Cloudland

Cloudland Dance Hall
Interior of Cloudland Dance Hall, ca. 1950
Former names	Luna Park
General information
Status	Demolished
Location	Brisbane
Country	Australia
Construction started	1939
Completed	1940
Demolished	7 November 1982
Technical details
Floor count	2

The Cloudland Dance Hall, originally called Luna Park, was a famous Brisbane entertainment venue located in Bowen Hills. It was demolished in 1982 and the site was subsequently developed into an apartment complex.

On its hilltop site above Brisbane, Cloudland's distinctive parabolic laminated roof arch, nearly 18 metres high, was highly visible. A funicular railway ran from the main road straight up the steep part of the hill and provided easy access to the Ballroom site. The funicular was dismantled in 1967 and the area was turned into a car park. Cloudland was the venue for numerous formal balls, concerts, weekend dances, civic events, school and university examinations and later, a marketplace.

It was constructed in 1939-40, by T.H.Eslick and opened on 2 August 1940. Eslick paid particular attention to the dance floor. He wanted to create the "best ballroom in the Southern Hemisphere". A funicular railway ran up the side of the hill from the tram stop on Breakfast Creek Road carrying passengers to the rear of the Ballroom. The site was originally intended to have a fun park like Luna Park in Melbourne, which Eslick had built in 1912. The fun park was not built by the time World War II began. It was the largest building of its type in Brisbane.

Eslick disappeared soon after Cloudland was opened so the building was left abandoned until 1942 when it was used by the American military. They arrived shortly after Pearl Harbor was bombed in December 1941. When Cloudland was re-opened after the war, the name Luna Park was dropped and the building was thenceforth known as Cloudland Ballroom. As a gift to the people of Brisbane, the dance floor was rebuilt by the US military. The smooth hard floor was constructed of one inch tongue and groove boards that ran the length of the ballroom. The close fitting narrow boards were not nailed. The floor area reserved for dancing sat on huge metal coil springs placed uniformly underneath the bearers so that dancers could feel and see the movement of the boards beneath their feet.

Other features of the interior were huge decorative columns, sweeping curtains, domed sky lights and chandeliers. The dance floor was framed by private alcoves, decorative curtains, a domed skylights and chandeliers. Cloudland also had an upper circle of tiered seating which overlooked the floor and stage. An impressive tall domed entrance which features a wide, white, 18 metre tall arch was also visible from surrounding suburbs.