|
Barcelona is a cinema city - as evidenced by a series of
magnificent movie houses built when Hollywood was in danger of
losing its audience to television. The attempt to make cinema a
more exciting experience by increasing the size of the movie
theatres only partially stemmed the demise of moviegoers in the
late 1950s and 1960s - yet the effect of a real film can probably
only ever be experienced on screens of 200 square metres and up. In
halls that have been designed to refine perception down to the
smallest detail and pay suitable tribute to the largest empty space
in movie-house architecture: the screen itself. The elegant grey
seats, for instance, and the sound-optimised, modernist panelling
in the Palacio Balañá; or the light elements that guide the
gaze in the apotheotic auditorium of the Urgel Cinema which, with
its immodest 1,832 seats, is probably the largest cinema in Spain
if not Europe. Even today, going out to see a film in Barcelona is
still an inexpensive pleasure. Not only for young people but also
for the older generation who, wearing finery as if for a festive
evening, go out to films happily and frequently. Re-runs have not
been banned to studio cinemas or revival houses, but can be seen at
the very best establishments: William Friedkin's director's cut of
The Exorcist (1971) was shown on the monumental screen at the Urgel
Cinema. Of course, in Barcelona as in all cities, the Multiplex
halls are on the increase. The Grup Balañá, the biggest
cinema and theatre society in Barcelona for over 60 years, likes
doing things in style. In the 1960s the head of the Grup
Balañá commissioned interior designer Antoni Bonamusa i Homs
to renovate, convert or - as in the case of the Palacio
Balañá - to help rebuild many of the Group's cinemas. It is
not all that surprising, therefore, that the halls shown here were
designed by Bonamusa.
|
|
