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The Rivoli Celebrates 75 Years

Ian Smith

ack in the 1990s, when a radio station What Taylor, his team, and the
Bconducted a poll to find Melbourne’s artisans produced is the perfect
most popular theatre, the Rivoli came in as fusion between form and function.
number one. Considering the public’s depth of In keeping with all Taylor designs,
feeling about plans for a multiplex, and Village the exterior is also interesting.
Theatre’s willingness to take advice from the Brickwork is of the highest order,
Art Deco Society about the conversion, the and supports a complex roof line,
feeling is as strong today. which solved the problem of heavy
rain drowning out sound. In fact
Why this loyalty, when the wrecking ball was the design solved every problem
taken to so many other fine cinemas? Quite experienced in older theatres. And
simply the Rivoli was the best; the high-point the most pressing for patrons was
of single-screen design. the standard of lavatories! So
forward-thinking was Taylor’s
If practice makes perfect, the architectural firm solution, that Village retains the
of H.V Taylor and Soilleux came well prepared conveniences within the main
for this commission. They had honed their foyer in their original form. boost. They ascend two prominent and sinuous
skills on five superior theatres in Victoria (plus steps to their entrances. At another level the
one in Albury) starting in 1936. By 1940, Taylor’s team were masters at utilising odd- roof garden is triangular in shape.
entrepreneurs Robert McLeish (father and shaped sites. The site for this new Rivoli was
son), emboldened by a surge in film rectangular, but the architects were not content The ability to mould plaster into almost any
attendances, decided to upgrade their to simply plonk rectangular forms on it. From form, a skill mastered in the 1930s was used
Camberwell/Hawthorn presence with a inside the wide entrance the foyer ‘flows’ as a intelligently. Within what is now Cinema One
building worthy of a city theatre. Hoyts was gentle crescent from staircase to candy bar. – the original lounge and dress circle – all
involved too. (McLeish senior had opened the Lounge patrons in any theatre have always lighting is concealed within or behind these
first Rivoli in 1921). enjoyed a grand ascent to their seats. At the forms. Along the walls is a spiraling space
Rivoli stalls, patrons also get a subliminal galaxy.

32 CINEMARECORD # 88