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The Motion Picture Theatre 9
But the time came, and came rapidly, when the popularity of the motion picture demanded theatres designed for the express purpose of showing motion pictures. An outside influence helped to determine this development. In the makeshift "store-shows'* disasters, collapses and fires had occurred. This prompted municipalities to establish very strict regulations for the building of motion picture theatres. At that time the stringency of the revised laws might have seemed like a handicap, but they resulted in notable improvements in both construction and design, and in the invention of many appliances which tended to the safety and comfort of patrons. How strict the building code is concerning motion picture theatres, is evident from the fact that in the building code of New York City, nine pages are devoted exclusively to the theatre, while all other classes of construction combined have only forty-three pages. The building code of smaller cities is just as strict. In the code published by the National Board of Underwriters, the theatre is allotted twenty-eight pages out of one hundred and nineteen.
A New Structure.
Such strict regulations concerning theatre construction centered the attention of the leading architects of the country on a unique problem — theatres especially constructed for motion picture entertainment. The fact that so many great architects concentrated on this one problem, developed a perfection of technique in design and construction which is now unexcelled by any other type of structure.
The builders of motion picture theatres had very little to use as a guiding precedent. Nor did they have in existing theatres any artistic model. There were few theatres that were worthy to be considered as masterpieces of architecture from which the motion picture theatre might be modelled. Their architectural inspiration had to be furnished by every type of structure which enriched the architecture of the world.
People began to speak their confidence in motion pictures with the symbols of real estate, brick and mortar. There came the first great motion picture theatres, the Strand, New York