Palace Theatre, Bridge Place, Aberdeen

The Palace Theatre, located on Bridge Place in Aberdeen, features a facade designed by John Rust in 1898. This facade was preserved after a rebuild in 1929 and an extension in 1931, and the building was converted into a ballroom in 1959 and a nightclub in 1976. The theatre has a well-detailed, symmetrical, four-storey, seven-bay facade made of lofty granite that reflects classical inspiration. The central bays are pedimented, with channelled pilasters at the ground level flanking a broken semicircular pediment above the entrance. Above this, fluted pilasters flank blind oculi and a blind arcade, which also features a broken centre pediment and a blind tympanum at the third floor, capped by a small ogeed tablet. The outer doors are topped with broken triangular pediments adorned with acanthus motifs, positioned below decorative oculi. The granite ashlar facade includes band courses, cornices, and a blocking course, with various openings such as square, segmental, and round arches, along with stone transoms and mullions, and hoodmoulds with label stops. Many of the openings have been blocked.

The principal (north) elevation has slightly advanced central bays featuring a keystoned segmental-arched doorpiece. The outer bays have square-headed doorpieces, with the right side altered and the left side displaying a modern door beneath a decorative ironwork fanlight. There is another doorway immediately to the right that retains a similar fanlight. Bays two and six contain bipartite windows above the ground floor, with bay two featuring a round-arched window on the second floor. Bays one and seven have taller round-arched tripartite windows between the second and third floors. The south elevation, facing Crown Terrace, is a two-storey, six-bay broad curvilinear gable end topped with a semicircular-arched pediment and a ball finial. It has paired segmentally-arched entrances in the outer bays and a blind doorway adjacent to a fanlit timber-panelled door.

The building features some fixed-pane plate glass windows, grey slate roofing with lead flashing, and a metal ventilation cowl at the ridge, along with cast-iron rainwater goods.

Inside, little of the original decorative scheme remains. A small amount of moulded plasterwork cornicing is present, along with an Art Deco style staircase and a surviving ironwork spiral stair.