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What Style of Fits the Varied
f An Editorial Inquiry Letters to and from an
To Mr. Robert Boiler, Kansas City, Mo. —
My dear Mr. Boiler: I am writing to ask your opinion about a matter which has come up several times of late in conversations with theatre architects in the East. I was much impressed with your ideas impinging upon this very matter when you addressed the MPTOA convention in New Orleans something over a year ago, and I know you have designed theatres for just about every type of city and community. I therefore should greatly value a statement of your reaction to these notions:
It has occurred to me that the motion picture theatre business has become rather blindly committed to a modernism in architecture that obscures specific possibilities in other styles, and that also is resulting in a monotonous repetition of pattern. I wonder if it would not be far better to fit the theatre building directly into the local scene, particularly in small towns, small cities and suburban communities, where the very cultural character of the locality is expressed in its buildings and streets, and where a distinctive style is in tradition.
Suppose we visualize some town, say, in your own Midwest. There is, we'll say, a court house square surrounded by commercial buildings more or less of an architecture prevalent there for a long time. These and the houses and the shaded, quiet streets reflect the very attitudes and customs of the local people. Would not one of these modernistically modern theatres (late Moscow and Berlin, plus folderol from the Paris exposition of Art Moderne?) be an incongruous element in the local j architectural and cultural scheme?
On the other hand, a theatre which, while erected according to sound architectural practices with respect to structure and materials, was yet of an architecture peculiarly adapted, in its forms and spirit, to this green and venerable court house square, might well be in much better taste and probably have practical advantages accruing from its native character.
At any rate, I should be grateful for an expression of your opinion. — George Schutz.
•
My Dear Mr. Schutz: Your letter of the 2d, regarding current trends in theatrical architecture, interested me very much because it reflected a state of mind in which I have found myself for over a year.
For some time I have viewed with considerable concern and distaste the wave of moderne architecture which has attempted to submerge America. At the risk of being held exceedingly mid-Victorian, I have had the intestinal fortitude to take the stand that while this new
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Better Theatres