The movie theaters designed by the European avant-garde masters. An approach to the origins of a modern architectural typology

The evolution of movie theater spatiality was rarely dealt with in architecture history, and anecdotes have been privileged, leaving aside the study of the professional, theoretical and media debate debate these buildings generated. From a literature review of publications and databases in major European national libraries, this article offers a look at a set of studio theaters-and some unbuilt projects-, made by architects and iconic artists from the first half of the twentieth century. Around the proposals presented by five figures of the European avant-garde (Le Corbusier, Mallet-Stevens, Sauvage, van Doesburg and Kiesler), a variety of types and aesthetic trends are shown which characterized movie theaters during the years between the wars, as well as the avatars that these facilities suffered since their inception.