Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Saturday 12 October 1940, page 11


I NEW THEATRE OPENS AT CAMBERWELL

RIVOLI HAS SEATS

FOR 1,644

Special Acoustic Design

Promenade walk around the stair well of the circle foyer '

Workmen busy putting the finishing touches to the exterior of the new j

Rivoli Theatre at Camberwell I

Citizens of Camberwell who have lived there 25 years will

find in the new Rivoli Theatre facilities for viewing pictures which they would never have dreamt pos-sible when moving pictures were first screened in the municipality in the open in Canterbury Gardens.

There is a big gulf between this old form of picture

entertainment and that now offered .to residents of Camberwell by the new Rivoli, which opened last night with a gala charity performance for the Red

Cross.

I Wide spaces between the seats is a

feature of the circle seating.

Screen

Advertising

for

The New

RIVOLI

Theatre

is controlled by

REILLY

ADVERTISING

CO. I'TV. I.Tll..

203 Collins St.

F1846.

Situated close to the Camberwell Junction, in Camberwell rd.. Upper Hawthorn, the new building re-places the old Rivoli Theatre in Burke rd., Camberwell, which has been closed. It is owned and operated by Junction Theatres Ltd., and is under the direction of Mr. Robert McLeish.

There arc 1,004 seats in the stalls, and 640, including 304 lounges, in the dress circle, making a total of 1,644.

The new theatre can justly claim to be easily the most modern suburban plc ture theatre in the Commonwealth. It has cost almost/ £50.000, and in its con-struction 500,000 bricks, 70 tons of struc-tural steel, 65,000 super feet of timber, and 1,000 tons of concrete have been used. More than 10 miles of steel tubular scaf-folding was used on the job.

The building is of reinforced concrete frame construction, with light brick panel infilling. The steel work was fabricated by Johns and Waygood Ltd. During ex-cavation for the foundations of the build-ing an underground creek was encoun

tered running parallel with the main auditorium wall. This called for special engineering design to overcome the diffi-culty

The general contractor for the build-ing was T R and L Cockram Pty Ltd. This construction company has in the last few years built eight theatres, includ-ing the Regal Theatre, which is controlled by the same management as the Rivoli.

DECORATIVE BRICKWORK

The external brickwork is blended of pale pinks to coloured oatmeals with horizontal effects obtained with bright orange rippletex bricks and lines of dark heelers. The whole has been carefully graded from top to bottom, and is an excellent example of the decorative effect which can be given to wall masses with brickwork. The base of the building is tiled in deep cream and orange, and mod-ern shopfronts are fitted to a series of shops on the street frontage. The veran-dah awning has special piovlslon for pro gramme displays, the fittings being set at an angle with the footpath so that they can be easily read from any approach to the main entrance.

LIGHTING AT NIGHT

Lighting plays an important part in the exterior decoration of the building. At night the large masses of wall suiface are lighted with yellow sodium floodlights, and coloured floods are provided to win-dow openings

The name Rivoli Theatre is bullt up in metal letters, 8ft in height, and flxed along the low parapet of the roof garden. The sides of the letters are painted blue and the face Chinese red. The blue picks up special lighting, and at night the letters stand out in silhouette against the flood-lit wall In the background. In daylight they also stand out conspicuously against the light brickwork.

The Neon slgn "Rivoli" fixed on each side of the main vertical fin of the front elevation are against a backgiound of metal letters in Chinese red baked enamel which stand out from the wall in sil-houette. Interesting lighting with move-ment and interchangeable colours is used with this feature. The fin carrying the name is surmounted by a flagpole, the top of which is 90ft above the foot-path.

NEW INTERNAL WALLS

A form of construction new to theatre work has been adopted for the internal walls. It is a development of the brick veneer wall now used extensively for do-mestic work. A complete suspended in-terior wall, faced with fibrous plaster sheets is entirely independent of the main structure. This form of construction plays an important part in the acoustic treatment of the auditorium.

Throughout the auditorlum of the theatre the decoratlve fibrous-plaster work is executed in sweeping streamlines and, although not too heavily enriched the ornament is introduced to punctuate

the masses of plain surface and give added interest and character to the work. This is stiikingly exemplified in the treatment of the proscenium splays which rise vertically and then sweep away in eccentric curves to the rear of the main ceiling, thus making a very definite and graceful connection between the pros-cenium and main celling.

Another striking feature of the fibrous plaster is the grille work on the side walls which serves to cover an acousti-cally treated wall surface, thus decorating a part of the interior which would other-wise be uninteresting. These grilles in themselves are designed to play an im-portant part in the acoustics of the auditorium. The flbrous-plaster grilles which cover the inlet ventilation in the splays of the proscenium also have an acoustic function. All the fibrous-plaster work was carried out by W H Brilliant and Co Pty Ltd.

INDIRECT LIGHTING

The interior is essentially modem, yet with tradltlonal feeling and restraint. The whole effect is linked with an in-direct lighting scheme. There are no visible sources of light in the theatre to cause glare and a beautiful restful at-mosphere is obtained with shadowless lighting. Fibrous plaster has been used extensively in connection with the light-ing to form troughs and coves to con-ceal the lighting units. The whole in-terior colour scheme has a predominating tint of rose coral, and an attractive feeling of warmth is obtained.

MECHANICAL VENTILATION

The mechanical ventilation Is of an enormous capacity and is housed on two floors at the stage end of the building. The exhaust fan machinery room is at the other end of the building. The plant is capable of delivering 50 000 cubic feet of fresh air a minute, cooled and evenly distributed over the entire auditorium. Provision has been made in the system for warming the air in winter and, in addition, individual foot-warmers are provided to every seat in the theatre. Separate exhaust fans extract 30,000 cubic feet of air a minute, so that the whole system is oversized and thoroughly capable of dealing with the vagaries of Melbourne climate. The heating and hot-

water engineers were McGregor Bros '

A corner of the dress circle foyer.