With plush upholstered seats, touches of gilt and glitter, formal pilasters, and the almost Japanese delicacy of a mural, Lee suggests an atmosphere of elegance to transport the audience from their daily lives
A narrow aisle between the glass wall and the poster wall allows access to change the posters. This photograph reveals that the glass wall is not curved, but instead is composed of a series of flat glass panes butt-jointed together to form a curved shape.
The auditorium is a so-called atmosphere theatre, a popular design type which created a stage set surrounding the audience. In this example, the auditorium simulates a Spanish Colonial Revival village into which the audience enters to see the show. Simulated buildings project from the walls, ivy hangs from their balconies and windows, trees painted on the wall behind provide a natural setting, and the whole is illuminated to create a realistic effect. Above is the dark sky, painted with clouds and featuring twinkling lights simulating the stars.
Here Lee works with rectangles and flat surfaces. The space is grandiose. The ceiling opening may indicate a large indirect lighting scheme or an opening to a mezzanine above.
Lee proposes a dramatic succession of spaces. A two-story curvilinear arch drawn from Spanish Baroque forms frames the entrance to a grand foyer embellished with Spanish Baroque designs in relief. A broad staircase beneath a dramatically curved opening leads from the grand foyer into a one-story foyer area.
This sleek Streamline Moderne design with portholes and a swooping roof almost seems ready to take off from its site and hover over the ground like a proverbial flying saucer.
This theatre and office complex, perhaps taking its name from the Avenida de la Reforma in Mexico City, may be one of Lee's concepts for the Chapultepec Theatre (see 12401-12408) in Mexico City, which was located on the Avenida de la Reforma. The collection contains no photographs of the exterior of the Chapultepec.