The Cinerama Dome under construction in 1963.
If you’re not into film, and if you don’t care about Hollywood history, you might be mystified by the uproar. So let me offer a little background….
Cinerama was a process that revolutionized the production and exhibition of films back in the early fifties. Three strips of film were projected in perfect synchronization to create the illusion of a continuous widescreen image, accompanied by stereophonic sound playback. The image was shown on a huge curved screen to produce an early version of what we now call immersive entertainment.
In the early sixties, Cinerama, Inc. unveiled an ambitious plan to create hundreds of Cinerama theatres based on a radical new model. They would construct geodesic domes using prefabricated panels, which would supposedly allow them to build a theatre in half the time and for half the cost of using conventional methods. They purchased a site on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood and hired the firm of Welton Becket and Associates to design what would become the Cinerama Dome.
The premiere of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World at the Dome in 1963.
Becket’s company was one of the major architectural firms in the city at that time, and played a large part in setting the look and tone of mid-century Los Angeles. To my mind the Dome is something of a companion piece to one of their earlier signature creations, the Capitol Records Building, which is just a few blocks away on Vine. Together these two icons helped to define space age architecture.
Of the theatres that were constructed to show films in the Cinerama process, only a handful are left today. The Dome is a unique creation designed by one of the most important architectural firms in the city’s history. That’s why so many of us got so crazy when we saw the initial plans to renovate it. I will always be grateful to Pacific for listening to the community and preserving the Dome.
The two pictures above are from the Los Angeles Public Library photo archive. The first shows the dome under construction. It was taken by Howard D. Kelly in 1963. The second shows the premiere of the film that the Dome opened with, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It was also taken in 1963, but no photographer is credited. Below are some photos I took of the Dome and the area surrounding it back in 1998. Sorry that the quality isn’t better. They were taken with a disposable camera, and have faded over the years. A couple of photos were taken from Morningside Court, which used to go through to De Longpre, but was closed off with the construction of the Arclight parking structure.
February, Nineteen Ninety Nine
For weeks I’ve been meaning to write abut the latest on the Cinerama Dome. Here it is.
Apparently the people from Pacific Theaters sat down and talked with the preservation people, and the end result was Pacific gave up a lot of the changes they were going to make. As I recall, these are some of the things pacific agreed to.
The entrance will remain at the front of the theatre.
The layout of the seating will stay basically the same, though they will be putting new seats in.
They won’t alter the ceiling of the auditorium.
And —
They’ll keep the curved screen.
I’m actually really grateful to Pacific for giving in on all this stuff. I doubt they understand why the Dome is such a great piece of architecture, so from their point of view the preservationists are going crazy over nothing.
Of course, we still don’t know what the Dome is gonna look like when they’re through. But at this point I’m cautiously optimistic.
The front of the Cinerama Dome in 1998.
Screen walls and landscaping on the periphery of the Dome.
A shot from the parking lot, looking north to Sunset.
A shot of Morningside Court, looking toward Sunset.
Another shot of Morningside Court, this time looking in the opposite direction towards De Longpre.
This was taken from the parking lot behind the Dome, facing west. The site just across the street is where Amoeba now stands.
This shot was taken facing the opposite direction, now looking across the parking lot towards Morningside Court.
The Horizon and the Skyline 