Another bucket-list location that I managed to tick off on my latest trip abroad!
This incredible theatre was opened in 1915. It was built to an extremely rare and unusual 'double decker' design with a smaller 'roof garden' type auditorium sitting directly above the main auditorium. This gave the theatre an imposing but quite narrow ten-storey facade from the outside. The main auditorium featured seating on the orchestra level and two large balcony levels, with a maximum capacity of 4,200 people in total across both auditoriums and it was described as one of the finest theatres in the city at the time.
The main auditorium was originally solely a vaudeville theatre however from the late 1920s focused on movie showings. The upper auditorium wasn't used a whole lot until the 1960s, when it was renovated to show foreign films. In 1968 it was announced that the theatre would close it's doors, and it has now sat decaying and falling apart for an amazing fifty years. Despite the length of closure it is surprisingly sound structurally, with most of the floors being made of concrete. A large amount of the ornate plasterwork has fallen to the ground mostly from around the proscenium area which has led to the collapse of the orchestra level floor in front of the stage.
After closure all the seats and fixtures were supposed to be cleared out, however this was never completed and to this day almost all the seats are left inside.
Thanks for looking
This incredible theatre was opened in 1915. It was built to an extremely rare and unusual 'double decker' design with a smaller 'roof garden' type auditorium sitting directly above the main auditorium. This gave the theatre an imposing but quite narrow ten-storey facade from the outside. The main auditorium featured seating on the orchestra level and two large balcony levels, with a maximum capacity of 4,200 people in total across both auditoriums and it was described as one of the finest theatres in the city at the time.
The main auditorium was originally solely a vaudeville theatre however from the late 1920s focused on movie showings. The upper auditorium wasn't used a whole lot until the 1960s, when it was renovated to show foreign films. In 1968 it was announced that the theatre would close it's doors, and it has now sat decaying and falling apart for an amazing fifty years. Despite the length of closure it is surprisingly sound structurally, with most of the floors being made of concrete. A large amount of the ornate plasterwork has fallen to the ground mostly from around the proscenium area which has led to the collapse of the orchestra level floor in front of the stage.
After closure all the seats and fixtures were supposed to be cleared out, however this was never completed and to this day almost all the seats are left inside.
Thanks for looking
