Author Therese Poletti will lecture on the architecture of Timothy Pflueger this Sunday in Alameda, CA · Jan 22, 10:14 AM
Sunday, November 16th: Alameda Architectural Preservation Society. Author Therese Polettik will lecture on the architecture of Timothy Pflueger.
WHEN: Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 6 p.m.
WHERE: Alameda Theatre, 2317 Central Ave., Alameda, CA
COST: $5
INFORMATION: Call 510-479-6489 or 510-769-FILM
Therese Poletti uses the book as the basis for her lecture she will give Sunday inside the restored Pflueger-designed Alameda Theatre. It was Pflueger’s eclectic design of his first movie theater, the Castro Theatre, in 1922, complete with a Spanish Baroque façade and Roman amphitheater ceiling in the auditorium, which took his work into a new direction — the design of some of the most memorable movie palaces on the West Coast between 1922 and 1932.
Pflueger’s movie theater designs evolved and became cleaner and more original after the Castro, and reached their pinnacle with Oakland’s Paramount Theatre in 1931, an Art Deco masterpiece with its stunning façade, lobby and auditorium. Only a year after The Paramount opened, Pflueger’s Alameda Theatre debuted. It was Alameda’s first and only movie palace. It had 33,400 square feet, 2,200 seats, one of the largest movie screens in the Bay Area and a beautiful Art Deco design, complete with a decorative original mural, plaster figures painted in gold and silver leaf and light fixtures and a richly woven carpet with warm colors. Outside, it had a blade sign that soared 70 feet into the sky with “Alameda” in big capital letters and a floral pattern with vines decorating the façade. Built in 14 months at a cost of $500,000, the Alameda Theatre instantly became the dominant building in the Park Street Business District. “It has a consistent theme, color scheme and design. It has a nautical theme with mermaids and sea horses. I love the façade. It’s an unusual exterior with the folded concrete. I think it’s one of his better neighborhood movie palaces,” said Poletti of the Alameda Theatre.
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