Abandoned Cinemas of the World

(Le Crépuscule des Cinémas)

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Abandoned buildings around the world seem to attract more and more attention in recent years. It’s clear to us that it becomes shocking to observe the decadence and the lack of use of certain beautiful structures that once played vital roles in our cities.  

It’s the case of the Swiss born photographer Simon Edelstein who published last year a book depicting unused and delapidated, but beautiful, buildings. Abandoned Cinemas of The World (Le Crépuscule des Cinémas) is the result of his travels around the world on the search for forgotten cinema/theatre buildings.

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Stand-alone cinemas and theaters have been disappearing from urban landscapes for a long time now. Projection rooms started to be relocated to multiplex complexes located in suburban shopping centers; television, video and now online on-demand platforms brought cinema home, appealing to one’s laziness. The Covid 19 crisis only made worst to these already endangered temples of entertainment.    

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Through his melancholic pictures, Edelstein offers us the testimony of a slow death. An agonizing process of which many of us are mere inactive observers and that institutions don’t seem to care that much. Because this books is mostly a cry out towards society and its main players to protect and preserve this unique patrimony.

Most of the buildings portrayed were once icons of where they stand. Simply, they don’t seem to have a role in contemporaneity. Nevertheless, its design was once groundbreaking and appealing to the imaginaries of modernity, sophistication and glamour.

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For 12 years, Edelstein catalogues abandoned cinemas from Morocco, the USA, the UK, France, Portugal and many other countries around the globe. With delicacy and true love for the buildings he portraits, the photographer captures the empty and lonely façades, interiors and back stages of these once crowded places. In the book he mentions how ‘’for the lovers of these oneiric spaces, this decadence is a nightmare’’.

Edelstein also dedicates part of his photographical study to the transformation and adaptation that these types of buildings have been submitted to. Due to the lack of any architectonic patrimonial protection by the state, many cinemas are now used for totally different purposes, such as book shops, convenience stores or hotels. The problem is that its interiors have been transformed and many times destroyed to accommodate the new functions, thus dilapidating its richness and quality.

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As we also addressed in previous articles, the preservation of the patrimony that cinemas represent seem utterly urgent. They are testimony of a time when the big screen was the one of the best ways to access culture and escape from the trivialities of day to day life.

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Author: Edelstein, Simon  

Published in 2020 by Editions Jonglez

ISBN: 978-2-36193-367-3