H. Vivian Taylor & Soilleux

The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture^[2] stated that Hugh Vivian Taylor formed a partnership with fellow Melbourne architect, Garnet Argyle Soilleux in 1925. However, from contemporary newspapers articles and the H Vivian Taylor collection of drawings at the State Library of Victoria, they seemed to work independently until 1928. In 1933, young architect Best Overend, who had earlier articled with Taylor and just returned form a period living and working in London with noted modern firms, joined as a partner, with the practice operating as Taylor, Soilleux & Overend.^[3] This partnership continued until 1937, when Overend departed overseas again, and the firm returned to the previous name.^[2] For many years they operated out of an office in Little Collins Street in Melbourne. With the onset of WWII, the firm was wound up in 1941.^[4]

From 1928, Taylor became on the first Australian specialists in architectural acoustics, and with the introduction of sound to movies in Australia in 1929, the firm became busy refurbishing cinemas and theatres that had not been designed with any consideration for the way sound would bounce around the cinema.^[2] He gave a lecture to the Australian Institute of Architects on the topic in 1932.^[5] An early example was the 'acoustical treatment' of the Crown Theatre in Victoria Street, Richmond (much later known as the Valhalla) in 1931, and another the remodeling of the 1914 Palace Theatre in North Fitzroy with 'sound absorbing materials' in 1933.^[6] The firm is thought to have acted as acoustic consultants for other architects and theatre owners for hundreds of cinemas and theatres right across Australia. An example of this was consulting with C N Hollinshead & Albion Walkley on the reconstruction of the auditorium of His Majesty's Theatre in Exhibition Street in 1934.^[7]

The firm also designed numerous complete cinemas in Melbourne and elsewhere in Australia,^[8] which were acoustically considered and amongst the most stylish and innovative of the many designed in the Art Deco style in the 1930s. The auditorium interiors were particularly notable, some featuring complex curved lines and forms and unique patterns, for instance the ceiling decoration at the Rivoli is composed of interlocking cog wheels. The exteriors of the Rivoli in East Hawthorn and the Ozone in Mildura were also notable for featuring bolly modelled forms in the Streamline Moderne polychrome brickwork. Six of their theatres featured very unusual freestanding ticket boxes in the foyers, for instance in the form of a sphere, a teardrop, and a crystalline pillar.^[9]

With the arrival of the outer suburban Drive-In and then television in 1956, audiences for independent cinemas dramatically declined through the 1960s leading to the closure and alteration or demolition of the majority of interwar cinemas across the country, including almost all that were designed by the firm. Their major legacy is the heritage-listed Rivoli Theatre in Hawthorn East.^[1][8]

• Architecture of Melbourne
• List of Streamline Moderne cinemas
• Streamline Moderne architecture