Odeon Buildings and Odeon Cinema

The Odeon Buildings and Odeon Cinema is a cinema and a row of five lock-up shops dating from 1936. It was designed by Robert Bullivant of Harry Weedon and Partners for Oscar Deutsch and the Odeon group of companies, with detailing intended to harmonise with its surroundings. The building is constructed of steel frame on reinforced concrete piers, with hand-made brick cladding and a green glazed-tile roof to Hunter Street.

The building occupies a prominent corner site. The entrance, foyer, and the south side of the auditorium face Hunter Street, while the shops and two storeys of ancillary rooms face Northgate Street. The Northgate Street facade is of blue brick with banded rustication up to the entrance canopy, and largely buff brick above. The building includes a corner tower, one storey higher than the rest, and towers at both ends of the auditorium, distinguished by shaped vertical ribs. The south face of the auditorium features raised brick bands above the canopy, topped by the glazed tile roof between the false towers.

The entrance and foyers, situated between the corner tower and the auditorium, feature four pairs of plain double glazed doors, a canopy displaying programme advertisements, and a tall window to the upper foyer with seven rows of three panes in a raised brick panel. The south side and west end of the auditorium each has two pairs of exit doors. The west end of the auditorium’s false tower has three tiers of triple three-pane windows, while the Hunter Street face of the corner tower has three tall, narrow windows of seven panes. The shops, one in the corner tower facing Hunter Street and four facing Northgate Street, have modern, unremarkable shop fronts. The two upper storeys on Northgate Street each have four horizontally proportioned windows with three lights of three broad panes.

The foyer retains original Art Deco features, including bowed balustrades, partitions, and ceiling light fittings. The auditorium has been subdivided, particularly to its lower levels; however, the large upper auditorium remains largely unchanged with its original dimensions, lighting, Odeon clocks, wood veneer dado, decorative ventilation grilles, and proscenium reveals.