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The Hollinshed went to New Zealand to in 1941. A world removed from his big
theatre designs of the twenties (it seated
design the Regent Masterton and
Regent Palmerston North. 942), this intimate space was like a
Hollinshed Melbourne in 1934 with two big smaller sister to the Time Balwyn. If a
Hollinshed was busy again in
fire had not destroyed the building in
reconstructions: first the shell of the the eighties, (it had not been a theatre
Influence Auditorium was rebuilt as the Metro for years) someone by now would have
re-opened it to complement the trendy
Collins Street. In this interior much of
the design control came from the USA, shopping precinct of Maling Road.
but the curve of the proscenium was Hollinshed was modest about his
similar to his earlier work at Fitzroy. achievements. After the dissolution of
Later that same year His Majesty’s was J. C. Williamsons in the seventies, there
re-opened, totally transformed by was speculation about the fate of the
Hollinshed from a Victorian interior to Comedy. Hollinshed was asked to
moderne. assess the merit of his early creation. If
His next cinema was another the questioners had expected the
prestige assignment, the Village Toorak architect to make the best case for its
(CinemaRecord 39). Hollinshed then preservation, they were to be
turned to a different sort of public disappointed. His reported response
building, the Horsham Town Hall was that the theatre was a copy from
(1939) where the influence of a cinema Broadway.
style can be seen. While in the district C. N. Hollinshed was a founding
he designed a large home at Nurrabiel member of the National Trust of
via Horsham. Victoria and chairman of the first Como
The last theatre commission was the House management committee. ★
single-level Hoyts Maling Canterbury
His stature as an architect in
Melbourne rests on his live theatres, but
Charles Neville Hollinshed (1899 –
1993) proved himself a deft exponent
of the grand, ‘Regent’ style of cinema.
C.N. Hollinshed was elected as an
Associate of the Royal Victorian
Institute of Architects in 1923 and was
soon a specialist in theatre buildings.
Of the Comedy Exhibition Street
(1928), designed in conjunction with
Albion Walkley, The Argus wrote, ‘an
elegant addition to the architecture in
Melbourne.’
The photo in the opening program
for the Comedy shows the 29 year-old
architect as lean and intense, a
demeanor very different to that of his
rival Cedric Ballantyne. Mrs. Judith
Hogg later said of her father, “He was
terribly thorough, he used to say if a
job was worth doing, it is worth doing
properly.” Photos of Hollinshed in his
mature years show a relaxed and
contented man.
The Regent Fitzroy was
Hollinshed’s first cinema. With this
theatre and the Regent Brisbane, (the
latter in association with Brisbane’s
Richard Gailey) he showed a flair that
was more than just tweaking of a style
made famous by Cedric Ballantyne.
In 1931 the papers announced that
Hollinshed would be Hoyts architect
for a new Regent to seat 2,800 in
Sydney Road Brunswick. The Lobby and approach to balcony promenade of the Regent, Palmerston North, New
depression put paid to that idea and Zealand. The similarity to the same space in the Regent Fitzroy is obvious.

24 2004 CINEMARECORD