Photo of the Day: Auckland’s Civic Theatre

The New Zealand International Film Festival begins tonight, with a sold-out premiere of the The Dark Horse. It’s an appropriate time to take a look at the wonderful Civic Theatre. Each year, the Civic becomes one of the main venues in the film festival, with a capacity of around 2,400 people and hosting the largest events – including the opening and closing films, silent films accompanied by the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra (this year: Prix de beauté) and more.

Photo: Patrick Reynolds

It’s impossible to capture all the magic of the Civic in a single photo, although Patrick’s one here shows a vivid and colourful scene. There are too many sumptuously decorated, Orientalist-themed corners, sweeping staircases, and elements that look amazing whether brightly or dimly lit. Personally, I love looking up at the imagined starscape on the ceiling, especially as the lights go down.  I’m also a fan of the delightfully kitsch electronic eyes peering out from the lions at the bottom of the stage.

I found this piece on the Civic in an old Statistics New Zealand yearbook:

Auckland’s Civic Theatre is regarded as one of the best preserved examples of the atmospheric picture palace in the Southern Hemisphere.

This extraordinary building was built in only 33 weeks in 1929 for £250 000 by the hard-driving entrepreneur Thomas A. O’Brien, then the owner of New Zealand’s third largest cinema chain. He promised ‘the Dominion’s finest theatre built in the new atmospheric style’. He imported Australian cinema architects Bohringer and Taylor, already the designers of over 60 Australian picture palaces, and their team of over 100 plasterers and designers. It was opened on 20 December, supposedly in time to catch the Christmas rush.

Unfortunately, it also caught the beginning of the Great Depression. Thomas O’Brien went bankrupt nine months later.

In the atmospheric cinema craze of the late 1920s, theatre owners vied with each other to create total fantasy environments. Movie-goers could forget their worries for a few hours, entering an illusion of wealth with lavish decor, reproduction antiques, uniformed attendants and beautiful flower arrangements. A typical night out could include a Wurlitzer organ recital, dance troupe, full orchestra, news shorts and a main feature.

The Civic auditorium is elaborately decorated as an Arabian walled garden, complete with twinkling stars in a night sky. The foyer is styled as an ancient Hindu temple, with humorists claiming the strange choice was due to an order for ‘Red Indian’ decor being misinterpreted.

The ‘Wintergarden’ nightclub in the basement came into its own in the 1940s, when Auckland was used as a recreation port by US troops.

Today, as the accompanying photographs show, the Civic is little changed. Major alterations in 1975 saw modern climate control installed, but also the loss of the organ, hydraulic orchestra pit and Wintergarden nightclub to make room for the Civic 2 theatrette.

Built on a public reserve, hence the name, ownership of the Civic reverts to Auckland City on the last day of 1993. Despite a Historic Places Trust ‘B’ classification, its future is currently uncertain, although Peter Wells’ and Stewart Main’s 1989 film The Mighty Civic helped re-awaken interest in the subject.

Other notable survivors from the golden age of cinema include Auckland’s St. James, Wellington’s Embassy (much modified), Palmerston North’s Regent, and Dunedin’s Regent and St. James.

The Civic received a major refurbishment in the late 90s, and is as stunning today as it ever was, perhaps even more so because so few places like this are left. I highly recommend heading along to whatever films in the festival you can make it to, and especially keeping an eye out for screenings in the Civic.

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