Michigan Building
The Michigan Theatre is part of a 13 -story office building on Bagley and Cass Avenue and a former movie theater in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Decorated in the style of the French Renaissance interior of Michigan was opened in August 1926 and had a capacity of 4035 seats. It was designed by architects Cornelius W. and George L. Rapp and then cost $ 5,000,000 ( equivalent to $ 62 million in 2008). The Michigan Theatre was closed in 1976 and 1977 converted into a car park.
Formation
Originally Metropolitan office building Building should be called and the movie house should be named Chicago. These names were then abandoned in March 1925. At the same time a gas station, a restaurant, a forge, an employment agency, the Detroit Creamery Co goods depot, which demolished Mantle & Tile Co burrs and other buildings were the St. Denis Hotel. The theater owner, the Detroit Properties Corp.. , Decided the better name Michigan Building and Michigan Theatre to use.
The Michigan - complex was the first piece of an ambitious program for the Bagley Avenue and was sponsored by the Stromfeltz - Loveley real estate company. The other two key buildings were the United Artists Theatre Building and the 22 -story Leland Hotel.
The movie house was operated by the Balaban & Katz Group from Chicago in conjunction with Detroit's first theater magnate, John H. Kunsky. It was the showpiece of his theater empire. The Michigan Theatre opened on 23 August 1926, the film You Never Know Women with Florence Vidor and Lowell Sherman.
The interior
Kunsky wanted the Michigan Theatre make the grandest scene of the Midwest, a theater for the whole world.
The Schauspielhaus was overloaded with extravagant details. The approximately 100 -square-foot Grande lobby was spiegelvertäfelt and had a checkered black and white floor. The foyer was equipped with pillars and red velvet curtains, archways of marble, flower baskets and large crystal chandeliers. A wide staircase with carved balusters and red carpet leading into the upper floor. A large wing was used to entertain guests while they waited for the beginning of the film. Between each pair of columns oil painting of the National Academy were attached, for example, Thomas Hoven Dens The Story of the Douglas Volk's Puritan girl. Through all of his sculptures, busts, furniture painstakingly crafted and painting the foyer of Michigan looked more like a museum like a movie theater.
The mezzanine floor was initially reserved for invited guests in evening dress. It had gilded foyers, soft lighting, and was decorated with paintings. There were luxurious lounges and cosmetic rooms for the ladies, rest rooms for men. Eye-catchers were the replica of a Roman charioteer from the 5th century, a copy of a sculpture from the Sala della Biga in the Vatican Museums and a copy of Cupid and Psyche Antonio Canova.
The theater had six transition rows on each level, side boxes, three -foot crystal chandeliers, a stage with an orchestra pit and a 5/28-Wurlitzer-Orgel ( cinema organ ) that could be ramped up to the stage. Since the films were silent films until 1928, the Michigan Symphony Orchestra, under its conductor painted with Eduard Werner along with the 2,500 - pipe Wurlitzer - movies.
History
Lichtspieltheater
The theater started with five shows a day, the first morning at 10:30 clock. The usual show consisted of a concert of the orchestra, two 20 -minute stage shows, with singers and dancers and a movie. The admission price was, depending on the time of day, between 35 and 75 cents with open seating.
Stars like the Marx Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny, Louis Armstrong, Red Skelton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and Doris Day appeared on the stage of Michigan. Kunskys theater chain failed during the Great Depression and the Michigan became part of the United Detroit Theatres. From the 1940s films were mainly shown.
Cinema
With the advent of sound film, the orchestra was expendable, as well as the Wurlitzer organ. In 1953, the Michigan one of the twelve cinemas in the country that showed 3D movies such as The House of Wax by Vincent Price. 1954 a large screen was installed, but that this proscenium arch was damaged. 1955, the Wurlitzer was sold to Fred Hermes, which they installed in the basement of his house and still plays today.
Due to the advent of television and the mass exodus of the urban population to the suburbs the number of visitors went to the theaters of Detroit back dramatically, many cinemas were closed. Mid-1960 and the Michigan became unprofitable. United Detroit Theaters sold the movie theater and the office building in 1967 for $ 1.5 million (now about $ 9.7 million ). The new owners were only interested in the Michigan Building, and therefore the theater was closed four days later.
In the same year, Nicholas George bought the Michigan Theatre and tried to revive it. But even with his investment, he could not stay afloat and thus it closed again on 3 December 1970 and although it was opened a month later again, it was finally closed in June 1971.
Supper Club
In 1972, Sam Hadous entered into a lease agreement for 16 years with the owners of Michigan Buildings. He wanted to put $ 500,000 into the renovation work to make the movie palace a huge Supper Club with 1500 seats. On January 19, 1972, the work began. The seats were torn out, the sloped floors were converted into flat plains. The mezzanine has been restored, but the balcony was closed. In addition, a kitchen was installed. The Supper Club was opened on 17 March under the new name Michigan Palace. Duke Ellington, who had a guest in 1934 at the Michigan Theatre, gave the opening performance. The concept failed after only a few months.
Rock club
1973 then turned the rock promoter Steven Glantz the house into a concert hall. He maintained the name Michigan Palace. Many of the top rock acts of the 1970s occurred, David Bowie, The Stooges, The New York Dolls, Aerosmith, Bob Seger, Rush, Iron Butterfly, Blue Oyster Cult and Badfinger.
Time as a rock venue meant the final decline of Michigan. Marble, furniture, brass and glass were vandaliert or soiled. Also, the Michigan Palace as a nightclub did not pay and was closed in 1976. The destruction of the interior led to a dispute over $ 175,000 between the building owners, the Bagley Associates Ltd., and Glantz.
Car park
The tenants of Michigan Buildings needed parking spaces, and therefore the neglected theater should be replaced by a parking garage. Structural analysis showed that the office building and the theater are physically connected. Because you could not completely eliminate the theater, suggested the advisory engineer, the shell of the building to use for a secure, covered car parking. The requirements for the new parking garage were consistent with the existing building. The main entrance, have been previously passed through the thousands of people was widely enough to allow the retraction and extension of cars. The long foyer with its sweeping staircase could easily be converted into a driveway to the curved ramp of the parking garage. The 60 meters long and 40 meters wide audience had plenty of space to accommodate the required 160 cars on three levels.
Then in 1977 the theater was gutted. The elimination of the interior, and the subsequent construction work was carried out appropriate. In the side of the auditorium, a hole was beaten, the interior aborted, as far as it was necessary for the establishment of a simple parking garage construction of steel and concrete.
Press Coverage
Quote from Detroit 's Michigan Kent Kleinman and Leslie Van Duzer:
"From the rawness of the result one is slain formally. Everywhere, the viewer sees the character of brute force: sawed-off beams, balconies amputated, severed electrical cables, ventilation systems, the hinunterbaumeln in the space zerschürften plaster of the canopy, the tattered curtain. This does not look like a work of architecture, to which the properties and these include completeness stasis; it acts as a transition to permanence. The work has been replaced by something that is at work. Herein lies the legitimate fascination of this interior: it represents the mechanics and technology of architectural production on open display. It is the same fascination that drives viewers on construction sites and ruins. At a glance that the bare skeleton of the structure and the thin lining that was once the boundary of the experiential space. "
Feature
The theater or car park serves as a backdrop for films such as 8 Mile, The Island, Alex Cross (film ) and Only Lovers Left Alive, but also for music videos, such as Lose Yourself by Eminem and My Little Birdie by Nice Device.
Trivia
The theater was built on the place where Henry Ford ran a small workshop in 1896 and built its first car, the Ford Quadricycle. The place that was the birthplace of the Ford automobile, has been replaced by a movie theater and was then reoccupied by the automobile.