Creating state heritage cinemas in Adelaide part of Chris Smith's life-long devotion to film and their theatres
The restored art deco styling of the state-heritage-listed Regal Theatre in Adelaide's eastern suburbs was credited to F. Kenneth Milne's firm adapting an original Chris Smith design. Smith (bottom centre) designed Goodwood's Capri Theatre (bottom right), also heritage listed, and the Garden Theatre, later used as a shopfront, at Colonel Light Gardens.
Main image courtesy Glam Adelaide.
Chris Smith’s boyhood love of films morphed into creating some of Adelaide’s best surviving 20th Century cinemas as an architect and another phase as an inspector caring for cinema's safety standards.
A carpenter with no formal architectural training, Smith was associated with two South Australian state heritage listed cinemas: the Regal (starting life as the Princess Theatre, then Marryatville Ozone, Chelsea) on Kensington Road, Marryatville, and the Capri Theatre (originally the New Goodwood Star) on Goodwood Road, Goodwood.
The heritage listing for the Regal is credited to an upgrade in 1942 by the firm of F. Kenneth Milne Architect from Smith’s late Edwardian design for a silent-film theatre to an art deco style. Smith would made art deco his signature style but he was generally influenced by trends in the United States of America where almost any previous style of architecture was referenced.
The American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was an influence on Smith who also kept contact with Sydney architects Kaberry & Chard who specialised in designing picture theatres, including Woodville Town Hall, Thebarton Theatre and Odeon Norwood in Adelaide. Smith had worked with them on the York Theatre cinema in Adelaide city.
Smith's design for the Capri (then the New Goodwood Star) was acknowledged as a fine example of moderne (art deco) style “with reference to both European and North American cinema styles”. Another highly-praised Smith work was the Garden Theatre opened in 1927 on Goodwood Road for the Colonel Light Gardens community.
Originally opened by National Theatres, the Garden Theatre (later Colonel Light Gardens Theatre, Colonel Light Ozone, Hoyts Ozone, Colonel Light Odeon Star) didn’t survive closure in 1962 but, like other Adelaide suburban cinemas, became used for shops. Seating between 1,800 and 2,000, the Garden Theatre was described as being decorated in “most restful” white and fumed oak. The tiled vestibule led to a handsome marble stairway and curtains of blue and gold concealed the screen, and on either side of the stage were deep hanging balconettes.
Smith may not have been fully accepted by the whole of the Adelaide architectural fraternity but he counted Caradoc Ashton, Norman Fisher, Jack Cheesman and Maurice Doley as friends. After the Architects Registration Act 1939, Smith was registered from 1941, having worked the required time as an architect, until his death in 1952, In 1946, he was admitted as an associate of the South Australian Institute of Architects, although, by then, he was no longer working as an architect.
Posthumously, Smith was recognised by the profession, with five of his buildings appearing in the Australian Institute of Architects listing of South Australia Significant Twentieth Century Architecture.
In 1942, Smith took over form his brother as an inspector of places of public entertainment, showing “a strong commitment to public safety” and known “to criticise fearlessly what he saw as unsafe practices”. Smith also was on a committee during World War II for assessing buildings in case of bombing.
