As the glittering office and apartment towers pile ever higher on the narrow peninsula that hosts Brisbane’s CBD, news came last week about a true atrocity from a developer – the demolition of part of the Regent Theatre, and its replacement by… an office tower. The irony here is that much of Brisbane’s built heritage was destroyed in the late 70s and 80s, and this is the second “Save the Regent” campaign. Developers, the Bjelke-Petersen state government and interchangeable Labor and Liberal Council administrations marched in lockstep to knock down much of old Brisbane, and the Regent was a pioneer for the policy of partial preservation which reached its apogee under Liberal Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson – where many buildings were “saved” by the retention of their facades. In the case of the Regent, in 1980, the 1929 foyer and entrance hall were preserved and some of the fittings re-used in the “Showcase cinema”. You can read about the history of the building here.
The current proposal would preserve what is there, but fundamentally change the character of the building by alienating its purpose as public space – and as a cinema – and giving us yet another 38 story office block. The developers defend their project with the unoriginal claim that “the redevelopment of the Regent would see it given a new purpose.” Well, to be sure. But the lavish entrance hall will no doubt be protected by security guards and the only people who’ll enjoy its charm will be the suits who work there. It’s a nonsense to suggest that this sort of vandalism is in any way protecting the heritage of the cinema. Just as with the demolition of Festival Hall on Albert Street a while back, what will also be demolished is the material embodiment of many memories. To treat the Regent like this is to eviscerate its history and present design – as a theatre.
As one woman wrote on the Save the Regent Facebook group site, “My first date with my husband was at that Cinema!!!”. I remember going to the old 2500 seat cinema as a kid, and remember seeing Blade Runner there for the first time in 1982. I was thrilled to see Maggie Cheung there at BIFF in 1997. All this gets swept away as more urban space gets privatised. Politicians are at sixes and sevens over this outrage, with the split between a Liberal Mayor and a Labor Council enabling the waters to be muddied as to who actually has responsibility. But with an election due on March 15, there’s no doubt that it’s a good time to campaign against this attack on our civic heritage, and that both Council and the State government have the power to stop this development. Email addresses of all relevant pollies are at the Save the Regent webpage, which, along with the Facebook Group, will continue to update folks on the progress of the campaign. I’d strongly urge people to get behind it. We don’t need any more Cloudlands or Festival Halls here in Brisneyland.
A lot of Brisbane is starting to look like this. A combination of one huge construction site (in this instance, the former Forum Cinemas), a few old buildings and a lot of tower blocks.
Corner of Albert and Elizabeth Streets.
The developers claim that the back facade of the Regent on Elizabeth Street is “undistinguished” compared to the front. Maybe it is. Is that sufficient reason to tear it down, eviscerate the building’s purpose and history, and build yet another tower block? Will it be “distinguished”?
The building behind Gilhooley’s Pub is the site of the former Festival Hall. Now “Festival Towers”, combining the excitements of a chemist, a Nandos and apartments marketed to international students. So much for the memories, and a big concert venue in the centre of town.
Mark, unfortunately pollies of most persuasions and councils seem to be in thrall to developers, no matter where they hail from.
I come from a really small town-a village really, on the south east coast in SA-50 people wringing wet, but guess what we’re having inflicted on us? A f@*!ing marina!!!! All for our own good apparently, and they’re still surprised that we’re churlishly ungrateful at having our nice little Sleepy Hollow ruined.
It gets better though-to build this monstrosity, they’ve got the nod to de-water our aquifer. This means our bores, which we rely on when our rainwater runs out, will either run dry or fill with sea water. So much for responsible water management, water restrictions and all the other bullshit mouthed by government and coucils.
I hope you can stop the vandals from destroying the Regent. I haven’t seen it, but the photos say it all-it’s worth ten thousand of those soulless, characterless lumps of concrete and glass that are infesting cities around the country.
It’s a disgrace that we care so little for our built heritage in this country, unlike Paris, for example. In fact, I think the official attitude would do any politburo chief in the ex-Soviet Union proud.
Good luck with your campaign. May the developer’s crane fall on his/her fat stupid head.
Yep, and that’s the problem in Brissie – Labor or Liberal too often doesn’t make that much difference. There’s better development policy where there’s some commercial interest in retaining some amenity – and existing interests with value tied up in real estate – but in the CBD, forgeddaboutit. However the looming election probably does give people a bit of leverage on this occasion.
There are rare spaces in our city; unique and worthy of every effort to save. But it may prove a tad ironic that for the thousands of people opposed to this destruction to discover that they may, in fact, be financing it – through their own super funds.
ISPT is a trust that pools contributions from many, many super funds. Maybe they’re using your money to finance this project. Check the listing and see if you’re aiding the demise of the Regent….maybe its time to pull the ‘red carpet’ from this project…
Shit! I can’t believe they tore down Festival Hall!
Far out, every time I go back up, the Brisbane I loved as a kid in the eighties and early nineties, and a teen in the late nineties, seems more and more like a receding tropical hallucination, a green flash on the horizon, now obscured by endless vistas of chrome and glass…
Festival Hall FGS. I remember going to the Brisbane Stadium which they destroyed to build Festival Hall. In those days the ‘bleachers’ were seperated from ‘ringside’ by barbed wire. Class divisions writ large. BTW, the best fights weren’t in the ring.
A genuine ‘house of stoush’ not at all like the ‘atmosphere free’ Festival Hall which I did attend on Friday nights to see the fights on a regular basis. Bert Potts was the promoter as I recall.
The old Brisbane Stadium was once under the control of John Wren. Check out Stadiums Limited.
Was in Brisbane for work for a couple of months in 1979. Stayed by the river (293-297 North Quay).
Don’t suppose this is still there.
Single bedroom flat cost $90 for the week!
Spot Flats link
Excellent spot shot Mrs M. … my most profound memory of that walk into town from the terrace houses on Coro drive, would have to be the variously delicious smells emanating from the Arnotts factory, where the Hale Street turnoff now is. Custard Cream days were voluptuous, Orange slice gave the day a particular tang. Proust eat your heart out.
I haven’t been thoseaways for a while, but there’s a bit of buraused to be covered by a custard powder factory’s olfactions . When the wind’s from the west, Moorooka’s magic mile of motors is wafted in weetbix from the sanitarium factory.
Far be it from me to discourage folks from making revolution wherever they find it, but I find it disturbing that the best chance of people getting off their arses might be occasioned by the demise of a rococo monument to borgieous ( it’s been so long since i’ve used the word I can’t remember how to sp. it !!) escapism like a hollywood picture palace. ‘Fact is, the all-time record for protest crowd numbers in Brisbane is still the harp seal clubbing outrage. Cute and cuddly rules, OK, even in buildings ?
No-one gave a toss when the Evans Deakins ugly utilitarian shipyard was summarily dug up to make way for the ticky tacky of Kangaroo Point’s kilometre of kietsch . A few token cottages were left to remind us of another world of working life, and marvellous carpentry skills, from back when nails were precious.
Would folks be upset should something happen to the XXXX brewery? Beer as a way of life will surely be the last thing to go, people will go to the barricades for the right to get shit-faced won’t they?.
“bit of Burandah used to be covered”
I remember that building with the spots!
That can’t be right, surely, danny? How about the anti-Springbok protests of the early 70s or the anti-uranium and free speech marches of the late 70s? Or some of the land rights marches of the 80s? The protest against the Commonwealth Games?
Don’t doubt that Brisbane has a radical history. In fact one of Ray Evans’ arguments in the book of that name is that the constant refiguration of the cityscape serves to disguise and bury this.
For that matter, there’s the General Strike in 1912 – the first of its kind in an English speaking country.
wpd, my first boss in the public service in 85 – I was 16 and he was 33 – used to reminisce about the fights at Festival Hall in the 60s when he was a teenager. He thought they were a “house of stoush”!
For all those people howling about the Regent and other “heritage” buildings the solution is to buy the building and preserve it with your own money.
The problem for the owners is that the holding costs on that site would be horrendous as the valuation of the property would be skyrocketing. To keep running the site as a cinema would be uneconomic.
At present the vacancy rate for office accommodation in the Brisbane CBD is almost zero and rents are escalating at a rapid rate. What would any sane owner do in such circumstances faced with escalating rates and land tax against a property with limited revenue with its existing use?
So come on guys. If you are so concerned about the preservation of the Regent in its present form put your money where your mouths are, band together and buy it. You can then enjoy it to your hearts’ content.
Ah, the voice of market forces speaks! You’re aptly named!
I can’t find a lot of sympathy for the land owners. Nor do I have a spare $40 million or whatever burning a hole in my pocket.
The state government bought the Metro to preserve it as a public art space. If it’s a matter of finances, why not do the same? Or waive the rates and the land tax. The theatre probably makes a buck.
Cloudlands. Now that was a heinous crime. And economically shortsighted too. A majestic 40s style dance palace appropriately renovated for the 21st century and able to handle anything from concerts to conventions to weddings to hosting shows like Strictly Dancing and Australian Idol would generate far more economic activity, creative capital and tourism/investment/skilled migrant attraction than yet another ticky-tacky condo development.
Eg: Melbourne’s domestic tourism market (worth an easy four billion annually now) is booming partly because there’s a concerted strategy to attract interstate visitors for a romantic weekend where the highlight is going to a major musical premiering in Australia at lovingly restored classic venues like the Princess and the Regent.
Get your act together Queensland.
Mark: RE: Crowd sizes and the moral relativism in Brisbane protestations.
I can’t swear on a stack of Belleview bricks that the harp seal protest crowds definitely have the record, but it’s not the sort of thing I’d make up, I don’t think.
For a start, I didn’t attend, but I seem to remember commentary of the time making exactly the point that, yes, those crowds were bigger than any vietnam or springbok ones: that’s what happens when it’s an issue for the middle classes, as opposed to just the chattering ones that make up the infamous vocal minorities.
I reckon if the authorities had blessed it, in modern times, Steve Irwin angst could have been whipped up into something really big.
I reckon any chance of a moderne Brisbane collective urban pride appearing and standing up in defence of something of self declared value is vanishingly remote.
Exhibition ground? Regatta? RE beer garden? Staff club at UQ?
For my money, on personal history grounds, cf the Regent, I’d much rather that
The Merthyr Picture Palace
http://www.ourbrisbane.com/living/brisbanelife/photos/albums/userpics/normal_1108790898.jpg
lived on.
Does anyone remember surf movies at the Alhambra, Stone’s corner? Good lord, there was a glassed off smoking section at the back, how civilised, and the projectionist , to popular acclaim, would stop the reel, wind it back so we could all see the incredible 40 ft Wimea Bay Wipeout yet again. With a jimi hendrix or pink flloyd soundtrack.
Life’s simple pleasures, what? Dare I say it, how naff.
Yeah, therein lies another tale of woe and developer/Council shenanigans!
What was that all about, Mark?
The Commonwealth Games comes across as a pretty innocuous if meaningless affair. Why would anyone want to protest against it? Sounds like kicking koalas to me.
Amortiser [12]:
It’s a transequatorial problem, you see. The Europeans can do it [think of Vienna, etc.]…. and we can’t. It’s made worse by chronic cerebral neurone depletion among decision-makers too.
Nabakov [14]:
Cloudland was an excellent example of why it is impossible for Australia to become a great nation. Demolishing Cloudland for the purpose of replacing it with a building far grander might have made sense. Erecting a magnificent building around it would have made even more sense – something to outshine the Sydney Opera House – but what happened showed a complete lack of vision and competence and vigour.
The stupidest excuse I ever heard come out of the mouth of an overpaid executive wallah was that nothing higher could be built on top of that Cloudland hill because it would be an air navigation hazard. Yeah, right …. the locals have been complaining about aircraft tyre marks all over their roofs, haven’t they?
Mark [11]:
Thanks for mentioning those industrial relations disturbances; they are usually airbrushed out of history but they did frighten the rich-and-powerful to the extent that, when the First World War broke out, they were overenthusiastic about recruiting …. not so much to fight the Kaiser as to get all the unionists and potential strikers out of the place.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I *love* that cinema!!!! If anyone DARES to touch the Regent Theatre or the Brisbane Arcade in my absence from Brisbanetown, I shall have to seriously rethink my return.
Oh and hello from Londontown. It’s cold here.
Danny and Mark – I think you’ll find the anti-war protest in 2001 was Brisbane’s largest. The biggest about a building was the Bellevue protest in (from memory) 1978. Even the wallopers were in tears as the Deen boys did their worst, starting at 2 am.
The Regent is of course a pale shadow of its original glory, with a 2500 seat auditorium. I recall as a huge treat being taken there by my parents to see Lean’s Laurence of Arabia in 70mm on a proper cinemascope screen (way better than Imax) for my 10th birthday. There were four classes of seats, starting from the cheapest – front stalls, back stalls, dress circle (rear of the balcony), lounge (front of the balcony). The whole auditorium was a glorious fantasy in gilt and pretension – the climax of the architectural teaser that is the foyer. In your photo you can see the original booking desk, where once upon a time up to eight ticket sellers could ply their trade. What is now a tedious stairwell to the Maccas junk food emporium used to be a delightful milk bar with marble and brass counters matching the ticket booths, where milk shakes and ice cream sodas were dispensed in stainless steel flasks to generations of goggle-eyed Brisbane kids on their way to the matinee.
The only reason the foyer was saved btw was that the site has 2 titles, with the foyer title being part of the Mayne bequest to the University of Queensland. Protests by students and staff against Zelman Cowan’s philistine decision to allow the (from memory) Kern Corporation to redevelop the site led to its being overturned in the University Senate. The scheme was then amended to preserve that bit owned by the university, but the main auditorium was lost.
Longer term Brisbane residents may also recall that the Aromas coffee shop that took up the entrance way concession following the 1970s redevelopment was the first place a decent coffee could be obtained in the CBD – Cosmopolitan in the Valley was earlier, but obviously not in the CBD. Before Aromas if you asked for a cappuccino in Brisbane you got a vile concoction of instant coffee and frothy milk.
Last, lest we forget, herewith a personal catalogue of vanished Brisbane movie houses – Elite (Milton Rd Toowong), Boomerang (Annerley), Wintergarden, Roof Garden (delightful open air cinema atop the old Penny’s building), Forum, Crystal (Windsor), the wacky milk bar-cinema at Chermside whose name I forget, Rialto (West End), Schonell, Village Twin, and the one on Stanley Street East Brisbane that’s now a Kung Fu academy. Oh, and the original incarnations of the Eldorado and the Regal in Indooroopilly and Graceville. The original Eldorado featured a magnificent Wurlitzer that rose from beneath the stage to provide music by which to watch the Chas E Blanks slides at intermission (remember intermission?), and had deck chairs in the cheap front stalls and full-on lounge chairs up the back. All gone.
Idiots.
Thank gawd for Melbourne’s conservatism in this regard eh wot?
I’ll be at the Forum for Ween in a fortnight.
“wacky milk bar-cinema at Chermside whose name I forget”…. would be The Dawn,
At least the Rialto (West End) had a dignified, natural, demise: it blew away in a very big wind one night.
Ween….nice one FDB, ” Gimme that z, o-l-o-f-t…” ha, ha, ha.
If anything happens and you can’t make Ween, or you hear of any tickets becoming available, pls. put up a note here.
They’re playing the Tivoli here …. now there is a place which must definitely be preserved, no two ways about it.
You can still have the bouncing floor experience (Cloudland was famous for) upstairs at the Tivoli on a good night. That frisson of danger is the essence of rock and roll.
Scariest one for me was Elton John at Milton tennis courts, circa yellow brick road album. It took a while for us folks in the bleachers to connect the fact that spotlight lightspots on stage were going wild, with the fact that the stands we, (and the lighting trees themselves), were on were also going wildly up and down. The crowd didn’t exactly panic, but it was close enough for this little black duck.
danny – yar, I be looking forward to that little show big time. Then piling straight into a rented bus on Flinders Street to get a good campsite and see them again at Golden Plains. Wheee!!!
Hal9000 [20]:
Thanks for reminding us of the world-famous[???] destruction of the architectural integrity of the Univerity Of Queensland at St.Lucia …. and at many times the cost of what would have been to retain the beauty and usefulness of the original. And, of course, it shouted to the whole world here is a university without vision, without innovation, without progress. What tomfoolery! And Queensland has to cheek to call itself “The Smart State”.
GregM at 17, the protests about the Commonwealth Games had to do with the draconian state of emergency legislation imposed by Russ Hinze with the stated objective of keeping Aboriginal protesters away. States of emergency are now apparently par for the course for major events and people are blase about them, but they weren’t then.
Hal9000 is spot on about Aromas and decent coffee.
Oh, and the cinema in East Brisbane was the Classic – used to show a lot of American indie films in the early to mid 90s (think Hal Hartley and Gregg Araki).
“Last, lest we forget, herewith a personal catalogue of vanished Brisbane movie houses”
And the Imperial, on the Esplanade at Wynnum. The chairs were long canvas slings and we kids had to bring cushions so we could sit high enough to see the screen. There was also a balcony level, but Mum didn’t like it so I never went up there.
It closed in 1980 I think. The last season was a double bill of “Herbie goes Bananas” and “The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark”.
Mark you will have to strike this historian off your list.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/regent-theatre-not-worth-saving-historian/2008/02/22/1203467350143.html
“the one on Stanley Street East Brisbane that’s now a Kung Fu academy.”
No way, the Classic’s gone??
I loved that one.
That’s Brisbane for ya: “keeping the facade”
Stuff always gets closed, or ripped down in the night.
Here’s a good history of the Classic: http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/projects/heritage/index.cgi?place=602214&back=1
Apparently it was the “Capri” in the early 70s, and showed rude films, owned and run by the aptly named Eric Dare.
Btw, Brisbane outrage moment, for all Brisvegans: My and a friend are tying to organise a joint Brisso 40th for later this year, and we sussed out the Princess at the Gabba.
Dig this: its run by happy-clappies, and you can hire it …. provided there’s no booze or ciggies on the premises.
I politely explained that I’d get back to them for my funeral.
Mark [25]:
Yes, and it was at one of the last showings there that I saw the director’s cut of “Seven Samurai”. Sad that it has gone.
Hal9000 [20]:
Didn’t the Crystal at Windsor have a very long run of “The Gods Must Be Crazy”?
do you know the song by the Australian band “Spy vs. Spy” “Don’t Tear it Down” ? You can find a link for it.
Awesome looking place. Fortunately here in perth, most things this good are long gone, so we don’t have to worry anymore.
Hal9000
There was also the Odeon (I think that was it name but I’m not sure because it was defunct when I started High school in 1964 but it was operationalwhen wemovedto Queensland in 1959) at Chardon’s Corner. There was also another at Yeronga (Opposite Yeronga Station). I also vaugely recall one opposite Boggo Road and another further down Annerly road opposite the then Mater Childers’s Hospital.
Hal9000,
There was also the Odeon at chardon’s corner as well as another on Fairfield road Yeronga (opposite the Yeronga Station). I vaugely recall one also opposite Boggo Road.
I was in Grade 9 when I took a summer job with a concession company that served both the Regent and the Paris (there’s another that’s gone). I had my first date at the Paris when I took a seesion off from my concessionaires job to take a girl to see “the sound of Music”. that will probably date me.
OK so I double posted It seemed that the first post had dissappeared into cyberspace somewhere
This roll-call of Brisbane cinemas that have bitten the dust is sobering. Those old picture theatres were something. Memorable, fun., nteresting!
I saw what was billed as something like “Queensland’s first film” at the Crystal in 1976. Errol O’Neill was in it but that didn’t save it from being pretty horrible, but it wasn’t pretending to be “a major motion picture event” either. The Elite in Toowong in the same year had the unlikely double bill of ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ and ‘The Night Porter’.
Ten years + later on the other side of town it was ‘Meet the Feebles’ at the Classic and the Metro in Edward Street had a Mexican moment, but ‘Like Water For Chocolate’ looked kind of demure beside the grand schlockorama of ‘Santa Sangre’.
Sorry, but I think the Regent has been a travesty of itself since it was disembowelled in the late seventies. Still, the the CBD has become so dull that replacing what remains with another unremarkable office block is a bad move.
That is a sobering list of places gone..Although I suppose it was inevitable that with the advent of television etc there was going to be much less demand for cinemas. Nevertheless, Cloudland in particular sounds like a real tragedy.
What happened at the University of Queensland?
Seems to me that with the stink of dodgy developer-government relations coming from NSW at the moment, Qld could do with some better safeguards -the point about Melbourne’s success at chic city tourism made by others here is also relevant. Brisbane’s buzz is in danger of being busted by over-development of the wrong kind – if this was France or Italy would this be allowed? Heritage legislation needs ‘teeth’ – and couldn’t we look at grants to help preserve sites that may not be as profitable as surrounding real estate?
Iain [38]:
The University of Queensland had a three-quarters completed circle of sandstone-faced buildings that were a joy to behold. The University had oodles of empty land at St Lucia too. They had as well – wait for it! – a highly-respected Faculty of Architecture. There was plenty of scope to complete the original circle at leisure and to build the most innovating structures in the world behind it or beside it – structures that, no matter how wildly different, even a Constructivist folly, would have complemented the original circle.
What happened, though, was [how can I put it without being sued for defamation - truth alone being no defence in Australia?] …. a severe attack of mediocrity. Buildings just went up higgledy-piggeldy in a way that would have horrified Soviet bureaucrats. The architectural integrity of the whole place was wrecked so now it is just another jumble of dog-boxes.
Do not ever ever laugh at the glass pyramid dumped in front of the Louvre – we have a far worse eyesore right here in Australia.
Huh, Graham? It’s complete – with sandstone faced buildings that are a joy to behold.
See Mark’s photo!
http://phenomenologist.deviantart.com/art/Great-Court-78277365
Why all the angst?
The Queensland Labor Government can save the Regent Theatre, and any other Brisbane heritage or cultural icon, if they want to…ha ha ha (as if, given that Multiplex is one of their biggest donors/beneficiaries, and as correctly noted above, Industry Super Funds, representing many Australian workers, own the development).
Section 46 of the 1992 Queensland Heritage Act – Declaration of protected object – provides:
“(1) This section applies if the Minister is satisfied any of the following may be of cultural heritage significance–
(a) an object situated on, under or recovered from the surface of the land;
(b) the remains of a ship or some other object in, or recovered from, the territorial waters of the State.
(2) The Minister may, by gazette notice, provisionally declare the object or remains to be a protected object.
(3) The notice remains in force until whichever of the following first happens–
(a) the commencement of a regulation made under subsection (5);
(b) the end of 2 months.
(4) The notice is subordinate legislation.
(5) A regulation may declare the object or remains to be a protected object.”
The Minister, Andrew McNamara, can save anything he likes. Lobby him – oh, unless your remuneration depends on party loyalty of course!
PS. Mark, when you were taking your snaps, did you happen to see the bullethole in the ceiling which is still visible from when the detectives, firing several shots, chased a villian into the foyer in the 1950s?
No, Megan, I didn’t, and I didn’t know the story!
His email address is in the link in the post.
Kim [41]
Thanks. Indeed a joy to behold now …. and the rest of the university?
Anna Bligh buys into save the regent campaign.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/bligh-to-try-and-save-regent/2008/02/25/1203788187285.html
Some keen fan put this bit of history together.
http://theatreorgans.com/southerncross/Queensland/Regent.htm
Watching with interest. What happens if Anna is told ‘no can do’? Can the theatre survive only if has a skyscraper built over it?
I, like many, many others wish to voice my utter disappointment in the Premier’s address in Parliament on Wednesday concerning the Regent Theatre “decision”.
It is obvious the public have not been given the full details, in order for the Multiplex deal to go through unhindered. What about the formal (and legal) council development scrutiny process??? Where are the new plans of the development for all to see???
This is obviously a snow job to hide from the public the cooked up deal for the Regent. (That is, the Multiplex plan is really unchanged, just a touchy-feely story of a film and television centre, but the carpark in the cinema box, rear entry for the office tower etc etc is back on…). These “centres” probably are offices that are already in the Regent Building. And BIFF is already in one!
The public have also not been told that the cinemas will be accessible to the public ONLY on weekends and public holidays. They will not be able to go inside a heritage listed building that has had public access for 80 years !!! This is sacrilege… a cultural icon with the public locked out!
The new cinemas will be 1000 seats smaller than what is now there. What happened to the Government directive????
And what use are two phone box sized cinemas of 60 seats? The 300 seat cinema will be useless for live performance and other multipurpose events – it is far too small for this…
The public must have the TRUE story on this … Work should not commence until the proper processes have been carried through.