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Miami Theatre, Miami, poster case

Description:
Set right on the sidewalk, the poster cases are large and sleek. They provide a glimpse of the show within to every passerby. Titles in both English and Spanish reflect Miamiýs Latin American population, which is also depicted in the mural in the foyer. (40812,40813).
Date:
1946-1947
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, poster case

Miami Theatre, Miami, crying room

Description:
The crying room, a feature of many theatres of the period, was a soundproof glass-walled viewing room for mothers with small children. Here the model demonstrates the audio device that transmitted sound to individual viewers. The acoustic tile on the walls began to be widely used in the 1940s and soon became ubiquitous.
Date:
1946-47
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, crying room

Visalia Theatre, Visalia, photograph of rendering, night

Description:
This night view is a simplified design for a one-story building, retaining the downlighting in the lobby area, but eliminating the curved Streamline effects of the daytime view. Here the sign at the corner becomes the principal element of the design. Lee uses a series of recessed frames highlighted by indirect lighting, around the entire entrance, the poster cases, the false windows on the façade, and above the box office as a unifying motif.
Date:
1946-49
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Visalia Theatre, Visalia, photograph of rendering, night

Miami Theatre, Miami, façade

Description:
The Miami Theatre in downtown Miami, Florida, was Leeýs last major motion picture theatre in the grand tradition of the movie palaces of the 1920s and 1930s. After 1950, smaller neighborhood theatres and drive-ins became more popular with the development of the suburbs. The Miami, however, was one of Leeýs largest and most all-encompassing designs executed in the United States. The complex included not only a motion picture theatre, which included a legitimate stage but also a restaurant and a candy store, all in a downtown urban setting. In the design, which was largely executed as shown in the renderings, Lee married Baroque and Rococo elements with Streamline Moderne features, producing an unusually eclectic design. The renderings show murals with sea-life motifs, suggesting that Lee drew inspiration from seashell and wave forms for many aspects of the design, which may account for the Baroque and Rococo-appearing design elements. Although demolished, the theatre is one of the most extensively documented in the S. Charles Lee Collection at UCLA.The design of the façade, with its diamond-patterned panels and ornate cartouche is echoed in the interior. On the left is Huylerýs, a candy shop and restaurant that was part of the theatre complex. The narrow site and the height of the building to the rear reflect the two-tier balcony and the long narrow plan of the auditorium, a scheme that Lee had used in his first major theatre, the Tower Theatre in Los Angeles.
Date:
1946-47
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, façade

Miami Theatre, Miami, rendering, candy counter

Description:
The design for the refreshment or candy counter includes and overhanging canopy with scalloped edges, a curved counter with a diamond-patterned base, and porthole windows in the wall above. A mural with ocean motifs was part of the original concept. The final design evolved into a cleaner Streamline Moderne design in both the foyer candy counter (40810) and the mezzanine drink bar (40815).
Date:
1946-47
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, rendering, candy counter

Miami Theatre, Miami, rendering, foyer stair

Description:
See 40816,40817. The curving lines and delicate tracery of the stair railing contrast with the heavily embellished stairway arch. Porthole windows, typical of the Streamline Moderne style, open up the staircase walls. A mural with sea-life motifs decorates the curved wall to the right of the staircase. The recessed lighting panels in the ceiling and the diamond-patterned mirrored walls echo similar features in the foyer.
Date:
1946-47
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, rendering, foyer stair

Miami Theatre, Miami, auditorium, front

Description:
The simple lines of the long narrow auditorium, its shape dictated by the urban lot, all lead the eye toward the proscenium,, which is framed by bands of indirect lighting and flanked by large scale designs in relief. A sumptuous curtain hung in swags fills the upper portion of the proscenium, scaling the immense arch down to cinema size.
Date:
1946-47
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, auditorium, front

Miami Theatre, Miami, foyer

Description:
The curved shapes, the treatment of the staircase, the poster cases, and the recessed lighting panels correspond closely to the rendering (40801). A focal point of the space is the mural of the Western hemisphere framed by the national flags and figures representing its peoples.(40813) Banquettes with mirrored walls above them, flank the auditorium entrance.
Date:
1946-1947
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, foyer

Picwood Theatre, Los Angeles, rendering

Description:
The Picwood was designed as a neighborhood theatre on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. The design epitomized the modern post-war aesthetic, which required simple lines, inexpensive building materials and quick construction to satisfy the post-war boom. The simple curved pylon was a landmark in the flat landscape of one- and two-story buildings.
Date:
1946
Resource Type:
still image
Photographer:
Hoffman-Luckhaus
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Picwood Theatre, Los Angeles, rendering

Miami Theatre, Miami, foyer: mural and seat

Description:
All the elements in the rendering (40802) were realized in the building, although the spaces are necessarily compressed and the elements appear crowded. The scale and drama of each feature, the lighting panels, the entrance arch, the mezzanine walls and railing, the mural, and the giant cartouche above. Mirrored walls above the banquettes to the left and the right, with the mirrors set in a diamond pattern, enhance the complexity of the space, while at the same time enlarging it.
Date:
1946-47
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, foyer: mural and seat

Miami Theatre, Miami, ticket booth

Description:
The recessed lobby draws the moviegoer into the space with neon tube strips on the ceiling focussing on the entrance and with the walls of floor to ceiling glass. The glass walls allow a view of the interior which glows at night. The box office with its curvilinear shape, also illuminated, and its sleek walls, plays to the fantasy of the moviegoers.
Date:
1946-1947
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Miami Theatre, Miami, ticket booth

Visalia Theatre, Visalia, photograph of rendering, waltercolor

Description:
Lee's rendering of this small-town theatre on a corner site in Visalia shows a simple Streamline Moderne two-story building with glass block, tile, curved glass windows and butt-jointed glass box office windows. The flat marquee shows recessed downlights, almost the only feature retained in the final design.
Date:
1946-49
Resource Type:
still image
Photographer:
Hoffman-Luckhaus
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Visalia Theatre, Visalia, photograph of rendering, waltercolor

Puente Theatre, Puente, rendering

Description:
Lee's sketch offers a prototype for a theatre that could be built cheaply and quickly. The simplest means of quickly constructing a theatre-sized space was to build a Quonset hut, a method devised in the late 1930s using small wood members to create an arched truss frame, which was then often clad in metal for warehouse purposes. A number of motion picture theatres were built in this way. They offered inexpensive rapid construction of theatre spaces in small towns such as Puente, an agricultural community east of Los Angeles.
Date:
1947-48
Resource Type:
still image
Collection:
S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962
Puente Theatre, Puente, rendering