The Louxor cinema, a theater that looks like it was at home in the roaring 1920s of Paris, has reopened as part of a restoration project taken on by the city, according to the New York Times.
The cinema is located in Barbes, a working class neighborhood of Paris and the home of several grand cinemas, as the French author Emile Zola described them.
The neighborhood is located in the 18th arrondissement, and is still a working-class neighborhood today. It is also a diverse and dynamic area of Paris, about to once again be home to one of the grand cinemas, now equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
The Louxor cinema in located centrally within the neighborhood, on the corner of the Boulevard Magenta, opposite an elevated metro.
The restoration project cost Paris $32.7 million, and was taken on as part of an urban development plan to improve the neighborhood, which includes the Gare du Nord train station, also recently renovated.
The restoration also aligned with the efforts of the Paris mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, to keep the cinema culture of the city alive. Paris spends 1.2 million euro a year to assist independent art-house cinema.
The cinema opened in 1921 and was built in a neo-Egyptian style. The architect Henri Zipcy designed the theater after it was commissioned by Henri Silerberg, a businessman.
Silerberg went bankrupt shortly after the theater opened and the Luxor was then sold to Pathe Cinemas, where it underwent several renovations, including the removal of the neo-Egyptian style architecture. The theater then gradually went into a state of disrepair and abandonment.
It was then purchased in 1983 by the Tati Company, from whom the city of Paris bought it in 2003. The building was saved several times by petitions and in 2008, the architect Philippe Pumain was given the task of finally restoring the theater.
The neo-Egyptian style has been restored, with a replica of an ancient Egyptian cartouche above the box office. According to Pumain, the original décor was covered by layers of subsequent makeovers but that his forebear's design was coherent.
"It was a mix of Art Deco and Egyptomania," said Pumain. "Although it was fanciful, you sense that the architect had really done his research."
The theater has been updated with a protective outer box to insulate it from vibrations from the metro as well as a 4K digital projector and a 35-milimeter traditional film projector for an 18-by-30 foot screen.
Two additional theaters were built in an underground space, one of which has a club-like atmosphere.
You can almost picture the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald walking in again.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
