State Theatre, Movie theater in North Point, Hong Kong
The State Theatre is a former cinema at 277–291 King's Road in North Point, opened in 1952 as the Empire Theatre and renamed in 1959. Its roof is carried by a row of exposed parabolic reinforced-concrete trusses, often called "flying arches", that span the auditorium without internal columns. The corner entrance has a curved facade and a deep canopy, with a large bas-relief panel above.
Designed by architects George W. Grey and Liu Sun-fo, the cinema opened in December 1952 as the Empire Theatre, a 1,300-seat venue where impresario Harry Odell staged classical concerts and Western shows. It closed in 1957, was rebuilt with a residential block and shopping arcade, and reopened on 8 February 1959 as the State Theatre. It shut on 28 February 1997 with Jackie Chan's "Mr. Nice Guy" and was graded a Grade I historic building in 2017.
The theatre's name changed from Empire to State in 1959, and its ground-floor arcade housed shops such as the State Hair Salon and a record store. On 8 February 1959 it reopened with the Cantonese opera The Twin Dragons and the Phoenix Conquer the State, and in August 1970 Teresa Teng performed here with a Taiwanese troupe.
The former cinema stands at 279–291 King's Road, its curved corner entrance facing the junction. The ground-floor arcade of shops, including the preserved State Hair Salon, runs beneath the building; the rooftop trusses are not open to the public. The site is being redeveloped, so access is limited to the street-level arcade.
The rooftop trusses are often called "flying buttresses", but they are actually parabolic trusses that support the roof from above, leaving the auditorium column-free and suspending the projection booth to reduce vibration. Docomomo International called the exposed structure unique worldwide.
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