic principles of the International Style as laid down by the authors are three: emphasis upon volume — space enclosed by thin planes or surfaces as opposed to the suggestion of mass and solidity; regularity as opposed to symmetry or other kinds of obvious balance; and, lastly, dependence upon the intrinsic elegance of materials, technical perfection, and fine proportions, as opposed to applied ornament.” [11].

Pro-decoration Art Decoists versus Anti-­decoration Modernists

The selection of the photographs by Hichcock and Johnson to illustrate the International Style shows a great consistency, indicating that they well knew the meaning of the word style’. which is much more than can be said for some discourses on Art Deco, a style that existed concurrently with the International Style of the Modern Movement. Art Deco is at the opposite end of the stylistic spectrum to the austere, seemingly conservative protestant ethic of the International Style. Art Deco belongs to the pro-decoration tradition that continued through the revivalist styles, then sinewy Art Nouveau into a new and different fashion for stylising flowers, people, fountains, the sun’s rays and clouds, etc. Its early Parisian exponents were more allied to designing for the stage, fabrics, fashion clothes, interior furnishings and decoration than to architecture. They plundered visual memos from exotic places (just becoming fashionable) like Africa, Egypt and the Far East, and from some of the new art movements like Cubism, but without the philosophical integrity of the original exponents. The best designers of the style modified them and produced a rich, but relatively restrained (if, say, compared to Victorian artefacts) design idiom.’ [12]. They did not use paint but lacquer (from China and Japan); they did not use plain wood but ebony and exotic veneers, inlaid in patterns or flowers, etc; they used marble strewn with rugs made of skins of exotic animals; they did not use woven wools or printed cottons but embroidered silks; they did not use wrought iron but bronze.

This was exposed to the world in the Exposition Des Arts Decoratifs et lndustrielles in Paris in 1925 which had a small reprise exhibition in 1966 which coined the “Art Deco” term. It was after this exhibition that Bevis Hillier decided to retain the term “Art Deco” in his book of the same name. The title is derived from being abbreviated from Art[s] Deco[ratifs] but Hillier himself claims it is a Jekyll and Hyde style’ allowing virtually anything from the 1920s and 1930s to be included (except revivalist design), certainly everything that was exhibited at the 1925 Exposition. The ‘odd man out’ for design at that Exposition was the pavilion by Le Corbusier, named ‘L’Esprit Nouveau” [13] (The New Spirit), which was very much in the anti-decoration International Style. In fact the pavilion of the Esprit Nouveau "...was posited here [at the Exposition] under the patronage of the [French] Minister for the Arts as a polemical gesture against the Art Deco movement". [14]
When the pro-decoration, pro-ornament organisers of the Exposition saw Le Corbusier’s almost completed anti-ornamented pavilion, they were aghast. They had a seven metre green-painted fence built around it to hide its (decorative) nudity from the public; but the Minister for National Education insisted that it be exposed. [15]

Lumping together designs that promote the concept of ornament and decoration and those that do the opposite in the one so-called style is against any meaning of the word. Yet this has been done, not only by Hillier [16] but by other authors, [17] thus confusing the public’s ability to identify which buildings and objects belong together in a style. To belong to a style the works across the style should have a consistency and taxonomy of design elements [18] (if a claim is made that Art Deco is a period rather than a style then it has no inherent indication of its being a period which may have a number of parallel-running styles. These will include Historical Revival, International Style, Expressionist and some title that will describe the decorative style that grew to fruition in France in 1925. Decorative art cannot describe the period!) which, in this case, will be either decorative with ornament or without decoration/ornament but it cannot be both. One can be called Art Deco for its use of a particular style of decoration and ornament, the other might be referred to as the International Style, but this does omit the work of the Expressionists, parts of which were much emulated by the late 1930s cinema architects in Australia.

Because the decorative artists of Paris drew their motifs from a wide geography the angular aspect of their designs may well be stylised from sources such as Mayan
(stepped pyramid) temples or Ancient Egyptian decoration (which in itself was often stylised from lotus or papyrus plants, as, for example, the convex flutings of stalks when bundled together) or from Cubist painting and design. However, they rarely if ever possessed the regularity of a geometry which existed in, say, the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright or the furniture and architecture of the Czech Cubist designers (the latter drawing upon the diamond or ‘lozenge’ shape and its composite triangular geometry from 1913, [19]. well before the Parisian designers developed their geometricist tendencies.)

To illustrate some of the motifs in the French Art Deco, exhibited at the 1925 Exposition, four light fittings have been taken from the published record of the Exposition. [20] The first can be described as early Art Deco as the design is moving away from the sinewy style of Art Nouveau. It is vine-like with curvy stalks and spirals of creeper-like tentacles. The overall shape and the glass baubles at the base of the lampshade are even reminiscent of late Victorian design. The second is a wall light fitting with the bowl containing the lamp as an opening flower, out of which rises a very popular motif — the stylised fountain, with either bubbles of spray or bloopy clouds in a background sky. This fountain motif was used in the foyer of the Paramount Theatre, Oakland USA, and on the auditorium walls of the now-demolished Embassy Theatre, Sydney, in 1934.

Illustrations 1-4

The third example — another wall bracket — illustrates a wide range of elements from the typical Art Deco way of representing flowers (at the base) to the geometicisation of a form such as the the wings of the birds. The birds are sitting on large sweeps of leaves against a clouded sky: but the whole composition is defined by the stepped pyramid from which, in turn, is set against a background of wavy lines usually considered to he derived from a representation of water. Below the flowers are flutings and the base steps hack to provide a supportive bracket effect from the wall. It especially illustrates how a decorative designer produces a design: the person has a stock of shapes and motifs that are in fashion, and will select from that stock to produce a design composition which appears pleasant — modifying, adding or subtracting on the way, thus producing the designer’s individual stamp to the work.

The last light fitting illustrated possesses a form that became associated with Art Deco kitsch of the 1930s. It is the typical stepped form that has given the incorrect impression that Art Deco design may contain, at times, a fundamental geometry. The stepped sides and pointed top of the fitting may well be derived from a wrapped spray or bunch of flowers, tapering to the base where the spray is held in the hand. (In fact, in this design some of the flowers are visible.) This motif is further abstracted into simple radiating lines which may be stylised from plant stalks on rays of light (eg sun’s rays).

An excellent example of the complete abstraction of design motifs like this can be seen in a plasterwork decorative frieze on the ceiling of the Orpheum Theatre, Cremorne (Sydney), built in 1934. Although the main element is made up of parallel zig-zag lines, the triangles are filled in with radiating lines. (IIIus. 5)

Illustration 5

When the details of the 1925 Exposition were published, the decorative elements were immediately taken up in USA by the traditional architects trained to use historical design elements. Being used to applying Louis XIV or Robert Adam classical ornament to the walls and ceilings of their buildings like jam to bread, it was easy to simply substitute one visual vocabulary for another. They slapped the French Art Deco type of decoration and ornament on almost every surface, but in doing so it became somewhat modified to produce a distinctiveness that can be identified, in retrospect, as US Art Deco.

In Australia a number of the design motifs emanating from France were used but the style was debased to being a cheap way of decorating surfaces, rising cast fibrous plaster, or even less expensive fibre board, rather than the rich materials used in France. One theatre in Australia that did provide a semblance of the original rich materials was the Thomas Lamb designed Metro Theatre, Adelaide, with its generous rise of veneers from a number of different timhers. Theatres built or refurbished in the early years of the 1930s in Australia provide the best examples of the French devised Australian Art Deco. They include Bruce Delhit’s design for the Liberty Theatre, Sydney. Boliringen’s design for the Embassy, Sydney, and Kenworthy’s for the Orpheum at Cremorne. After 1934, the Art Deco became washed out and more influenced by Expressionist architecture of the 1920s. In turn, without the philosophical integrity of the early Expressionist architects of Germany and The Netherlands, the Expressionist design elements were taken to produce another fashion or style sometimes termed Moderne” or streamlined.

This style is mistakenly referred to as being influenced by streamlined cars and aeroplanes, etc but the dates of when the Moderne or modernistic style began to appear, do not accord with the appearance of streamlined cars and trains. In fact it can be argued that Expressionist art and architecture may have been just as influential on streamlining of cars and trains as the functional shapes that were derived from the early wind-tunnel tests for racing aircraft.

Maggie Valentine claims that
‘Modernistic architecture, as it was called, was an optimistic rejection of the pre­Depression look that had culminated in a bust; the new style reflected the hope of moving forward instead of backward.” [21]
Another view would be that the influence of the anti-decoration, anti-ornament architects of Europe, who were leading a march against ornamental historicism before World War I, was through, first, the insistence to pursue their manifestos during the 1920s, and second, their work percolating through books and journals to the vast bulk or architects in the UK, USA and Australia by 1930. The designer mentality is either a conservative one of rejecting much that is new for a while, at least, or a give-it-a-try one. Many designers scour glossy professional journals for the latest’, and are either consciously or unconsciously influenced by the designs they see. This is how a style arrives and then moves on to something else, particularly in the twentieth century, with its unique ability to mass-print photographs. (In the nineteenth century and before, buildings were sketched by architects as they toured foreign and their own countries.)

The Importance of Expressionist Design to the Moderne Style

In trying to describe Expressionism, Posener refers to it as that
“tendency in art that called itself ‘expressionism’. The word itself meant to denote opposition to the preceding tendency of impressionism. In art, impressions were no longer to be taken seriously. It was, on the contrary, the inner meaning that required expression; the surrounding world had to be transformed into symbolic shapes denoting that inner meaning. The roots of this attitude are to be found in the work of certain [art] masters of the last century . . - [but] Architecture had to change into something rather close to abstract sculpture." [22]
Fully-blown Expressionist architecture is reminiscent of the distortions and deformations of buildings on film sets of German motion pictures, such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) [23] but over the decade of the 1920s it absorbed the functionalist approach and appeared more like the symbolism of the machine age as seen in Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1926). Zevi relates this architecture to a functionalism that is ‘dynamic' [24] compared to the static, regular rectilinear planar architecture of the International Style. However, he still describes it as Expressionist. ‘Dynamic’ might be best described as a dissonance [25] or visual impression of tension or movement. In fact many of the sketches of architect Erich Mendelsohn, the most famous of Expressionist architects, made the buildings appear as if they were captured in a fleeting second before they rushed off the page. (One can imagine that the sketches for the idea for the ticket box at the Padua cinema at Brunswick, Victoria, by Taylor, Soilleux and Overend would also have looked like this.)

To achieve this dynamic quality the buildings were composed of volumes that were made to appear like an abstract scrulpture of rectilinear prisms or blocks of often wildly different proportions — for example, long horizontals meeting a vertical that shot above the remaining parts of the building. These were strongly evident in the exterior of the Titania Palast cinema, Berlin in 1921 and, more influentially, in the design for a School at Hilversum, The Netherlands, by WilIem Dudok in the same year. Dudok was the admitted influence on the work of E H Rembert in the late 1930s and 1940s for the New South Wales Public Works Department, and other Australian architects who returned from overseas in the early 1930s. [26]

Long strip windows also became a hallmark of much of the design work of Expressionist architects, being seen as early as 1911 on an office building in Breslau by Hans Poelzigo [27], but refined by Erich Mendelsohn in a number of buildings in Germany from 1921 to 1928. [28] Synonymous with strip windows was horizontal banding as window heads or sills, intermediate string courses or different coloured brickwork. Certainly what differentiated Erich Mendelsohn and other Expressionist architects even more so from those promoting the austere, intellectual International Style, was the mixture of the rectilinear forms and curved or partial cylindrical volumes. Shopfronts would, with all their strip windows, sweep around a street corner or they would stop abruptly at a tower with a half-cylinder extending from the pavement to well above the general roof-line. On his Universum Cinema, Berlin (1927-28) Mendelsohn reversed the shapes to have a high rectilinear tower seemingly cutting through the drum of the auditorium that rested on the vast sweep of the first floor (foyer and offices) with its bands of brickwork and windows hovering above a recessed ground floor.

As the type of Expressionist architecture just described began to appear in English language journals and books such as Morton Shand’s Modern Theatres and Cinemas (1930), its influence could be seen from about 1935 in the United Kingdom and Australia. In the UK it was the flamboyantly Expressionist exteriors of some of the Odeon cinemas designed by Harry Wheedon and others. [29] In Australia it can be seen in some exteriors to cinemas by Taylor, Soilleux and Overend, and Crick and Furse, but especially in the Minerva Theatre (Kings Cross), Sydney. Like Art Deco, this type of design also changed in its passage across countries and over the time lag of around a decade. Rather than being influenced by streamlining, as is often suggested, streamlining as a design symbol for slow moving or stationary objects was possibly more influenced by Expressionist art and architecture (which occurred well before streamlined cars, trains and planes) and some Art Deco elements, particularly the dynamism of dancing nymphs with hair streaming in the wind.

Streamlining, or aerodynamic shaping, began to appear in 1929 with the Lockheed Sirius racing aeroplane [30] and a rail steam engine in England. [31] In USA the first streamlined train was the Burlington Zephyr (with rounded front and fluted stainless steel sides) in 1934. [32] Experimental designs in streamlined form included the propeller-driven Zeppelin rail car in 1929, [33] and Norman BeI Geddes’ own futuristic sketches for ships, cars, railway trains, etc generally date from 1929 to 1931, [34] but it was 1934 before similar designs began to appear from Raymond Loewy’s studio. [35] Streamlined production cars commenced with the commercially unsuccessful avant garde designs of the Chrysler and Dc Soto Airflow models of 1934, which were considered ‘ugly’ by the buying public. [36] It took another four years of regression and slow advancement in streamlining on cars before the strong horizonntal bandirng and bullnose or tear-drop shapes, so often associated with streamlining, would eventuate. [37]

In architecture however, there first appeared in 1921 sparse interiors with curved walls. banded archways and stairs that rose up to the next floor in one dramatic sweep, enhanced by widely spaced, narrow parallel bands. The same year, and in the same theatre building, saw a sophisticated design of indirect lighting from troughs which swept from stage level around the proscenium and up and over the audience to the rear of the auditorium. Both examples are from the Titania Palast cinema, Berlin by architects, Schöffler, Schlobach and Jacobi. [38] This dynamic, pre-streamlining curvaceous Expressionist design arrived at its zenith in Germany in 1928 and 1929 in two buildings by Erich Mendelsohn — the Universum Cinema auditorium and the main staircase in the Metal Workers’ Union Building, Berlin. The former is noteworthy for the indirectly lit troughs radiating from the stage and the banding at the side of the stage that provide a visual transition to the bulk of the auditorium. [39] Highly influenced by this motif were Crick and Furse in their design of the Kings Theatre, Mosman (Sydney). The stair of the latter-­mentioned building by Mendelsohn is a sheer joy of a wide sweep up through some five floors, down the circular well of which hangs, for almost the whole drop, a light fitting of horizontal glass disks intersecting chromium spheres at each floor, together with narrow clusters of chrome cylinders between floors linking the spheres. [40]

These examples illustrate that what may appear to be ‘streamlined’ predate any streamlining tlrat occurred on planes, ships, cars and trains; therefore, much of the modernistic architecture of the second half of the ‘thirties may well be more influenced by the pre-streamline Expressionist architecture than streamlined designs that were being produced concrurrently with this architecture. Even for design-conservative USA in 1931 the exhibitors’ journal Motion Picture Herald published a sketch of what ‘ultra-modern’ cinemas could or would look like. The drawings by Nat Karson show curves and banding typical of earlier Expressionist design, but with some added flamboyance. [41] Such hypothetical architectural designs certainly predate product designs of similar dynamic curvaceousness.

Another design element, so often associated with the Moderne end of the 1930s (and to those who still like to refer to this as Art Deco) is the circular window. This is often alleged to emanate from the portholes of ships making some late 1930s buildings appear to have a ‘nautical flavour’. This is highly unlikely since circular windows were being used by architects at the end of the nineteenth century and before. For examples, the Baroque Revival Passmore Edwards Museum (1895-98), Stratford, East London, contains a circular window, [42] while the Odeon Theatre, formerly Palace of Varieties (1908), Oldham, UK, had forum along its facade, [43] and the Britannia Theatre (1915), Manly, NSW, contained two. It was a popular element in the early years of this century and continued, in simplified form (because of its purity of geometry), into architecture of the Modern Movement. This is a second example of how making assumptions about influences on design, that are based on superficial visual impressions, may create a confrusion about the authenticity of a design style.

Most architects do not have the purist approach that initiated and developed the International Style — they, instead, see buildings and hits of buildings to which they are attracted and will design somethinng along similar lines, like a personal design experiment. Bits of Crick and Furse designs may reflect the Art Deco style, other bits, and more likely the external shape, will follow aspects of Expressionist architecture or the softer, more Scandinavian feel for the International Style (such as the exterior of Wests Theatre, Adelaide, SA). Almost all designs for picture theatres could be termed 'popular design’ that would not be reported in the reputable architectural journals of the day, yet it could be claimed that by the mid-1930s they were generally successful for the client and patron. For those post-Depression patrons,
“Dynamic curves and indirect lighting produced an ambiguous environment in which it was difficult to be aware of the real wall surface-s as they were built. At best, when the lights changed through their prune reds and blues. the audience seemed to float in coloured space; at worst, architects took the elements of curves and other geometric shapes and produced the same kind of uncoordinated mismatch which designers who have a poor visual sense, always seem to achieve." [44]

The Kings Theatres’ Group

The history of the Sydney Kings theatres commenced in 1934 when Guy Crick converted a hall into an intimate’ picture theatre. From this, a small chain of cinemas emerged, each operated by a separate company, but all operating under the umbrella of Kings Theatres. When asked several years ago why the name Kings’, Guy Crick’s daughter, Pam, stated that the answer was given to her by her father way back in 1934: King’s” — because of the King’s Men! (Hence the inspiration for the title for this book.) The first Kings theatre in the chain was situated in the hall of the Returned Servicemen’s League (RSL) at Mosman. (Until the 1940s, the spelling in advertising was King’s’.)

Guy Crick had had indirect contact with the film industry through his brother, Stanley, who was twelve years older. When Guy was only seven years of age Stanley joined the Melbourne branch of the film production and distribution company, Patbré Frères. In 1909 he became manager of the Sydney office. then-i in 1911, commenced to make his own films, first in partnership with Herbert Finlay, then in the Australian Photo-Play Co, turning out some twenty feature films within a couple of years. About the same time that Guy Crick was studying architecture, Stanley joined Fox Films as its Victorian manager. In November 1921 he moved to Sydney as Fox’s General Sales Manager, being promoted to Managing Director for Australasia in June 1922. [45] Guy soon followed his older brother to Sydney to join the firm of theatre/cinema architect Henry E White.

While his brother was Managing Director of both Fox Films (Aust’asia) and Hoyts Theatres Ltd (after Fox had bought a controlling interest in the exhibitor in 1930), Guy went into the cinema industry in a way to suit his architectural and acoustic expertise. He joined with George Webster who had a background in showmanship and had been associated with picture theatres for a number of years, to form an umbrella organisation for a chain of cinemas that Crick would design through his new architectural partnership with Bruce Furse. Furse was to contribute additional design expertise. The chain was formulated through a series of private companies, one for each building in the chain. The companies were primarily exhibition companies to lease buildings/sites and upgrade them. Webster and Crick always had a shareholding in the companies. Until the late 1940s the offices of the Kings theatre companies and their architectural firm, Crick and Furse, were in the same building (Wingello House, Angel Place) in Sydney. In 1936, the trade journal, Everyones, spoke highly of what the Kings theatres were endeavouring to achieve.
"At each house, there is an atmosphere of intimacy and congenial comfort which must please. while the attractive features of the exterior, invariably futuristic, are highlighted by the architect’s guidance on an expertly balanced use of tube lighting in suitable colors." [46]

A development of theatres, which has been specialised in by Messrs. Crick and Furse, is the intimate house. Actual cost and general business details are not forthcoming. but a pretty accurate estimate places the cost of an average country show, seating 800 to 900, and built in the Moderne style, at £6,000.

‘That figure in comparison with the thousands which were expended in the austere and unattractive type of house of long ago, is a practical encouragenient for theatre-owners to rebuild and modernise their houses. It’s surprising what can be achieved with a reasonably small amount of money.” [46]

The arrival of World War II marked the end of the construction of Kings theatres. However, the style of building that had been created was emulated over and over again during the 1930s and into the 1940s throughout most states of Australia. "Crick and Furse (in association)", as they were known, designed on renovated hundreds of picture theatres during the 1930s before the partnership was dissolved in 1940. Little is available (even from descendants) about Guy Crick and Bruce Furse yet their influence on cinema building in Australia in the 1930s is immeasurable. The theatres that they created represented all that was considered to be modern and comfortable. In a time when wall-to-wall (fitted’) carpets in houses were only for the wealthy, the average Kings’ patron could experience richly carpeted foyers, modern decor, up-to-date furnishings and lighting, comfortable seating, mechanical heating and cooling, and entertainment — all at a very cheap price.

The composition of the Kings chain was not static during the 1930s and 40s. The original Mosman venue, Bronte, Epping, Rose Bay North and Gordon left the group, while new theatres were added as they were built or acquired and remodelled. By the early 1940s, the Kings at Warwick, Queensland had been added to the group. Built in 1920 as the His Majesty’s Theatre, it was leased to Southern Theatres Ltd (of which George Webster was the Managing Director), redecorated, renamed and could seat 1100. Fire destroyed it on Sunday, 27 February 1944. But, despite damage estimated at £20,000, it was rebuilt. (Although closed at the time of writing, it retains the name Kings’.)

On 18 March 1946, Greater Union, as part of its expansion policy, decided to acquire a controlling share interest in the Kings chain of interlocking companies. [47] According to Greater Union records, [48] this action was confirmed cnn 7 May when the Kings theatres at Ashfield, Balmain, Bondi Beach, Chatswood, Clovelly, Lindfield, Marrickville, Mosman and Warrick became GU houses. George Webster remained as Managing Director. In 1949/50 the company’s office was moved to the State Theatre Shopping Block, 49 Market Street, Sydney (Greater Union’s headquarters). In the late 1940s a second venue was acquired in Warrick when the Town Hall Theatre was leased by Kings.

While the Crick and Furse association broke up in 1940, following World War II, Guy Crick, in a number of partnerships, continued to undertake theatre commissions for Greater Union Theatres. Bruce Furse also continued his architectural work and was involved in theatre designs.

The Kings theatres remained an important part of Sydney’s suburban cinema scene for many years, a number of them continuing the two-shows-a-day policy that had been initiated in the beginning. Their days were numbered once television and licensed clubs made their marks in the late 1950s. The year 1983 saw the end of the name in Sydney when Chatswood Kings closed. Although Mosman Kings remained for another three years. it had changed names to Classic, then Village.


ENDNOTES

1. Particularly the standard text used in many English and Australan schools of architecture: B. Fletcher, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method. London: Batsford, first edition 1896. with some 21 reprints or new editions to 1948, now revised and published periodically by University of London Athlone Press.
2. For example, A. Speltz, Styles of Ornamenrt, trarnslated from the German of the second edition (1906). New York: Grosset and Dunlap. c.1907
C. B. Grieshach, Historical Ornament: A Pictorial Archive (reproduced from a late 19th century German edition), New York: Dover, 1975.
3. As in, F. Russell, en. Art Nouveau Architecture, London: Academy Edition, 1979.
4. R. H. Guerrand. Introduction in F. Russell, ed.. Art Nouveau Architecture, 9.
5. See, for example. J. Draper. "The Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Architectural Profession in the United States: The Case of John Galen Howard.” In S Kostof, The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession. New York: Oxford Unv. Press, 1977, 209—237.
6. A. von Vegesack. Czech Cubism Architecture. Furniture, and Decorative Arts, (English language edition), London: Laurence King, 1992.
7. H.M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimar: Dessau, Berlin. Chicago, Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press, 1978.
8. J. Esherick, Architectural Edccation in the Thirties and Seventies: A Personal View” in S. Kostof, ed. The Architect, 238-279.
9. J E. Muller - Fauvism in Handbook of Western Painting: From Cave Painting to Abstract Art, London. Thames and Hudson, 1961, 270.
10. K Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critica/ History, London: Thames and Hudson, 1980. 92—93.
11. A H. Barr. Preface to Henry-Russell HichcocK and Philip Johnson, The lnternational Style, New York: Norton, 1932., reprinted with new foreward and appendix. 1966, 13
12. A. Lesieutre, The Spirit and Splendour of Art Deco. New York/Lonoon: The Paddington Press. 1974.
13. B. Hillier. Art Deco. London: Studio Vista, 1968, 100: and for acceptance of Le Corbusiers pavilion as being 'tolerated’ at the Exposition, page 32.
14. K Frampton. Modern Architecture, 157.
15. Le Corhusier, The Decorative Art of Today (first published in French in 1925), Information, in the Preface of the 1959 (French) edit on. English translaton by J.l. Dunnett, London: Architectural Press. 1987, xv-xvi.
16. B HilIier. Art Deco.
17. For example, the following author’s include works by architects of the Bauhaus (anti-ornament) as Art Deco:
T. Menten. The Art Deco Style in Household Objects, Architecture, Sculpture. Graphics and Jewelry: 468 authentic examples selected by. New York: Dover, 1972.
Y. Brunnammer, Art Deco Style. London: Acauemy Editiorss. 1983.
K. M. McClinton, Art Deco: A Guide to Collectors, New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972.
18. Dictionary meanings refer to "style" as a type, kind or sort as to do with appearance or character. In B. Lang ed., The Concept of Style, Ithaca. N.Y. Cornell Univ. Press. 1987. Kubler says it is taxonomic (p.168):
Meyer says it is a replication of patterning (p.21); and Hofsteder claims it has an obligation to have (or possess) unity of form and content (p.128).
19. See A. von Vegesack, Czech Cubism.
20. Encyclopedie des Arts Decoratifs et lndustriels Modernes au Xxeme Siecle, in twelve volumes, Paris: Office Central d’Editions en de Librairie. 1925: New York: Garland, 1977.
21. M Valentine, The Show Starts on the Sidewalk, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994, 78.
22. J. Posener, Hans Poeliz: Reflectiorrs on his Life and Work. New York: The Architectural History Foundation and MIT Press. 1992, 8.
23. W Pehut, Expressionist Architectrrre, London: Thames and Hudson. 1973, 411—412.
24. B Zevi, Erich Mendelsohn, London: Arcnitectural Press. 1985.
25. B Zevi, Errcfr Merrdelsohn refers to Arnold Schonberg and dissonance in describing the ideas of Mendelsohn.
26. C P Webber, F H Rembert: The life and work of the Sydney architect 1902-1966. University of Sydney. Department of Architecture, 1982. 26-27
27. See J. Posener. Hans Poelzig, 63
28. For example the Berliner Tageblatt Building 1921-23. Weichman Silk House, Gleiwutz, 1922: Schocken Dept Stones at Nuremberg 1926, Struttgart, 1926-28, and Chemmitz 1928; see Erich Mendelsohn: Complete Works of tIre Architect, English translation of the 1930 edition, New York Princeton Architectural Press. 1992.
29. See, for buildings, architects and opening dates, R Clegg, ed., Odeon, Birmingham UK: Mercia Cinema.
30. N B Geddes. Horizons, originally published 1932, New York: Dover 1977, 28
31. Ibid, 68
32. M Greif. Depression Modern, The Thirties Style in America. New York. 90
33 N B Geddes. Horizons. 29
34. Ibid, see chapters on railways, ships, motor cars and buses in particular.
35. M Greif. Depression Modern, .generally from 88-95.
36. R. M. Langworth and J. P. Norbye, The Conrplete History of Chrysler Corporation, 1924-1985. New York 1985, 69-76
37. Ibid, in see particularly, 1938 and 1939 examples, 91-97
38. P M Shand, Moderrn Theatres arrd Cinemas, Lonrdon Batsford, 1930, plates 79 100 and 105.
39. Soc Fur/n Menrcie/solrnr- Corrrplete Works. 225 234.
40. W von Eckhardt, Eric Mendelsohn. New York: George Braziller, 1960 plate 26.
41. See illustrations and discussions in R. Thorne. Cinemas of Australia via USA, University of Sydney, Department of Architecture, 1981, 50-51
42. P. Lewis and G. Darley, Dictionary of Ornament. New York: Pantheon. 1986 Illustration for Baroque Revival. 49.
43. R. Clegg. Odeon, 105.
44. R. Thorne. Cinemas of Australia via USA, 1981, 52-53.
45. Information on Stanley Crick was derived from Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol, 8, 1891-1939. Melbourne University Press. 1981 149-150.
46. Everyones. 16 December 1936, 42.
47. The Film Weekly, 28 March, 1946, 1.
48. Information from T O'Brien. GUO 16 July 1991.