Granada Cinema, Movie theater in Woolwich, England.
Granada Cinema is a movie theater in Woolwich featuring a dark brown brick facade with five large windows beneath an awning and an advertising tower beside the entrance. The interior originally seated around 2,400 people and included a Wurlitzer organ for live performances during film screenings.
The cinema opened on April 20, 1937, debuting with screenings attended by actress Glenda Farrell and actor Claude Hulbert. It quickly became an important entertainment destination in Woolwich during the following decades.
The name draws from the Spanish city, reflecting 1930s cinema owners' taste for exotic place names and faraway destinations. The building's design choices echo this romantic fascination with international aesthetics.
Visiting allows you to explore 1930s cinema design with both modern and Gothic elements throughout the building. The structure retains its original character, giving you an authentic sense of how theaters from that era were built and decorated.
Russian set designer Theodore Komisarjevsky created Gothic-style interiors that contrast sharply with the modern Art Deco exterior designed by architects Cecil Masey and Reginald Uren. This unusual pairing makes the building a rare example of two opposing design styles coexisting within a single structure.
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