It sits in the centre of Melbourne, arguably on its most prominent street, and yet the Capitol theatre feels like the most overlooked building in the state. The beloved but strangely occluded Chicago-Gothic cinema, designed by married American architects Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin, turns 100 years old this week. It seems the perfect time for a reappraisal of this 20th century architectural wonder – its truly spectacular interior remaining stubbornly tucked behind a utilitarian facade.
The Capitol was commissioned by a conglomerate of businessmen who had already developed Luna Park and had worked with the Griffins (famous for designing Canberra) on the neighbouring Palais de Danse in St Kilda. The first of the large “picture palaces” – single-screen cinemas designed to take advantage of the booming interest in movies – the Capitol was notable at the time for its multi-use configuration of cinema and office space, as well as its idiosyncratic ceiling in the auditorium consisting of geometric panels augmented by thousands of coloured lights. “A 2,500-seat theatre, this was one of the big three that included the Regent and the Forum,” explains Marc Morrell as we walk around, his softly spoken manner belying a fierce enthusiasm for the building; he is the venues manager for RMIT university, current owner of the Capitol.
The Capitol’s opening screening was Cecil B DeMille’s original version of The Ten Commandments – “the bad version”, Morrell ad.
