Plan for cinema (1936)

32 PLAN FOR CINEMA concrete and steel on a useful and comprehensive scale, that the enfant terrible of the twentieth century would take its waddling little brother by the hand. By no means. The whole concept of the design of these buildings is to put up an imposing facade irrespective of any other consideration. Accordingly, facades in neo-this and quasi-that, all rather like that most unholy of architectural bastards, the present Regent Street, abound in dense profusion. One could become reconciled more to these unlovely palaces if they were in any way conceived as a whole, even finished in the same material. But what we have is a front of immense solidity of appearance, usually faced in some pleasant stone or stone treatment, more or less standing isolated; for behind pokes out an ugly red-brick posterior with a corrugated-iron roof stuck on the top. You feel uncomfortably certain the whole building is bogus. One does not ask that the super-cinema should be built having a permanence and authority that would be demanded of a Parliament House; it is apt that the transitional nature of cinema should be taken into account. The pavilions of an exhibition are usually of a distinctly temporary kind, but that does not preclude their design being fit for purpose and happy to the eye. A further eyesore of the average super-cinema is the appalling crudity of the posters displayed all round it. If there was ever justification for censorship at all, it is in the matter of poster advertising. The film industry, of course, is doing no more than avail itself of the immense facilities available to-day in this form