St James Theatre

The St James Theatre was designed by foremost theatre architect of the day, Henry White, and opened in 1914.

It was orignally called His Majesty’s Theatre and was ground breaking in its use of steel framing and layout.

Owned by Chase Corporation in the 1980s, it faced demolition when the property company failed. It was saved by a group of committed individuals and its eventual conservation began with the writing of the conservation plan by Ian Bowman on behalf of the St James Theatre Charitable Trust.

This document guided the conservation work carried out in 1993 and Ian was commissioned as conservation architect to the project with Opus International Consultants Ltd.

The project won an NZIA Architecture Award.