expressionist tendencies of the griffins

The expressionist movement is exemplified by forms and massing used to evoke and respond to cultural, social and political factors. Founded in Germany and prominent across Europe, the style made its way to Australia where aspects were adopted from architects such as the Griffins who brought the style from North America. These stylistic tendencies are evident in the 1927 Capitol Theatre where the crystalline elements and general ornamentation of both the exterior and indeed the interior embody the monumental disposition of the theatre and all that is held inside.

While the expressionist movement in Germany and Europe was more concerned with expressing a sociopolitical agenda through architecture, the Griffins focused on a cultural form of expressionism whereby the form of the Capitol Theatre expresses that of its function. This notion is exemplified by the crystalline plaster of "subterranean spaces as rendered by a geometrically inclined deity1," expressing a sublime and imaginative environment that enables the audience to be transformed into the performance itself. The spacious stepped ceilings and the "highly decretive set of plaster elements2," that hide the interwoven lighting system that emanates from the stage, diverging out into the audience create a entrancing effect whereby the ceiling condition is expressing the sounds and actions that are being emitted from the stage out into the audience. This ceiling condition, in reverse, further acts as a visual expressive suggestion that guides the audience's peripheral vision towards the stage, whereby "the result of the organisation of many individual entities in space in order that life can unfold and action take place,3" with the cacophony of the crystalline and parallel forms expressing the myriad of eyes in the audience, focusing down to the centre stage, allowing the space itself to act as a vessel for the play.

The likeness of the Griffins' Capitol Theatre reveals a striking resemblance with the expressionist epitome of Hans Poelzig's 1919 Grosses Schauspielhaus with the formal qualities of the main theatre space both expressing a visual melodramatic encapsulation of the theatrics that are performed on stage. The Grosses Schauspielhaus's tapering "plaster stalactites,4" create a visual expression of the sound and wonderment of that radiating from the stage, whereby these repeated drops reflect the the sound waves raining down towards the audience, a reflection of the crystalline forms of the ceiling of the Capitol Theatre that embody the same notion of the sound and theatrics permitting throughout the audience. Further, the use of colouring is used as a key expressionist ideal in both Grosses Schauspielhaus and The Capitol Theatre whereby the use of particular colours is used as an expression of the opulence and "articulation of the building[s] in response to the fluidity of life.5" The white crystal like interior of the Griffins' Capitol Theatre allows for the diffused interlaced lighting to embody the grandeur of the drama while being adaptable to "the individual creation [that] can be understood only within the context of the totality of the phenomena of the age6."

Although the Griffins' defined their own style across Australia, they adopted stylistic tendencies of the expressionist movement that enabled their practice to become the pinnacle of modernism in Australia. The cultural tendencies of expressionist forms in the Griffins' Capitol Theatre become an exemplification of the "Deutscher Werkbund trope and a feature in many early modernist visions,7" that becomes the embodiment of the culture housed in the theatre.