Cinema Architecture at risk. Experiences and conservation projects

For too long a time our movie theatres have represented a heritage that seems doomed to disappear. For over thirty years now they have shown signs of irreversible decline, with buildings torn down or altered for other uses. Despite the repeated warnings of scholars and movie-lovers all over the world, despite the publications and conferences they have produced, an important part of our cultural heritage is being lost. This book hopes to join the actions of local communities. Its objective is to recognize the centrality of the architectural heritage of movie theatres and the desire to link knowledge to social action and conservation. It is for this reason that a comparison and interchange with what is happening on the international scene has seemed indispensable. This comparison has its foundations in a common goal: safeguarding movie theatres and with them a piece of the history of the twentieth century, for they are at once icons of modernity in its various junctures and the expression of forms of citizenship that differ according to time and place. With an important final comment: a work like this once again proposes to the historian and the restorer the occasion for reflection on and memory of the various temporalités urbaines.