Corso Cinema

Corso Cinema
Marcello Piacentini
Rome 1915

In 1915, Piacentini designed a new cinema (MAP) located at Piazza S. Lorenzo in Lucina. It was the first building of his new, refined style. The rectangular building is bisected at an angle by a façade that respects the alignment of the square. The façade is divided into three distinct zones: a center with two symmetrical wings. The central façade is subdivided into four entry portals crowned by semicircular fenestration. The axes and story-levels were obscured by the façade’s organization. The relationship between the entry portals and the upper windows was not reinforced through vertical elements in the façade

The outer zones are composed of polygonal oriels, so-called bay windows, projecting over the outer portals. Above these elements, the building appears to recede. A glass canopy stretching the length of the building provided cover from the elements for patrons, but its construction from modern materials gave it a light appearance in the façade composition. Visibly linked to the wall with iron chains, it provided a demarcation between the entry portals and the semicircular fenestration.

Contrary to assumptions that may be derived from an analysis of the façade’s formal qualities, there is no symmetrical space behind the façade; it is an asymmetrically cut trapezoidal vestibule that mediates between the piazza and the 1300-seat auditorium.

Universum Cinema

WOGA Complex + Universum Cinema
Erich Mendelsohn
Berlin, Germany 1925

Mendelsohn’s architectural style eschewed historical precedents in favor of ideas derived from expressionistic sketches and romantic symbolism that recognized the qualities of modern building materials should dictate a new architecture. Inspired by the machinery of a new age, the theatre’s form contains naval and aeronautical allusions common to the vocabulary of the still infant Streamline Moderne movement. The most compelling feature of his design is the subdivision of the complex into four discrete buildings. A small road that is now a pedestrian area separates the flat cabaret complex, which now houses a restaurant, and the main building with the cinema, now the theatre “Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz”. This public zone is completed at the rear by the six-story former hotel lifted off the ground by pillars. Behind this complex is the elongated residential building with its horizontal brick bands, protruding balconies featuring nautical handrails and the narrow, rounded entrances.