A Passion for Building Art Deco

I can totally understand why all pleasure palaces built from the late 1920s until the outbreak of war in 1939, especially cinemas, would want to be Deco.

Firstly Art Deco theatres were responding to the hard times in which they were built; the misery of the Great Depression could hopefully be kept outside. So cinemas were designed as palaces where ordinary people could escape an often dreary and poverty -stricken reality, even if it was only for 2.5 hours a week.

Secondly theatre architecture might have reflected the content of the film up on the screen. Films from 1929 on turned to romance and allure; Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire danced their way across modernist Art Deco sets. Greta Garbo sipped sexy cocktails from glamorous deco cabinets.

Odeon, Cheltenham, UK

Radio City Music Hall, New York, USA

Sydney Metro, Australia, 1937

On the outside of the cinemas, there were 3 external elements that became the hallmarks of Deco: the vertical blade (eg Odeon, Cheltenham), the marquee porch (eg Metro, Sydney) and neon lights (eg Radio City Music Hall, NY). By the late 1920s, neon signs were a perfect match for streamline moderne architectural trends: glass walls, chrome trimmings and sweeping curves.

Examine The Enmore Theatre in Sydney, built in 1908 but totally renovated in the 1920s. It displays every Deco element that made the theatre a landmark of the time. Sadly many picture theatres didn't survive. For an image of the fabulous art deco taste of Kings Bondi Beach Cinema, built in 1937, see Scratching Sydney's Surface. You can also see the gorgeous Paramount Theatre in Washington St Boston, designed by Arthur H Bowditch and constructed 1930-32.

Inside a theatre, designers used sweeping curves, large spaces and impressive staircases (eg Astoria, Brixton). For decoration, metal designs, décorative plaster, tile work and colourful murals appeared in the lobby and auditorium, as in the Rivoli in Melbourne. A huge Wurlitzer organ might rise up from under ground and play to the crowds. The Grosvenor Cinema was built in Rayners Lane London in 1936. Although no longer a cinema, this building’s interior has not been denuded of its Art Deco elements. The auditorium still has deep coved ribs and a proscenium arch flanked by fluted columns. Very theatrical!

Grosvenor Cinema 1936, now Zoroastrian Centre

And I can understand why, from 1929 on, petrol stations (eg Tuscon USA) would want to stand out in the crowded streets. Impressive Deco architecture, glazed ceramic tile walls, neon lights and vertical blades made filling the car up with petrol a glamorous experience. Even bus stations (eg Evansville Ind USA) became palaces of inter-city transport. Neon lighting, invented by French physicist in 1902, was 3 times brighter than incandescent bulbs of equal power, cheap to run, more colourful and lasted longer.

Evansville Indiana Greyhound Station

Greyhound bus terminals appeared for the first time as a boom product of middle and late 1930s, so they have been Deco simply because of timing. But Greyhound wanted to be highly visible, so the company chose dramatic architecture, bright colours, neon lights and corner positions as a way of making themselves stand out. As you can see from the images, they bus stations shared with the cinemas a vertical blade, long verandas and often neon lights. The former Greyhound Bus Station in Blytheville Arkansas was built 1938; a now-demolished station in Cincinnati, Ohio was built probably a year later.