Capitol Theatre and Office Building, Melbourne, Australia, Interior Perspective

After moving to Australia to help build the new capital city of Canberra, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin designed a theater complex in downtown Melbourne. The heart of this office and retail building was the movie house itself, created to seat more than 2,000 people and host a viewing experience like no other: The grotto- esque interior included a ceiling covered with thousands of crystalline plaster elements with colored lights that could be synchronized to the theater’s organ. Furnishings in green silk and copper velvet embodied the fantasy and wonder of the cinema in the new urban landscape.