Historic Significance

Historical Significance or Value This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1980. This report includes the text from the original Building Classification Committee report considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. The present Municipal Theatre replaced the original theatre of 1912 which was destroyed in the 1931 earthquake. Money and effort in the period immediately after the earthquake was devoted to restoring essential services and rebuilding commercial properties. Entertainment had a low priority. However, in September 1935 J.A. Louis Hay put forward an amended design for a new theatre. At the height of the Depression the Council estimated that only £15,000 could be spent on such a project, and they rejected Hay's design in favour of J.T. Watson's more practical and less ornate concept. The foundation stone was laid on 24 November 1937, by which time building costs had increased. In June 1938, the theatre was completed at a cost of £8000 above the 1935 estimate.

Physical Significance

This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1980. This report includes the text from the original Building Classification Committee report considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: The Municipal Theatre is a characteristic example of an archetypal Art Deco building - the theatre. Designs for amusement and entertainment houses in Europe and America allowed architects to indulge theatrical fantasies which created prototypes for more mundane building during the heyday of Art Deco. Interior design in these theatre buildings was as important as architectural structure. Radio City Music Hall (1932) in New York, for example, incorporated elements which celebrated modern materials and new technology; electric lights were shaped as torches, the handles of the main doors formed a chevron motif. These same features are repeated on the Municipal Theatre, Napier, and there is evidence of a concern to create a "streamlined" effect. Streamlining was the greatest stylistic innovation of the Depression era, and it is a strong feature of the interior of the Municipal Theatre. There are dynamic curving lines, and leaping naked female forms surrounded by swirls of drapery done in plaster, and the foyer has coloured neon lights which are indebted for their form to the aesthetics of the automobile. This theme is continued in the curved walnut-veneer ticket box (like a dashboard in a vehicle) and the lavish use of chromium-plated steel which extends in lines from wall lights in the auditorium and also features around the circle in the auditorium. Typical of the Art Deco celebration of new technology are the lighting fixtures which are an integral part of the decorative scheme. The auditorium is flood-lit by coloured lights from a central dome, and from this, stretched to the four points of a compass, project the raised linear panels with geometrically-shaped light fittings. Watson has used sandblasted glass for layered light fittings; the type of glass popularised by A.B. Young in the Troughton and Young building (1930-32) London, and featured extensively in British Vogue magazine during the period 1930-1939. In his combination of modern external architectural features with an integrated internal decoration scheme, Watson has created an exemplary Art Deco theatre building closely linked to European and American theatre designs of the time which sought to integrate the fine and decorative arts. TOWNSCAPE/LANDMARK SIGNIFICANCE: The monumental scale and impressive façade of the Municipal Theatre create an impressive streetscape on one of the principal routes to the Marine Parade. Its three massive arched windows on the upper storey relate well to the three arched openings at the nearby Desco building (old Napier Fire Station (1921) remodelled by J.A. Louis Hay in 1931.

Alexander Turnbull Library

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

Campbell, 1975

M. D. N. Campbell, Story of Napier, 1874-1974; Footprints Along the Shore

Daily Telegraph

Daily Telegraph

Ives, 1982

Heather Ives, The Art Deco Architecture of Napier, Napier, 1982

Shaw, 1987

Shaw, Peter and Peter Hallett. Art Deco Napier: Styles of the Thirties, Reed Methuen, Auckland, 1987.