The
Paramount Theatre in Oakland is one of the best, if not the best, Art Deco theatre I have ever been to. It was designed by Timothy Pflueger from the architectural firm J R Miller & T L Pflueger and opened on 16 December 1931 with the film
The False Madonna.
Theodore Bernardi, a designer working for Miller & Pflueger, was made responsible for the overall decoration of the theatre and a number of artists were brought on to work on different aspects of the theatre.
Gerald Fitzgerald drew the cartoons that were used to create the enormous mosaics of a male puppeteer and a female puppeteer on the facade of the building.
Each puppeteer controls a variety of animals and people is various activities.
There is an exotic dancer with a snake draped across her body and a man wrestling a bear ...
... a Japanese dancer and a sailor doing the hornpipe (don't quote me on that, the hornpipe is the only sailor's dance that I know) ...
... boxers ...
... and three woman portrayed playing tennis, a bather wrapped in a luxurious towel and as a golfer.
Next time I'll show the interior of this spectacular building.
References:
Paramount Theatre websiteArt Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger
, Therese Poletti
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