Granada Cinema

This former Granada cinema was built in 1936–37 for Granada Theatres. The architects were Cecil Masey (1881–1960) and Reginald Harold Uren (1903–88), with interior design by Theodore Komisarjevsky (1882–1954). The building occupies a corner site and features a double-height auditorium with balcony and stage set behind a large foyer, with a tower to the right. The facade is of brick and render.

Exterior

The asymmetrical curved facade to Powis Street has the entrance on the left and the tower on the right. A continuous canopy runs at string level. To the left of the entrance is a line of five tall windows divided by brick and render pilasters, under a simple canopy. The windows have thin glazing bars providing fifteen panes in a vertical arrangement. Above this, at second-floor level, is a line of five narrower windows, each with a thin canopy.

To the right is a long line of five horizontal windows enclosed by a concrete frame, except where they abut the tower on the right and continue on the other side. Each window is divided into six lights by glazing bars. Above these windows the brickwork is blank, except where interrupted by the tower, which rises above the parapet.

An attic storey sits over the entrance end, with a horizontal rendered section under another canopy (which originally acted as a background to the cinema's name), followed by three windows with brick pilasters under a rendered strip. Concrete parapet coping tops the facade. The roof of the foyer block is not visible.

The outer face of the tower has a rendered strip that originally held a glazed fin which lit up at night. At the top of the tower an open area under a flat roof originally formed part of this illumination scheme. The rear wall of the tower is concrete.

The stock brick auditorium wall to the left of the entrance facade was originally hidden by other property. The visible storey at the stage-dock entry is rendered, but the rest is of dark brown brickwork with string courses (interrupted over the scene-dock to enliven the composition) and a mansard roof. A flat-roofed two-storey extension stands on the left, with an exit aperture at ground level and a line of four horizontal windows in the upper storey. The rear auditorium wall is of Fletton bricks with buttresses. A pitched roof covers the auditorium.

Interior

Entrance and Outer Foyer

Five sets of entrance doors lead into the outer foyer or vestibule. The walls of the outer foyer are enriched with coupled attached columns in chevron profile and with Romanesque stiff-leaf capitals. Rope moulding decorates the transverse ceiling beams. Three sets of glazed and stained timber doors feature twisted horizontal wrought-iron bars and cast-iron 'antiqued' handles.

Inner Foyer

The double-height inner foyer has galleries on three sides, reached by way of stairs of 'T plan' type on the far wall. The balustrades to the galleries and stairs are in subdued Gothic form, with newel posts featuring clustered colonettes.

On the back wall is an elaborate gilded quasi-medieval panelling feature divided into nine bays by pilasters of clustered shafts with stiff-leaf capitals. Each bay is round-headed with scroll and foliage decoration in the tympana, except for the central one, which has a pediment with a roundel and ribbon mouldings. The five centre bays are subdivided into twin Gothic two-centred arches with stiff-leaf capitals and fluted backgrounds. The two outer bays also have twin arches, but their backgrounds are decorated with figures (some playing instruments), painted in Italian Renaissance style by Vladimir Polunin (1880–1957), a compatriot of Komisarjevsky.

The ceiling is coffered with painted quatrefoils. There is a large central chandelier, four subsidiary ones, and six pairs of wall lights, all in Gothic style. The gallery originally served as a cafe and extended into a room (now partitioned off as offices) over the vestibule. On the left, glazed and stained timber doors lead into the auditorium.

Auditorium

The large double-height auditorium is decorated in Gothic style. The ante-proscenium splays are divided into three sections separated by pilasters. The central feature is a monumental Romanesque-style arch with jambs of seven engaged columns (alternately banded and twisted) and a tympanum of openwork foliage designed to disguise a ventilation duct. This sits above the emergency exit and extends up into a tall pointed gable decorated with crockets and a finial. The space inside both gables is decorated with a large central roundel (subdivided by a cusped cinquefoil) and three subsidiary ones with quatrefoils.

The stained timber exit doors themselves are framed by detached columns under a round arch with dog-tooth moulding and a tympanum decorated with a stylised stiff-leaf motif. The flanking panels, above the dado (which has more Gothic decoration), feature painted panels representing rampant lions and unicorns set in stylised backgrounds (possibly also by Vladimir Polunin). Each panel bears the inscription 'Mon Seul Desir'.

The upper stages of the ante-proscenium splays are also split into three sections with superimposed rows of cusped niches (interspersed by arrow-heads), flanked by tall single niches nearest and tall coupled niches furthest from the proscenium. An additional section on each side further back has exit doors (with small glazed quatrefoil panels) at ground level, the termination of the balcony front, and superimposed backlit four-light stained glass two-centred windows. The upper windows have plate-tracery incorporating blind quatrefoils and a roundel containing six smaller roundels.

The proscenium is formed from flanking corbelled buttresses and a line of quatrefoils. Above is a Gothic canopy of five trefoils under crocketed gables separated by demi-buttresses against a background of more trefoiled niches. The serpentine front of the balcony has stiff-leaf decoration. The balcony soffit has further Gothic grill decoration on the beams. The elaborately coffered ceiling over the front stalls area is in dull red and green. The ceiling over the balcony is in three sections, again with complex coffering. Two large Gothic chandeliers hang over the front stalls area.

Balcony Foyer

The entrance to the balcony foyer has triple attached columns with composite capitals. The balcony foyer (the 'Hall of Mirrors') is of seven bays divided by mirror-faced pilasters. Each inner side bay contains a mirror above low benches, with twisted columns in the jambs and under a trefoil head, flanked by columns with composite capitals. The outer side bays form an arcade in front of an 'aisle'. Four French tear-drop chandeliers provide lighting. In the aisle is an original table with four-arch stretchers. The ceiling is pitched and coffered. The balcony is reached through entrances at each end of this hall, with Gothic panelling over both.

'Screen' features are placed in the angles where the balcony widens out in the centre of the auditorium. These have five niches with fibrous plaster grilles under crocketed steeply pitched gables. Entry to the balcony is through two side vomitories. Nine cusped niches on each side wall are glazed and leaded. Cross-over balustrades are of twisted metal. A lower ceiling section sits under the projection suite.

Historical Significance

This is one of the finest and most important cinema interiors in Britain, being one of only two with convincing Gothic decoration. It is only slightly less elaborate than its sister cinema at Tooting, by the same team but without Uren, who was brought in to provide a dramatic streamlined front in the face (literally) of the competing Odeon cinema opposite which opened in the same year. Although converted to bingo in 1966, most of the internal decoration survives unaltered. The figurative painting by the Russian stage designer Vladimir Polunin is also of particular interest.