Tampa Theatre and office building, 711 Franklin Street, Tampa, Fla., detail, southwest tower

Between the first and top stories, the building has a simple fenestration in a central bay four windows wide and slightly projecting corner bays which are continued as towers above a frieze-like string course. Above the frieze there is a wealth of decoration: balconies, spandrels, mullions, window surrounds, and cornices in cast stone and terra-cotta. John Eberson designed this theater, built in 1925. Eberson invented the so-called atmospheric theater, and this one has, in addition to lavish interior decorations, a make-believe open-air auditorium: the plaster ceiling hung from metal trusses has holes with lights behind (to simulate a starry sky) and is surrounded by tiled roof edges and exterior walls with blind windows and balconies to give the audience the sense of being in a Mediterranean piazza. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This is a detail of the southwest tower. Title supplied by cataloger. Description supplied by Sape A. Zylstra.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/zylstra/1066/thumbnail.jp