“That it’s being given a new lease of life is a triumph for the city’s heritage – some very good news in what’s been a very tough year.”

After being acquired by New World Development for HK$4.77 billion (US$615 million) last month, in an initiative led by the property company’s CEO Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, the State Theatre is set for a renovation programme intended to revitalise and transform it into a community asset.

The venue started life as the Empire Theatre in 1952, the brainchild of Harry Oscar Odell, an entrepreneur from the Russian Jewish community that lived in Hong Kong in the aftermath of the second world war and the Cultural Revolution in mainland China.

With 1,300 seats and a 17-metre (56-foot) screen, the cinema was an architectural marvel, built at a time when financial imperatives and a shortage of materials dictated that buildings in Hong Kong should be finished quickly and inexpensively. The theatre was also a marriage of East and West, with architects Liu Sun-fo and George W. Grey devising a futuristic roof that kept the auditorium free of pillars.

Technically termed “a parabolic exoskeleton truss”, the roof might be compared to a super-strong spider’s web or a suspension bridge, with a deck hung from vertical suspenders. Odell also ordered embellishments to the theatre’s exterior.

The relief mural by late contemporary Chinese artist Mei Yutian has become grimy over the years but still stands proud on the theatre’s curved facade, bordered by small square windows with projecting concrete frames that were a hallmark of 1950s modernist design.

The building wasn’t simply Hong Kong’s biggest and most architecturally daring theatre, it was its most cosmopolitan, showcasing films from around the world as well as hosting performances by luminaries such as violinist Isaac Stern and tenor Peter Pears. Wendy Ng and her relatives were cinema patrons.

“My mother’s shop was called Wendy, like me, as she said it was a good name if you were selling kids’ clothing,” says Ng. “I was about four years old when she opened the shop. Of course, we used to go to the movies, taking seats up in the dress circle – we didn’t get a discount.

But with the advent of other forms of entertainment, the task of filling more than 1,000 seats day after day became unfeasible. Karaoke, video and other rivals ensured the State Theatre’s projectors ran their last movie in 1997, and the auditorium was split into two floors to host the Denon Club’s snooker and billiards tables.

“My mum’s shop was number nine, and I’d come there for a nap after school,” says Ng. “There were lots of other children around, so we’d play in the arcade, which was like a maze, and we could run around wherever we wanted. It was a community within a community, which gave it its special feel.”

Today, the State Theatre sits in an area that retains an old Hong Kong ambience. Tong lau shophouse flat buildings overlook the tram line and their lower storeys are populated by small-scale enterprises that hint at family ownership, valued long-term customers and closely watched margins: Zion Lutheran Kindergarten, Sweetheart Garden Restaurant, King’s Sauna and hole-in-the-wall currency exchange booths.

“North Point is a very close-knit community, perhaps more so than anywhere else in Hong Kong,” says Sze Pang-cheung, Greenpeace East Asia’s executive director, who grew up in the area in the 1980s.

“And it contains some historically, culturally significant places that mark it out from the rest of the city. The Sunbeam Theatre has been staging Chinese opera for nearly half a century and the Wah Fung Chinese Goods Centre is a time capsule, while the Chun Yeung Street market – with the tram line running right through it – is a unique Hong Kong urban scene.

“I used to watch movies at the State Theatre and rent manga and comics from a shop in the arcade when I was a kid,” Sze adds. “It’s very good news that the theatre is being restored. From time to time I like taking a stroll in North Point to bring back childhood memories, and it is great that the old places still stand.”

Hongkongers who grew up in and around North Point during the State Theatre’s heyday remember its impact.

“My late father, Leung Pak-Wood, got a job as a cashier [at the theatre] in 1959 when he was 18 and worked there until it closed, so it was a major influence during my childhood,” says Gary Leung, who has since emigrated to Australia.

“My father ended up as the State Theatre’s manager. He always said he got promoted even though he only had primary education because he was good-looking. He reckoned the owners thought he looked presentable, so that’s why he was chosen. Anyway, it was a stroke of luck for him.”

Like Leung, architect Ng believes the theatre is an important part of Hong Kong’s history, to be prized rather than razed. Her previous work with the Antiquities and Monuments Office and the Centre for Architectural Heritage Research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong helped her convince the powers that be to upgrade the State Theatre’s historical status after doubts were raised about the building’s future in 2016.

“I knew it was important to save the theatre, so it was vital to give it the highest possible official rating,” says Ng. “We conducted an assessment citing the theatre’s historical and cultural value. It was not easy, as the authorities were really focused on pre-war buildings, but luckily we were able to draw on people’s recollections and arouse public interest.”

Ng laments Hong Kong’s lack of concern for heritage buildings. “It seems like some people in authority don’t appreciate the benefit that they bring to society, which is a great mistake,” she says.

“The State Theatre was partially responsible for provoking my interest in architecture, and I am very glad to have played a role in preserving it. And it spurred my fondness for the cinema too. I still enjoy going to the movies – but I have to say that I don’t watch too many martial arts films nowadays.”