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Regent Theatre and General Post Office | Places to see in Melbourne

Regent Theatre and General Post Office – Historic Buildings of Melbourne

Regent Theatre

When the Regent Theatre’s auditorium was destroyed by fire in April 1945, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne promised the public that it would be rebuilt, despite the scarcity of building materials due to World War II. Such was the popularity and local importance of the theatre.

Known as “Melbourne’s Palace of Dreams”, it was first constructed and opened by the Hoyts Theatre Company in 1929. Its lavish interiors emulated both the glamour of Hollywood and New York’s impressive Capitol Theater.

The building had two main venues. The auditorium upstairs, for live stage and musical entertainment, was known as the Regent Theatre. Downstairs, the Plaza Theatre was originally a ballroom, but, following the success of the “talkies”, it was converted into a cinema.

Fortunately, the magnificent decor of the Plaza Theatre was not damaged in the fire of 1945. The renovated auditorium opened to the public again in 1947.

The advent of television soon resulted in dwindling cinema audiences, and the Regent Theatre closed for almost three decades. The complex has now been restored again and was re-opened in 1996.

 

General Post Office

Melbourne’s first postal service was operated from a site near the corner of Kings Street and Flinders Lane. Frequent floods, for which the area became renowned, forced a move to the current site, where the post office opened in 1841.

The present structure was begun in 1859 and completed in 1907. The first and second floors were built between 1859 and 1867, with the third floor and clock tower added between 1885 and 1890. These various stages have resulted in an unusual combination of styles, with Doric columns on the ground floor, Ionic on the second and Corinthian on the topmost level.

The building underwent a number of changes to adapt its 19th-century design to the requirements of a major postal system. This included a post- World War I redesign of its main hall under the direction of architect Walter Burley Griffin. It closed as a post office in 1993 and after many setbacks, including a fire in 2001; it opened as a beautiful shopping complex in 2004.





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Chinatown-in-Melbourne    Historic-Streets-of-Melboune    Historical-Parliament-Area    Museum-of-Melbourne    Museums-And-Galleries    Parks-to-visit-in-Melborune    Parliament-house    Regent-Theatre-and-General-Po    Rialto-Towers-and-Royal-Mint    Royal-Botanic-Garden   

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