Cinema of Iran - Movie Theaters of Tehran

Movie Theaters of Tehran

There's an article in Abitare, issue 517, by Kaveh Mehrabani, about the movie theaters of Tehran. He explored the Modernism of these buildings. The below text is driven from his article. One evening in the summer of 1978 in Abadan, a sweltering oil producing town in southwest Iran, all the patrons perished in an arson fire in the Cinema Rex. This was one of the incidents that triggered the events that led to regime change. It was also the death knell of cinema going as such. Cinema was somehow part of everything, or everything was very much like a film. Then after regime change, as with bars, cabaret shows and Tehran’s red-light district, the cinemas were closed down and their entrances bricked up. As soon as it was possible to do so, their various central features: lights, neon stars, splashes and waterfalls, name signs and other decorations with imaginative and highly referential names, as with all symbols of pleasure associated with the cinema in general, were removed. In effect cinema was banned. Some cinemas were burned down and some were gutted for new, albeit temporary uses. Cinema Radio City, which had been the most fashionable venue in the city, had its distinctive and sensual tulip-shaped front stripped bare for everyone to see, apparently so that the seriousness of the intentions behind the baring would not go unnoticed. It then began to be used as a drugstore, but is now derelict in a prime central location. The cinemas on Lalezar and its side streets met a similar fate. Lalezar was an extremely imaginative rendition of a Parisian boulevard, which had been built during the almost hallucinatory late 19th century rule of Qajar clan’s Nassereddin Shah, the Persian monarch who had become fascinated with his own discovery of Europe, as well as with photography and film, as was his son, Mozaffareddin Shah. Lalezar is fairly narrow in width, some 15 meters, but was based on the idea of creating a Champs-Elysees in Tehran. Its name means “field of tulips”, from the gardens that at the time lay to the northeast of Tehran. Its architectural character was a mix of earlier brick eclecticisms and later local Art Deco styles, and many of its buildings were constructed in Tehran’s characteristic “pāssāge” form following Parisian arcade versions. But it was also the scale, which was almost miniature, like a Cinecitta construction, which added to its dreaminess. With the creation of Modernity, which society had desired after the Constitutional Revolution of 1905, Lalezar became a prime location for displaying modern life style and its symbols, including theatres and cinemas. However, the place closed down completely after the revolution. Today the whole 1,640 metre length of the street is dedicated to the sale of electrical goods, while many cinemas and theatres are empty or used as warehouses. At Lalezar the myriad of lamps seem to compensate for the absence of shows, cinemas and cafe life.

Cinecittà Cinema has always been part of Tehran’s way of life. Even if every vestige of its familiar forms were removed, cinema would somehow still be in the air. The bazaar is like a film. It resembles early cinema, with its humming and roars of movement creating live musical accompaniment, while layered with cinemascope and Jazz. Its pace is that of silent films, with people and vehicles speeding around faster than normal, while its characters range from the down and outs and gold diggers of the silent era to Spaghetti Western lookalikes. It is both in color and in black and white. When you join the crowd, you find yourself in a street scene of a frontier town, and when you look for a refuge, it is the “Thief of Baghdad”, where treasures abound, with fine carpets next to plastic flowers, gold and stationery. The Power of Names Cinema names were also not spared. The cinemas were as different as their names: Radio City, Niagara, Universal, Capri, Rivoli, Metropole, Diamond, Polydor, Atlantic, Diana... and of course the Moulin Rouge, complete with cross shaped windmill sails still in place on a red background instead of the original black after the Parisian symbol. Cinema Rivoli was further down on the same Shariati (which was previously Old Street). Some names and images were inextricably linked. Cinema Niagara perhaps had the most memorable neon graphics, a white and blue waterfall suspended up on the left hand side of its front. It was not only the names that were lost, but also the graphics. Interestingly, the cinemas were all different in size and image. There was a tiny cinema on the eastern corner of the monumental Cinema Royal. Its name, B.B. (pronounced the French way) appropriately reflected its size. Form Tehran’s cinema architecture reflected the bewildering variety that can be found in the architecture of Tehran’s golden age. They ranged in size from the very big to the tiny. The multi-screen system was not yet invented and the external box would generally reflect an auditorium’s size. Cinema Royal, on the northern side of the very central Enghelab (Revolution) Street has a monumental Thirties facade composition, and its auditorium was huge. Then there was the later 1950s style Golden City (now Felestin – Palestine, in the vicinity of the ex-Israeli embassy, which is now the Palestinian embassy) which also had an immense interior, but is now subdivided into a number of screening rooms. It has been tampered with quite a lot.

A somber green granite band has replaced its name panel above the entrance, which originally had a neon Golden City displayed on it in a design based on curves. Green glass in thick green frames has replaced its considerably delicate original frames. Pink, cheap looking stone has made an arch at the entrance of a building totally alien to the idea of such a concept. In terms of size, there were exceptions. The huge Cinema Mayak, said to have been initiated by a Georgian owner, has a frontage of only a few meters, emphasized by the elegant white and amber vertical stripe design of its slightly concave suspended front, similar to a striped dress. This is because its plan works like a funnel. So is Cinema Sylvana, whose delicate crown-shaped trellised front was recently replaced by commercial aluminum cladding. At least three cinemas had additional rooftop seats for summertime screenings: Cinema Niagara, Cinema Diana, and Cinema Mayak. There were also two drive-in cinemas, Alborz in Lalezar, and the later Vanak drive-in cinema, which has now been destroyed. The latter had a spectacular 60s structure composed of tapering members that supported the screen.