Palais de Dance, Stockport Road, Levenshulme

It will be seen from the illustrations that this is an interesting scheme considerably above the usual architectural standard for this type of building. It is obvious that economy was an important factor to 
which due consideration had to be paid, and the plan shows that good use has been made of an economical form, for the supports of the trusses, to lend variety to the interior. The entrance seems rather unnecessarily cramped, and the access to the cloak rooms and lavatories could, with advantage, have been more conveniently cut off from the hall itself. Externally, the design has been kept simple, with n effective play of contrasts in masses of pleasing proportions, not easily achieved with a hall such as this, but here an idea has been borrowed from the Spanish Colonial Churches with considerable success. 

One may criticise minor points; for instance, the way in which the gable-end of the main roof disappears behind the high porch is not very happy, and the junctions are a little abrupt, as in the case of the wide eaves, where a slight projection or moulding on the wall would have given a more finished appearance, and again, some kind of plinth at the ground level seems to be required. The treatment of the door and wall surface of the entrance are a little out of scale and character with the decidedly Spanish note that runs through the whole design. The plastered walls have been given an interesting finish without the undue faking ' ' which is particularly fashionable in America, in the vain search after an Old World appearance. The kind of thing referred to comes out well in photographs but is often far less pleasing in reality. Doubtless wear and tear is responsible for half the beauty of surface, but in old plaster work something is also due to a quality of depth, owing to thickness, and to the successive applications of colour wash of various tints which break through; these give interest to the surface without the aid of mechanical textures. 

The interior aims at the appearance of a courtyard with arcades, and the illusion would have been fairly complete but for the hanging lamps, which incidentally rather destroy the scale of the hall; if the main lighting could have been entirely indirect, it would have greatly enhanced the dramatic effect of the interior, but, of course, this method of lighting is relatively expensive in running cost, and so cannot always be resorted to, even if desired. The crenelations to the balconies are out of scale with the arcade and seem superfluous, so is also the rather poor painted background. As in the case of the exterior, the problem of the treatment of a hall of such proportions of height to span is not lightly solved, and the junction of a flat segmental roof with the wall is rarely satisfactorily accomplished when the springing is so low, but a system of corbels carrying pseudo-caves, which are also arranged to mark the trusses, make an effective junction of a novel kind, which might on another occasion be further exploited. The architects are to be congratulated either on their powers of persuasion or on their good fortune in finding clients who had the good taste to realise that tawdriness is not an essential for a dance hall. " BROWN CHIEF. " [Architect and Building News 27 July 1928 page 106, 107, 114]


Reference    Architect and Building News 27 July 1928 page 106, 107, 114 with plan and illustration