Overture, dim the lights: billionaire Gretel Packer will bring glamour back to Sydney’s Kings Cross and Potts Point, announcing detailed plans on Monday to revitalise the heritage-listed art deco Metro/Minerva Theatre.
When the curtain goes up, it will put the “diamond back in a tiara of 75 art deco apartment blocks”, said Dr Peter Sheridan, the chairman of the Potts Point Preservation Group, which welcomed Packer’s announcement.
Sheridan said the apartment blocks were the jewels in the art deco crown. And the 87-year-old theatre – the only commercial art deco building surviving in the area – was the diamond in what was the best and biggest hub of buildings of their kind in Australia.
Not only would it provide the city with a much-needed mid-sized theatre, the art deco collection could become a tourist hub similar to Napier in New Zealand, said Sheridan, a world expert.
Packer, the major backer of the Minerva Theatre project, said she was honoured to have a role in the revitalisation of a theatre that had played such “an intrinsic part of the artistic history of Potts Point, Kings Cross and Sydney at large”.
The site was bought last year by Packer’s Sacred Firebird group for $26 million.
Packer announced on Monday community consultations with residents, the arts community and others on the project. They will explore how the Minerva’s art moderne and art deco heritage can be restored while adapting the building to meet contemporary safety, accessibility, performance and operational requirements.
The lead architect on the project, Hannah Tribe of Tribe Studio Architects, said they wanted to bring the magic and electricity back.
“For too long she has been privatised as an office, or reduced to a supermarket, or empty, hoarded and not just a little bit sad,” Tribe said of the Minerva.
They also want to restore the theatre’s iconic tower.
Historic photos gave a sense of the “expectation and anticipation of the thrill of electric lights, dressing up for a night out … and the escapist magic of theatre”.
When the Minerva opened in 1939, it was the acme of glamour. When patrons arrived to see the first performance of The Idiot’s Delight, there were gasps of approval at the glamorous outfits – including a fur-trimmed blue velvet gown and over-the-top hats. Curiously, the Herald reported, there were a surprising number of dogs in the crowd. “One large water spaniel had no fear of the floodlights.”
Heritage architect Hector Abrahams’ vision seems to conjure this image (without the dogs).
“Imagine this. We will all dress up and enter through the long-closed doors with the nickel-plated handles. Join the throng in the art moderne foyer, up the great wide stair with its wavy balustrade, rising into the mirrors and curvy vaulted ceiling – to arrive, as of old, in the 900-seat, futuristic space-capsule auditorium, to watch the curtain go up.”
Warren Fahey, a cultural historian and the patron and administrator of the Potts Pointers, a 16,000-member community group on Facebook, said Packer’s move was one of the most exciting developments in a city desperately short of mid-sized venues.
When the Minerva opened in 1939 it seated 1000, but it is expected to accommodate 700 or 800 after the revamp.
Fahey said Kings Cross and Potts Point were quite chic in the 1930s. “When Sydney went to bed at 9.30pm it was a good place for coffee and restaurants.”
The project would transform Kings Cross, he said. If it also became a venue for concerts, Ted Talks, and other events, as proposed, it would bring more restaurants to the area to service theatre patrons. “It is the best outcome,” Fahey said.
Sheridan said the building was rare in every sense. “It is important that it is retained for its original use, rather than a tokenistic approach,” he said.
The state and the city had been rather moribund, he said, and there had been a complete lack of understanding of the value of 20th-century Australian architecture.
A previous plan by Central Element, working with architects Tonkin Zulaikha Greer to turn the site into a hotel with a small theatre, was opposed by the community because it only retained the art deco facade.
The Australian Financial Review reported that the project had the support of NSW Arts Minister John Graham. “Another mid-sized venue will be great for producers, audiences and, in the case of the Minerva, fantastic for the Kings Cross precinct,” Graham said.
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