Cosmogenesis: 1,2,3 for the GFT!

With work in progress to add a third screen to the Glasgow Film Theatre on Rose Street, we thought we'd take the opportunity to take a closer look at the history of Glasgow's much loved, art-house cinema.

The GFT began life in May 1939 as The Cosmo and was the first art-house cinema to be opened outside London. Architect W.J. Anderson II of John McKissick & Son designed the building as a homage to the Curzon in Mayfair, the longest established art-house cinema in the UK.

The brown-brick, windowless facade and towered entrance are inspired by European modernist architecture of the time, notably that of the Dutch designer Willem Dudok best known for the brick Hilversum City Hall near Amsterdam. In the book Architecture of Glasgow held by GSA Library, the authors describe the building as set on a plinth of black Swedish granite and clad in Ayrshire brick with a cream faience trim. Unbeknown to many, Gillespie Kidd & Coia replaced the lighted glass canopy in the mid-1960s and rebuilt the offices which back onto Renfrew Street.

The Cosmo was reincarnated as the Glasgow Film Theatre in 1974. Since then, it has been remodelled to include two screens and Cafe Cosmo which will sadly cease to exist when the new 60-seat cinema is built on top of the existing bar. The cafe with its dimly-lit ambience has been a popular meeting place for conversation between film enthusiasts. Alasdair Gray may be making a thinly-veiled allusion to Cafe Cosmo in Lanark's opening line in his description of The Elite Cafe, "entered by a staircase from the foyer of a cinema." The eponymous hero who spends his time walking and visiting libraries and cinemas, may in Gray's imagination, have been a frequent visitor - especially given the artist's proximity to the cinema as a student of GSA in the 1950s. There are plans to develop a new cafe to the rear of the revamped cinema in addition to an office, kiosk and canopy and it will be exciting to see whether this feature retains its verve!

Today the GFT continues to contribute to the cultural and artistic scene in Glasgow with the £1.6 million development surely enhancing this position. The 1930s design marks it out from the run-of-the-mill entertainment multiplexes which welcome droves of sugar-frenzied cinema-goers through the doors to indulge in the guilty pleasures of the latest multi-million grossing blockbuster. Always the serious older sibling, the GFT is unique for the crowds it attracts to watch its cult screenings, something to which the success of the Glasgow Film Festival is testimony.

Cineworld may have the distinction of being the world's tallest cinema, but given its designated 'Carbunkle' status, it's the art-deco charm of the GFT that more stylishly represents Glasgow's continuing obsession with the pictures!

Kernels of History - Glasgow's Odeon Cinema

With demolition imminent at Glasgow's Odeon Cinema on Renfield Street, a posting by the Urban Exploration Forums gives us snapshots of this one-time great institution. 

Once the busiest picture-house in the city, the Odeon was designed by architects Frank T. Verity & Samuel Beverly in the early 1930s. It was originally built as a single 2800-seater cinema and opened as the Paramount Theatre in 1934. The building was promptly snapped up by the Odeon chain and flourished as a popular music venue - the Beatles and the Rolling Stones both famously played here in its halcyon days! The cinema was divided into smaller screens in 1969-70, by which time the neon lights lighting-up the uber-cool curved entrance and bare brick walls were also gone. The history books may critique Odeon for stripping the building of its glamorous 30s interiors to bring it in line with the company's corporate image yet, thanks to the building's Grade B listed status, the Art Deco facade and entrance-hall should be retained. 

In the days before Cineworld's domination, the Odeon, for many, was the main place to queue around the block, waiting for the doors to open on the latest picture. Those doors may have closed to the public in 2006, the building due to be transformed into another office block, but the photographs will ensure its legacy is always shown.
http://www.urbexforums.com/showthread.php/14800-Odeon-Cinema-Renfield-St-Glasgow-24-3-11-%28Permission-Visit

Patrick Keiller on BFI Screenonline

A synopsis of the life and works of one time architect turned film-maker Patrick Keiller is available from the British Film Institute's Screenonline encyclopedia which enables researchers to digitally browse the collections of the BFI National Archive for film and television footage. It is possible to watch several clips from Keiller's topographical film collection, each of which shows the film-maker's preoccupation with the architecture and urban environment of the English landscape. His themes are politically militant, centering as they do around the Britain's capitalist culture and the architectural malaise that this has caused for the industrial homelands located in the North and the Midlands when compared to thriving urban developments. GSA library stock a couple of Keiller's feature length works: 'Robinson in Space' (1996) and 'Robinson  in Ruins' (2010) can both be found in the DVD collection at the Main Library, numbered 2045 and 2047 respectively.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/472615/

The Belly of an Architect

The Library has purchased a DVD of Peter Greenaway's 1987 film 'The Belly of an Architect'. American architect Stourley Kracklite, played by Brian Dennehy) arrives in Rome to supervise an exhibition dedicated to the architecture of Etienne-Louis Boullee, following which his life enters a downward spiral. The DVD (no. 1844 in the Library's collection) is available for loan.