Beauty and decay: inside America’s derelict movie theatres
In a new photobook, photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre capture a bygone era of entertainment through decaying American movie theatres
There’s something divine about decay. Traces of what once was; eras of very different social concerns, tastes and aspirations.
Movies can give us a window into the past, and as French photography duo Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre are proving, so too can movie theatres, particularly those partially chewed up by time.
They can still be found in many American towns; majestic shrines to film, constructed during the golden age of the entertainment. But these cinemas now stand in various states of decades-long abandonment, empty, derelict, or reborn as something else entirely. Movie Theaters, published by Prestel, is an ode to these iconic American structures, or what remains of them.
This book isn’t the duo’s first taste of tatters. They began their collaboration in 2002 by exploring Parisian remains and have published books including The Ruins of Detroit and Gunkanjima.
The early 20th-century brought with it an entertainment boom. Hundreds of theatres popped up across the US, with many major movie studios commissioning architects to build extravagant, palatial auditoriums to satisfy the swelling appetites of spectators.
Since 2005, photographic duo Marchand and Meffre have travelled across America to visit these theatrical relics. In hundreds of lushly coloured images, they have captured the rich architectural diversity of the theatres’ exteriors and interiors, from neo-Renaissance to neo-Gothic, Art Nouveau to Bauhaus, neo-Byzantine to Jugendstil.
Armed with a large-format camera, they composed images spanning landscape exteriors to intimate close-ups. There’s beauty in the flaking paint, opulence in the rows of tattered crushed-velvet seats, stories retained in the defunct equipment and abandoned concession stands. Laughs, tears, screams and gasps live on in the crumbling cornices.
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Some sites have not been left entirely for dead. But as the 1960s matured, so too did domestic TV sets and multiplexes. During the following decades, the heyday of the movie theatre was tarnished by modernisation. These majestic buildings, in turn, began taking on less majestic roles: bingo halls, basketball courts, bus depots, warehouses, fitness centres, flea markets, car parks and retail stores.
In contemporary times, where streaming services reign and convenience outshines occasion, Marchand and Meffre’s book is not just an appetising visual record of the majestic movie palace, it’s a timely eulogy for a entertainment’s golden years. Decay, in its divinity, is evidence that things have moved on, for better or worse.
INFORMATION
Movie Theaters, by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, £60, published by Prestel on 4 November 2021., prestelpublishing.penguinrandomhouse.de
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
A new limited-edition Rhodes piano and Gibson doubleneck guitar aim for the stars
The new Rhodes Mk8 Earth Edition piano and Gibson Jimmy Page EDS-1275 Doubleneck guitar revisit classic instruments at a price
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
The new interior design trends we spotted at Salone del Mobile 2024
These are the interior design trends to look out for in 2024 and beyond, from soft upholstery to conversation pits and low dining
By Rosa Bertoli Published
-
Tiffany & Co nods to its theatrical history with a surreal new campaign
Tiffany & Co campaign ‘With Love, Since 1837’ sees Dan Tobin Smith and set designer Rachel Thomas create an offbeat set
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Surreal, uncanny, seductive: step into Graham Little’s world
Scottish artist Graham Little presents his first US retrospective at The FLAG Art Foundation in New York
By Hannah Silver Published
-
The cosmos meets art history in Vivian Greven’s New York exhibition
Vivian Greven’s ‘When the Sun Hits the Moon’, at Perrotin in New York City, is the artist’s first solo exhibition in the USA
By Emily McDermott Published
-
Back to Black: all eyes on film-maker Sam Taylor-Johnson
Back to Black cinematographer Polly Morgan tells Wallpaper* how a shared love of French New Wave close-ups brought Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Amy Winehouse biopic to life
By Craig McLean Published
-
The Met’s ‘The Real Thing: Unpacking Product Photography’ dissects the avant-garde in early advertising
A new exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York explores the role of product photography and advertising in shaping the visual language of modernism
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
From Wall Street to Studio 54: a short film celebrates Larry Fink
Celebrating Larry Fink, Fellowship presents ‘Fink’, a short film diving into the pioneering photographer’s creative mind
By Tianna Williams Published
-
How Oscar-nominated ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ made a star of the most ear-popping song of the year
Wallpaper* meets ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ favourites Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, whose cover of 50 Cent's ‘P.I.M.P’ muscles its way into the Oscar-nominated courtroom drama
By Craig McLean Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published