Repost this day 2019:

The back of the old #HoytsMidCity cinema centre is more chunky-#brutalist than the front. And surprisingly intact, even the rich red #pebblemix finish.

Built 1970 as a speculative venture with two screens, a squishy arcade and parking, by the entrepreneurial architect Gordon Banfield who had also developed the Total Carpark, so of course his firm #BogleBanfield designed it. Late another screen was added, but in recent years they were shrunk, now only part still going as the #ChinatownCinema. It’s the only cinema left in #BourkeStreet, which at one point had 11 screens, and over the years 7 locations, plus 2 theatres that showed films, plus three more just off Bourke. And later 3 cinema complexes.

This is one of 10 postwar places that Mathew Guy refused to heritage list in 2011, but it got interim listing in 2016, finally confirmed in 2023.

Photo from @cityofmelbourne library from 1985 heritage study shows the cute little red parking booth. And the front before the verandah was turned into a balcony. And Cinema Treasures has one of a cinema interior before they were shrunk.

Update 2025: one of them was a bookshop, now it’s a dance school.

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