Editing Art Deco (section)

====Movie palaces====
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200px">
File:Pathe Tuschinski.jpg|[[Tuschinski Theatre]] in [[Amsterdam]] by Hijman Louis de Jong and Willem Kromhout (1921)
File:Graumanegyptian-opening1922.jpg|[[Grauman's Egyptian Theatre]] in [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood (Los Angeles)]], California, by [[Meyer & Holler]] (1922)
File:Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California LCCN2013635154.tif|Four-story high grand lobby of the [[Paramount Theatre (Oakland, California)|Paramount Theatre]] in [[Oakland]], California, by [[Timothy Pflueger]] (1932)
File:Radio City Music Hall 3051638324 4a385c5623.jpg|Auditorium and stage of [[Radio City Music Hall]] in [[New York City]] by [[Edward Durell Stone]] and [[Donald Deskey]] (1932)
File:Facade Rex.jpg|[[Grand Rex]] in [[Paris]] by Auguste Bluysen, [[John Eberson]], Henri-Édouard Navarre and [[Maurice Dufrêne]] (1932)
File:The Paramount, Shanghai.JPG|The [[Paramount (Shanghai)|Paramount]] in [[Shanghai]], China, by S. J. Young (1933)
File:Gaumont State Cinema Entrance.jpg|[[Gaumont State Cinema]] in [[London]] by [[George Coles (architect)|George Coles]] (1937)
</gallery>

Many of the best surviving examples of Art Deco are cinemas built in the 1920s and 1930s. The Art Deco period coincided with the conversion of silent films to sound, and movie companies built large display destinations in major cities to capture the huge audience that came to see movies. Movie palaces in the 1920s often combined exotic themes with Art Deco style; [[Grauman's Egyptian Theatre]] in Hollywood (1922) was inspired by ancient Egyptian tombs and [[pyramid]]s, while the [[Fox Theater (Bakersfield, California)|Fox Theater]] in Bakersfield, California attached a tower in California Mission style to an Art Deco Hall. The largest of all is [[Radio City Music Hall]] in New York City, which opened in 1932. Originally designed as theatrical performance space, it quickly transformed into a cinema, which could seat 6,015 customers. The interior design by [[Donald Deskey]] used glass, aluminum, chrome, and leather to create a visual escape from reality. The [[Paramount Theatre (Oakland, California)|Paramount Theatre]] in Oakland, California, by Timothy Pflueger, had a colorful ceramic façade, a lobby four stories high, and separate Art Deco smoking rooms for gentlemen and ladies. Similar grand palaces appeared in Europe. The [[Grand Rex]] in Paris (1932), with its imposing tower, was the largest cinema in Europe after the 6,000 seats of the [[Gaumont-Palace]] (1931–1973). The [[Gaumont State Cinema]] in London (1937) had a tower modelled on the Empire State building, covered with cream ceramic tiles and an interior in an Art Deco-Italian Renaissance style. The [[Paramount (Shanghai)|Paramount]] Theatre in Shanghai, China (1933) was originally built as a dance hall called ''The gate of 100 pleasures''; it was converted to a cinema after the Communist Revolution in 1949, and now is a ballroom and disco. In the 1930s Italian architects built a small movie palace, the Cinema Impero, in [[Asmara]] in what is now Eritrea. Today, many of the movie theatres have been subdivided into multiplexes, but others have been restored and are used as cultural centres in their communities.{{Sfn|Duncan|1988|pages=197–199}}