Page 15 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2002 #37

designed their club buildings in
Glenferrie Road, Kooyong. He also
designed the Royal South Yarra Tennis
Club headquarters in Verdant Avenue,
Toorak and, in 1927, the headquarters
of the Victoria Golf Club in Park
Road, Cheltenham.
Ballantyne was a perfectionist. His
concern for quality sometimes led to
the demolition of unsatisfactory work
and changes to plans as buildings
progressed. But he was regarded as a
good planner, creating his buildings
from the inside out – particularly
important in theatre design. His first
theatre work came in 1923: the
partnership of Ballantyne and Hare
was commissioned by J. and N. Tait to
redesign the auditorium of the Palace
Theatre in Pitt Street, Sydney. They
removed most of the posts that had
annoyed patrons since 1896, replaced
the exuberant Arabian Nights decor
with a stately European renaissance
interior, and reduced the seating palace in Australia and when it opened Ballantyne’s re-construction of the Palace
capacity from 1000 to an intimate 872. in 1924 the Architecture and Building Sydney. It later became Hoyts Palace.
Around this time Ballantyne Journal of Queensland found it Image: Theatre in Australia by John
travelled to the United States, studying ‘almost startling in its magnificence’. West. Cassell Australia 1978
cinema design. He and Hare had been There was luxurious seating for over
contracted to design a grand new 2000 patrons. Mouldings of Australian
theatre in Brisbane – the huge plants decorated the roof, giving ‘the
Wintergarden in Queen Street. It was appearance of a shroud of filmy lace
acknowledged as the first true picture stretched across the ceiling.’

The Wintergarden Brisbane was Ballantyne’s first cinema commission.
Source: Picture Palace Architecture in Australia by Ross Thorne. Sun Books Pty. Ltd. 1976.

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