Light House Cinema, Dublin |
Friday, 26 September 2008 |
Great surroundings will not camouflage poor programming in movie
theaters. No matter how swanky the theater, if it shows poor movies, we
just won’t go. Which isn’t to say that we have given up on
movie-theater design. We still wish that one day, somewhere, someone is
going to design a decidedly different, interesting and exciting movie
theater.
Glimpses of brilliance are visible in the new Light House Cinema at Smithfield in Dublin, Ireland designed by Dublin’s award-winning DTA Architects
Of course, you really need to design — and judge — a movie theater so
that it looks and functions best when people are using it. So, having
not paid personal visits to the new Light House, we cannot say for
sure, but the images we have received of the empty space indicate that
the play of light, color and height works exceptionally well here.
Light House cinema has been a bit of an institution in Dublin. It
started showing Irish, independent, foreign-language, art house and
classic cinema 20 years ago, closed in 1966, and re-opened this summer
in its new, customized space. The four-screen, intimate art-house
cinema includes a wonderful, inviting and open cafe that looks like
something you’d see at an art museum, not a movie theatre. The leader
of the Light House project at DTA was Derek Tynan and the project
architect was Colin Mackay.
The new cinema benefited from the financial assistance of The Arts
Council, the Irish Film Board, and the Department of Arts, Sport and
Tourism. For Dublin’s city planners, this was to be a cultural magnet
and a focal point for the largest mixed-use development ever in
Dublin’s inner city, the massive rejuvenation plan for the historical Smithfield Market area.
And if you’d like to make our wishes come true, please let us know of
any supreme movie-theater design concepts you’ve seen, designed or
commissioned. We are all eyes and ears. - Tuija Seipell
See also Home Theater and AMC Pacific Place Cinema in Hong Kong.
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