7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

1/9

Document title: Hoyts Entertainment Centre,

Sydney _______________ photo essay

Author/s:

Summary / abstract:

Ross Torne

On 25th October 1973 I was invited to have lunch with Daleurnbull, then head of Hoyts Teatres Ltd, at its office in thePlaza Teatre building, 610 George Street, Sydney. Also atlunch was urnbulls father-in-law, Ben Fuller Jnr with whomI conversed about his early life in the Ben and John Fuller the-atre entrepreneural business. Te conversation turned to mytheatre history interests and to a group that had been formedwith psychologists -- the Architectural Psychology ResearchUnit. I explained how we were interested in how people usedand perceived buildings. Tis must have sparked some inter-est. Dale urnbull told me that Hoyts were building the firstlarge multi-plex cinema building in Australia (almost oppo-site in George Street, on the rocadero dance hall site). Teyhad employed the Melbourne architectural firm of Grounds,

Romberg and Boyd for the design of the centre with sevencinema auditoria together with a range of other facilities tomake attending to see a film a pleasurable experience. Te de-sign however was not a simple corridor of cinema auditoria, ithad two auditoria on the ground floor foyer level, and anotherfive off a mezzanine lobby above. Hoyts was worried abouthow patrons, unused to at least seven films in seven auditoria,would become confused, and maybe go to the wrong audito-rium for their film. Tey asked environmental psychologist,erry Purcell and myself to make suggestions. Dr Purcell

looked at the meagre literature on wayfinding and percep-tion, and we made some suggestions. Tese included colourcoding tickets, the direction to cinemas and the cinema doors,with an emphasis being made by the ticket seller of the cin-ema number for that particular film.Although I amended errys very academic manner of notmaking precise recommendations or directions, as one mighthave with building regulations, I was told that the architectsdid not know what to make of out report -- architect trainingin the fifties and sixties being devoid of academic input, con-taining nothing approaching a referenced literature review, forexample. Finally Hoyts decided to half-heartedly colour code,but have signs that were either large number-of-cinema

The facade of the HoytsEntertainment Centre rep-resented the worst of thestyle of architecture of the1970s -- so-called func-tional, but simply banaland most unsympathetic tothe urban fabric.The exterior photo overp-age illustrates how appall-ing this architecture was inthe streetscape of GeorgeStreet, Sydney. It shows,beyond the Hoyts Centre,the Regent Theatre, builtin the late 1920s. The de-sign of both theatres had tocontend with a blank wallbehind which are dark au-

ditoria, but the Regent wasfar superior in its designsolution.

7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

2/9

graphics or a list of film titles beside which was the cinemanumber. 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. Teexterior was huge and banal in the extreme, and the interiorwas ritzy, brash and vulgar. However, the entrance lobby andfoyer beyond, with its facilities of eatery and bar, had a spa-ciousness and feeling of occasion with its stimulating varietythat could be attractive to people with little taste in interiordesign.Indeed, looking back to its opening in December 1976, itsgenerous spatial interior has never been repeated and, overthe 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 urnbull 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 Torne. Copyright requirement for use of text or pho-tographs is only to provide an acknowledgement of the au-thor/copyright owner.

7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

3/9

Above: Entry with shimmering mural andlm advertising displays opposite the boxofce.Right: Direction sign for cinemas and lmson column near entranceBottom: View from entrance doors to thestair to the Mezzanine (left), column withlm direction sign (centre) and box ofce

(right).

7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

4/9

Right: The originalbox ofce near theentrance, with plas-tic mirror behind. Itwas an adaption of

the old type of boxofce for a singlescreen cinema, andenlarged for multi-screen cinema.

Above: Original ar-chitects plan ofground oor withentry from GeorgeStreet at left. Thenumbering of thetwo cinemas is ac-cording to the plansbefore building.Right: View from

Box Ofce to rear offoyer, showing theescalator up to themezzanine. Note thenumber graphics forthe cinemas above.

7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

5/9

Top: Mezzanine with num-bered and colour coding onauditorium doors.

Centre: Long section showingcinemas off mezzanine lobbywith original numbering.

Right: Close-up of one set ofcinema doors on mezznineshowing colour and numbergraphic coding.

7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

6/9

Above: Candy bar tucked beneath the Mezzanine and stairs leading downto the rear bar, cafe and pin-ball machine area as shown below.

7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

7/9

Above: View from top of rear Mezzanine stair through to the cafe and bar.

Below: View from escalators to Mezzanine (above) to cafe.

7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

8/9

Above and Below: The rear of the ground oor foyer shows the new Ameri-can inuence of interior design -- supercial tarted up, themed kitsch.The coffee/food bar is above, while the bar that extends the building to therear street is an epitome of themed kitsch with animal heads, etc.

7/26/2019 Hoyts Entertainment Centre, Ross Thorne.

9/9

Above: The long sectionthrough the upper andlower auditoria, extend-ing from George Streetat left, to Kent Street atright. Cinema numbers

are as on original design.

Right and Below: An al-most left-over spacelled on its perimeter withpin-ball machines andtwo public telephones(before mobile phones)