2 Skene Terrace, Aberdeen

A clubhouse and hall designed by Arthur H L Mackinnon in 1897–8 for the Aberdeen Union Club in the Free Edwardian Baroque style. The building was converted to the Picturedome Cinema in 1910, and underwent substantial restoration in 1924 when it was reconfigured with a new Art Deco cinema auditorium and renamed Cinema House.

The plan comprises a long rectangular theatre and hall to the west with its principal elevation facing North Silver Street, and an entrance elevation to Skene Terrace. A quarter-circle plan block to the north turns the corner at Union and Skene Terraces, featuring a distinctive deep bowed section of three windows. This corner block originally contained shops at ground floor, with offices and leisure rooms above.

The exterior is constructed mainly of polished granite ashlar, with picked ashlar and rough hewn ashlar to the western hall block. The principal elevations rise three storeys with an attic. Windows are architraved, with triangular pediments or cornices to the first floor. Second-floor windows are mostly mannered with blocked rustication. Most openings contain plate glass sash and case windows set within cill bands. A deep cornice and parapet surmount the walls, with sections balustraded. The roof is pitched and slated with axial chimney stacks.

The Union Terrace elevation presents three bays sweeping into the curved corner section, with the left-hand bay advanced. At ground floor, the left-hand bay contains an elaborate pilastered and corniced entrance. The arched doorpiece features cavetto moulding and a mannered pendant keyblock, flanked by clasping pilasters topped with obelisk finials. The original two-leaf doors and multi-paned fanlight are of later date. A modern shopfront occupies the right-hand ground floor within the original fascia. The first-floor windows are architraved and corniced, with a pediment to the left-hand bay. Second-floor windows have blocked rusticated architraves. A solid parapet rises over the left-hand bay, balustraded over the right-hand bays.

The entrance to the centre of the three-window curved angle originally, and now, provides access to the ground floor shop. The original six-panel, two-leaf doors feature raised roundels in the panels and are topped by a tall plain fanlight. The entrance is flanked by pilasters and modern shop glazing set within the original fascia. Three pedimented windows light the first floor; three blocked rusticated windows the second floor. A French Pavilion roof is fronted by an elaborate shaped pediment over the parapet with a central keyblocked attic oculus set within blocked rusticated pilasters. A broken semi-circular apex pediment with obelisk finial breaks through the centre.

The Skene Terrace elevation shows three return bays of the western section, with the right-hand entrance bay slightly advanced. At ground floor, a deep cavetto moulded arched doorpiece with pilasters, cornice and obelisk finials (matching the Union Terrace entrance) is presently masked by bingo hall signage. First- and second-floor windows are pedimented above a plain parapet.

The four-bay symmetrical elevation of the northern hall block is slightly recessed to the right, with pedimented centre bays slightly advanced over single window flanks. The rough hewn darker grey granite ground floor features full-height giant pilasters clasping the centre and outer bays. The ground floor includes a small square half-basement and a segmental-headed ground floor mezzanine window, with the entrance at the right-hand end bay. Band courses between ground, first and second floors (the latter two being shorter than on the main western block) light the interior two-storey hall. A cornice and parapet surmount this section, with a keyblocked thermal attic window set at parapet level below the pediment at centre. The outer bays are shallow and recessed with single windows. Keyblocked oculi appear at first-floor level; simple architraved windows occupy the second floor. The centrepiece contains three windows at half-basement, ground-mezzanine, first and attic floors, bipartite at second-floor level.

The North Silver Street elevation (hall) is constructed of darker grey picked ashlar with contrasting lighter grey polished ashlar dressings across four bays. The ground floor is absorbed into the sloping site to the right. Tall arched and keyblocked first (ground) floor windows with multi-pane glazing and second (first) floor bipartite windows with nine-pane sash and case glazing light the hall within.

The interiors retain some original 1890s fittings in the western section, including a mahogany staircase with turned balusters lit by a circular cupola from above, leading from the No 42 Union Terrace entrance. One room preserves an original mahogany chimneypiece with paired half-fluted dwarf Ionic column stiles, deep panelled frieze, cornice and large mirror overmantel framed by Jacobethan carved consoles and cherub motifs.

The Cinema House auditorium is finished in a 1924 Art Deco scheme. The flat ceiling is jettied out on decorative paired consoles to shallow arched higher sections; the rear gallery is similarly jettied out on comparable consoles. Original Art Deco fittings survive, including the operating box, speakers, seating and light fittings.