“Cinémas Art Déco at Brussels”

From the end of the 1920s, cinemas were the meeting point between cinema and architecture, thanks to the advent of Art Deco. The needs of cinema operators in terms of volume, acoustics and decor for sound cinema, as well as the desire for comfort and prestige, were matched by the innovative construction techniques and aesthetics of Art Deco. The result is an architecture of dreams, inside and out.

Visitors will enter this magical world through written and visual evocations of the great ‘first exclusive’ city-centre cinemas of the period, such as the Plaza, the Métropole, the Eldorado, the Variétés and the Cinéma des Galeries.

Period images will resonate with contemporary photographs by Marie-Françoise Plissart taken for the book Cinémas de Bruxelles by Isabel Biver & Marie-Françoise Plissart (2020, CFC-Editions) and those by Joan Bracco.

This period can be seen and experienced through the voices and quotes of spectators, notably through the Cinémas de Bruxelles augmentés installation by Christian Châtel, Christl Lidl and Isabel Biver, where audiences will be able to immerse themselves in an immersive device to see and hear testimonies illustrating nine major Brussels cinemas.

Curator: Isabel Biver
Set design: Architecture particulière, Aurélie Ranalli
Graphics: MIx&Match, Juliette de Patoul

Around the exhibition

• Saturdays 8 February, 8 March & 12 April at 10am: Guided tours of Art Deco and cinemas: an Eldorado and an exhibition by curator Isabel Biver for Arkadia

• Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 March: Visit to the former Eldorado cinema & guided tours of the city centre Art Deco cinemas (outdoors) by curator Isabel Biver, for the Banad Festival
• Saturday 15 February, Wednesday 5 March, Saturday 19 April at 10 am & Tuesday 18 February at 3 pm: Guided tours of the exhibition by curator Isabel Biver, for the Brussels Art Deco Society
• Thursday 27 March at 7.45pm: special screening of The Great Gatsby (Jack Clayton, 1974), Grand Eldorado, UGC De Brouckère, original version with French subtitles.
• Saturdays 12 April & 19 April at 2.30pm: Family workshops Create your own film! by curator Isabel Biver. Booking: cinemapermanent@icloud.com
• Zaterdag 12 april om 10u30 : Rondleiling art deco en bioscopen: een Eldorado en een teentoostelling door Adi Chesson, filmhistoricus en gids, voor Korei
• Tuesday 22 April at 6.30pm: Cinémas Art Déco lecture by curator Isabel Biver, for the Brussels Art Déco Society.
• Sunday 27 April: Guided tour of the Fibrocit collection in Kortrijk by its director Benedict Geers, organised by the Brussels Art Deco Society

Visits in French (by the curator), Dutch and English on request: cinemapermanent@icloud.com

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Photo credits
1. Black and white interior: Cinéma Eldorado, Marcel Chabot, 1933 © CIVA Collections, Brussels
2. Façade: Ancien cinéma Métropole, 2020 © Marie-Françoise Plissart