When I go to a city that’s new to me, or one I’ve not visited for years, one of the things I do is stroll around randomly and look out for any interesting buildings that I come across. I’m taking a leaf out of the flâneur’s* book, if you like, although I have also read guidebooks and the pages of Pevsner in advance, so there are specific buildings I’m looking out for too. I York the other week, I was on one of my wonders when this building hit me between the eyes. I’d seen it in a book already and it was somewhere in the back of my mind, but for the moment I’d forgotten exactly where I was and so find it at that moment was a surprise. It hit me between the eyes and I needed to spend a few minutes taking it in.
It was built in 1911 as the Electric Cinema, York’s first purpose-built picture house, films having been shown in the city before, but in places built for some other purpose. 1911 is early for a cinema and there was no consensus about what such a building should look like but the large arch, symbolically welcoming the potential cinema-goer and adorned with luxurious-looking decoration, is the focus of more than one early cinema facade. This frontage plays that role. It’s supported on Ionic columns and describes a gentle curve that is very much of its Edwardian period. It’s decked out with swags of fruit and topped with a face modelled on an actor’s mask from the ancient Greek theatre. This ornament is ceramic, and was supplied by Doulton’s, a large amount of whose output was architectural faience.
What’s within the arch has changed. Where there are now doors and windows were once ticket booths, a signboard indicating what film was showing inside, the entrance doorways, and a great deal more faience decoration. It’s a shame that all this has gone, but the pattern of cinema history intervened. After functioning as the Electric, the place carried on under other owners, eventually being renamed the Scala Super Cinema (see the name of the adjoining alley, Scala Yard), but the decline in filmgoing that came with the television age led to the its closure.† For some time it was furniture shop and now, like so many city buildings, it’s made over to the hospitality industry. Now there are chairs and tables out front, where the flâneur may pause, enjoy a drink, and watch the people go by.
- - - - -
* An originally French term for an urban stroller or loiterer, ‘a gentleman stroller of the city streets’, as Baudelaire put it, who walks around a city with no apparent aim apart from people-watching and taking in the atmosphere of the place. The feminine equivalent is flâneuse.
† I’m indebted to the cinema treasures website for some of this information.
No comments:
Post a Comment