Hoyts Entertainment Centre

Document title: Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Sydney _______________ photo essay Author/s: Ross Thorne Summary / abstract: On 25th October 1973 I was invited to have lunch with Dale Turnbull, then head of Hoyts Theatres Ltd, at its office in the Plaza Theatre building, 610 George Street, Sydney. Also at lunch was Turnbull’s father-in-law, Ben Fuller Jnr with whom I conversed about his early life in the Ben and John Fuller theatre entrepreneural business. The conversation turned to my theatre history interests and to a group that had been formed with psychologists -- the Architectural Psychology Research Unit. I explained how we were interested in how people used and perceived buildings. This must have sparked some inter- est. Dale Turnbull told me that Hoyts were building the first large multi-plex cinema building in Australia (almost opposite in George Street, on the Trocadero dance hall site). They had employed the Melbourne architectural firm of Grounds, Romberg and Boyd for the design of the centre with seven cinema auditoria together with a range of other facilities to make attending to see a film a pleasurable experience. The design however was not a simple corridor of cinema auditoria, it The facade of the Hoyts Entertainment Centre rep- had two auditoria on the ground floor foyer level, and another resented the worst of the five off a mezzanine lobby above. Hoyt’s was worried about style of architecture of the how patrons, unused to at least seven films in seven auditoria, 1970s -- so-called “func- would become confused, and maybe go to the wrong audito- tional”, but simply banal rium for their film. They asked environmental psychologist, and most unsympathetic to Terry Purcell and myself to make suggestions. Dr Purcell the urban fabric. looked at the meagre literature on ’wayfinding’ and percep- The exterior photo overp- tion, and we made some suggestions. These included colour age illustrates how appall- coding tickets, the direction to cinemas and the cinema doors, ing this architecture was in with an emphasis being made by the ticket seller of the cin- the streetscape of George ema number for that particular film. Street, Sydney. It shows, beyond the Hoyts Centre, Although I amended Terry’s very academic manner of not the Regent Theatre, built making precise recommendations or directions, as one might in the late 1920s. The de- have with building regulations, I was told that the architects sign of both theatres had to did not know what to make of out report -- architect training contend with a blank wall in the fifties and sixties being devoid of academic input, con- behind which are dark au- taining nothing approaching a referenced literature review, for ditoria, but the Regent was example. Finally Hoyt’s decided to half-heartedly colour code, far superior in its design but have signs that were either large number-of-cinema solution. graphics or a list of film titles beside which was the cinema number. It is hard to believe that Sir Roy Grounds and partners, Romberg and Boyd had anything to do with this building ex- cept for the design of the concrete bones of its structure. The exterior was huge and banal in the extreme, and the interior was ritzy, brash and vulgar. However, the entrance lobby and foyer beyond, with its facilities of eatery and bar, had a spa- ciousness and feeling of occasion with its stimulating variety that could be attractive to people with little taste in interior design. Indeed, looking back to its opening in December 1976, its generous spatial interior has never been repeated and, over the years it has been destoyed by “bottom line” driven man- agement that has squeezed more auditoria within the same envelope only to create a rabbit warren of numbing soulless- ness. (Since Dale Turnbull and 20th Century Fox were Hoyts, the company has been onsold several times.) Illustrations: By the author at time of the opening Original publication date: Not previously published Complete / extract: Complete Copyright owner: Ross Thorne. Copyright requirement for use of text or pho- tographs is only to provide an acknowledgement of the author/copyright owner. Above: Entry with shimmering mural and film advertising displays opposite the box office. Right: Direction sign for cinemas and films on column near entrance Bottom: View from entrance doors to the stair to the Mezzanine (left), column with film direction sign (centre) and box office (right). Right: The original box office near the entrance, with plas- tic mirror behind. It was an adaption of the old type of box office for a single screen cinema, and enlarged for multi- screen cinema. Above: Original architects’ plan of ground floor with entry from George Street at left. The numbering of the two cinemas is ac- cording to the plans before building. Right: View from Box Office to rear of foyer, showing the escalator up to the mezzanine. Note the number graphics for the cinemas above. Top: Mezzanine with num- bered and colour coding on auditorium doors. Centre: Long section showing cinemas off mezzanine ‘lobby’ with original numbering. Right: Close-up of one set of cinema doors on mezznine showing colour and number graphic coding. Above: Candy bar tucked beneath the Mezzanine and stairs leading down to the rear bar, cafe and pin-ball machine area as shown below. Above: View from top of rear Mezzanine stair through to the cafe and bar. Below: View from escalators to Mezzanine (above) to cafe. Above and Below: The rear of the ground floor foyer shows the new Ameri- can influence of interior “design” -- superficial ‘tarted up’, themed kitsch. The coffee/food bar is above, while the bar that extends the building to the rear street is an epitome of themed kitsch with animal heads, etc. Above: The long section through the upper and lower auditoria, extend- ing from George Street at left, to Kent Street at right. Cinema numbers are as on original design. Right and Below: An almost “left-over’ space filled on its perimeter with pin-ball machines and two public telephones (before mobile phones).

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