Theatre Architects

Born: 1884 (Gloucestershire, UK)

Died: 1944 (Glasgow, UK)

Albert Victor Gardner was born in Gloucestershire at the beginning of 1884, the son of Newton Gardner and Susannah Britter. The family moved around however settled in Glasgow by 1901.

Gardner studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1901 to 1905, then commenced independent practice in 1908 at an office in Glasgow.

Throughout his career Gardner specialized in cinema design, his main client in the early years being the English entrepreneur Frederick Rendelle Burnett. His reputation quickly attracted others in the cinema industry, notably the James Graham Circuit. Although inexpensively built, Gardner’s early cinemas showed considerable originality.

The most notable of Gardner’s pre-War World I cinemas was the Pavilion Picture House, Motherwell, of 1913, built on a prominent corner site. Its façade was an impressive tribute to the entrance hall of Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1900 Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield Illinois, rising into an asymmetrically placed advertising tower of finned brickwork and glass. The Queen’s Park Picture House Glasgow (1916) similarly featured Wright-inspired motifs, as did the Springburn Picture House, the Possilpark Picture Theatre, and the Alex Picture House in Paisley, all built between 1919 and 1924.

After the First World War Gardner entered into partnership with William Riddell Glen. The practice, Gardner & Glen, had offices at 164 Bath Street in Glasgow, and specialized in the design of “atmospheric” cinemas. The partnership was dissolved in 1929 when Glen left for London having obtained an appointment as Architect to Associated British Cinemas Ltd.

Gardner’s practice was unaffected by Glen’s departure, and he received commissions for new cinemas and the refurbishment and enlargement of existing ones. He took a financial interest in at least two new cinemas: the Kelvin Cinema in Glasgow and the Orient Kinema also in Glasgow, where he was a director. These two large cinemas, like the majority of those designed by Gardner in the 1930s, featured auditoria lavishly decorated in the Atmospheric manner.

In 1936 Gardner went into partnership with Gavin Thomson, all his work thereafter being credited to Gardner & Thomson.

Gardner died of cirrhosis of the liver on 7th June 1944. He was buried at Hillfoot Cemetery in Bearsden.

Information in part sourced from the Dictionary of Scottish Architects .

Theatres on this website in which this architect was involved:

Campbeltown Picture House, Campbeltown, Scotland, UK