Sunshine Theatre 170 Hampshire Road, Sunshine - Victoria

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Sunshine Theatre 170 Hampshire Road, Sunshine - Victoria.

Individual place statement of significance:: Brimbank City Council Cultural Heritage Study 1999

The former Sunshine Picture Theatre is of historical, architectural and social significance to the City of Brimbank as a relatively well-preserved pre-World War Two cinema, which represents the expansion of the cinema to suburban centres around Melbourne and the ‘Golden Years’ of cinema-going and popular entertainment in Australia. The cinema was the focus of both common and sophisticated entertainment and recreation in Sunshine from the 1920s to the 1970s. It is the only near-original cinema exterior in the City of Brimbank. It is also a major building in what was the social and civic centre of Sunshine in the inter-war period. Architecturally, it compares with the Moderne styling seen in a more articulated manner at Sunshine Technical School but there are few other buildings of comparable size and style in the municipality. It is also significant as one of architect R. Morton Taylor’s cinema designs. Taylor designed and remodeled dozens of theatres and cinemas throughout the 1920s and ‘30s, both in private practice and as a partner with Bohringer, Taylor & Johnson. His best known work is the Astor Theatre, St Kilda - Contributed by Greg Lynch -