1920s Movie Palaces                 Paradise Theatre                       Palace Theatre                                         Castro Theatre
       Chicago ,Illinois -- 1925-28     Columbus, Ohio -- 1926                       San Francisco, California -- 1922
                             Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts                             Main Street Theatre
                                      Richmond, Virginia -- 1927                               Kansas City, Missouri -- 1921 Orpheum Theatre San Francisco, California -- 1925

Throughout the 1920s, architects designed and constructed elaborate movie palaces where both silent films and "talkies" met with enthusiastic audiences. Styles ranged from Western to Chinese to French Baroque, but each movie palace constructed during this period had its own distinct personality and flavor. Architects turned designing movie palaces into an art, as well as a means to make a living. Thomas Lamb, S. Charles Lee and John Eberson are only a three of the many men who contributed to the movie palace genre of 1920s architecture. To find out more about movie palace architecture, visit the American Theatre Architecture Archive. With the Depression came a decline in movie theatre attendence and, consequently, a decreased emphasis on movie palaces as focal points in the city scape. Recent efforts to restore these palaces have met with success across the country.
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