Hollywood Egyptian Theater 5

PLANNED ADAPTATIONS AND REHABILITATION:

The Egyptian Theatre was built during the era of silent film; the current project will transform it into a state-of-the-art facility which meets the technical standards required to present both contemporary and rarely-screened historic film.

The conservation of an historic building always involves a certain amount of adaptation. The building is "zoned" into areas targeted for one of three treatments: restoration, rehabilitation, and preservation. Decisions as to which areas will receive which treatments are based upon several factors, including: 1) discrepancies between the needs of the new program and the current conditions; 2) the remaining historic integrity of each part of the building; that is, how much original fabric actually remains and its condition; 3) the historic importance of the space or element; 4) how much information is available, either in situ or through photographs or other documentation; and, of course, 5) the amount of funds available to restore or recreate historic features and finishes.

Generally speaking, the Egyptian has been zoned in the following way: Restoration of the forecourt, including the facade of the retail structure and of the giant columns and the portico they defined; preservation of the lobby surfaces and auditorium side walls and ceiling which remain intact; and rehabilitation of the retail structure and the main auditorium for their new uses technical needs, and configurations.


	Restoration - The purpose of the forecourt in the building's adaptation is the same as that which it served historically: an open space which would draw pedestrians off the boulevard, lead them to the ticket windows, and allow them to meet. Now that later additions have been removed, its form is quite like the way it appeared historically; the forecourt was also the most heavily documented area of the theater and that for which it was most known. For all of these reasons, the space is a good candidate to be returned to its historic appearance.





	At the Egyptian, restoration of the forecourt will involve the painted and paved surfaces, the colonnade of Egyptian-style columns which were removed when the portico was glassed in; the metal light fixtures; the ticket windows; and the storefronts of the retail structure. The most dramatic change has already been made, when months ago the 1940s marquee and box office, the canopy which had run down the center of the court, and an incongruous wishing well were removed. Denuded of later alterations, additions, and plants, and stripped of most later mural overpainting, the space has the solemn power of an excavated temple from which tacky 20th century settlements and intrusions have at last been removed. Originally, the atmosphere of the forecourt was created through the use of architecture, decorative painting, metalwork, and plantings. Beginning at the sidewalk, a blade sign reading "Egyptian" will replicate an early example and echo several other such large, vertical signs visible down the Boulevard. Spanning the threshold of the court will be a replication of an early marquee, an open steel framework on which letters in lights were mounted with the name of the film currently playing. This sign will permanently read "American Cinematheque."

The retail structure within the court hasn't been used or seen it its original form for many decades. The project team was, however, pleasantly surprised to find the last of the six storefronts intact. Of the five distinctive light fixtures which hung between the storefront bays, an example survives and will be replicated.

The treatment of the nonoriginal paving has yet to be decided, and the restoration plan for the forecourt's mural paintings is still in progress. Tatyana M. Thompson & Associates, Inc. tested paint removal techniques that would reveal the original paintings, including flaking later paint off with a scalpel, using solvents, emulsions and poultice systems, and removing layers with a heat gun. They encountered a variety of difficulties; for example, sometimes the bond between the overpaint and the original paint was stronger than the bond the original paint had to its original surface.

Two possible treatments have been proposed, involving several steps: First, the area would be photographed to record its condition. Nonoriginal paint would be removed, and surfaces with no remaining original material would be repaired and primed. A surface or isolating coating would be applied to protect the original areas and to differentiate them as an original layer. At this point, missing areas would be in-painted according to "excavated" portions of the original and historic photo documentation. Finally, a protective surface coat, the same formula as the isolating coat, would be applied over the finished product. A second variation is less difficult and expensive to execute than the preferred method just described. The variation is that the nonoriginal layers would not be completely removed, but already exposed original layers would be protected by a surface coating. The painting then would be fully recreated according to photo documentation and the results of selective excavation to determine the colors originally employed. The paints recommended for conservation and restoration overpainting or inpainting have special qualities of stability and reversibility.

The three original ticket windows within the portico will also be restored for regular use. Again, there is a large philosophical issue as to whether the remaining decorative-painted trim should be returned to its original appearance ("restoration") or if the original material should be left in place, stabilized, and left visible as an historic artifact ("preservation").


	Preservation - Moving into the lobby, one finds more of the same questions, particularly in the ceiling where the decorative painting survives in fragments. This approach typifies the preservation zones, which include the lobby and the auditorium side walls. The lobby is a relatively small space, located halfway between the street and the rear wall of the auditorium. The side walls of the auditorium were scored plaster "stonework." Around the auditorium, the special "boxes" still remain, providing the only ornamentation on the walls. These will be restored to their original use and appearance. The original plaster has been assaulted from the interior and the exterior of the building. Inside, acoustical tile had actually been glued to the walls in a rather inept and cheap attempt to improve the quality of sound in the auditorium. When removed, the tiles pulled off spots of plaster by which the glue had allowed them to cling to the wall. Aside from necessitating the very careful removal of many, many tiles, and leaving hundreds of 6"-8" spots to clean and refinish, this at least left most of the surface relatively intact, and it was never overpainted. According to painting conservators Tatyana M. Thompson & Associates, the effect of the auditorium's faux stonework was achieved through the artistic and intuitive layered application of seven different colors to recreate the natural variations of tone and color present in natural sandstone. The perforated, low-relief sunburst which reaches into the blue ground of the ceiling will become the chief historic decorative feature of the auditorium. Indeed, it is all that remains of the elaborate Egyptian style proscenium. The ceiling has not been overpainted, but its condition is mottled and discolored. The outside of the auditorium came in the form of crumbling hollow clay tile, which forms the infill within the building's reinforced concrete structural frame. If the plaster had been applied to a lath in direct contact with the hollow clay tile, it might have been impossible to remove the damaged tiles without destroying the decorative plaster treatment. Fortunately, however, the walls were a sandwich with an airspace in a key place. Two withes of hollow clay tile are plastered directly on the outside, and on the inside face they are separated from the plaster by a 3/4" airspace and a framework of iron to which the lath is attached and the plaster applied. Damaged hollow clay tile, then, can be removed without the plaster coming out with it. Hodgetts + Fung aptly characterized the extent of the building's structural problems when they wrote, "Extensive seismic damage to the original (1922) structure nearly finished off what the 1950s-era 'refurbishment' began: namely, the complete extinction of a Hollywood landmark...." As previously noted, the voluminous space is framed in reinforced concrete with hollow clay tile infill. One of these concrete tie beams was recently discovered to have been very badly damaged, but most damage occurred where the tile infill fell out, leaving giant holes in the building's side walls. Those hollow clay tile panels which are still intact will be stabilized, and those which must be removed will be replaced by new panels of a metal stud framework. In key places, the building will be further strengthened by the addition of shotcrete shear wall panels.








	Rehabilitation - The interior of the retail structure and most of the spaces forward of the lobby are slated for rehabilitation, meaning that new uses, and any new spaces needed to accommodate them, will be provided for within these areas of the building. In the 1940s, the Egyptian style colonnade was stripped down to the four structural steel piers and the portico was glassed in, clearly indicating that there was a need for more lobby space than was originally provided. The new scheme provides for a greatly enlarged lobby, but space for it will be taken from the area beneath the balcony rather than from the portico, which was originally such a distinctive and meaningful part of the building and an important termination to the forecourt. The east half of the below-balcony area, then, will be lobby space with a concession stand and access to the main auditorium and the screening room. The screening room, with about 70 seats, will occupy the west half of this "below balcony" space and will require some excavation. The main auditorium will undergo more adaptive changes than any other part of the facility. The auditorium is a space of great historic importance; however, its most distinctive feature, the elaborate proscenium, was removed almost three decades ago. While much of the auditorium's decorative plaster side walls survive, they cannot provide the amount of sound and light control which contemporary standards dictate. The challenge to the architects and to the projection, sound, and acoustics consultants was to preserve what remained of the auditorium's historic fabric while creating a state of the art theater. The ingenious plan the team has devised will, in essence, allow a contemporary theater to be placed within the historic plaster shell. Since there will no longer be main-auditorium seating in the "below-balcony" area, the bulk of the seating will be pushed forward in the auditorium, extending into the rectangular footprint of the former stage house at the south end (rear) of the auditorium. While a thirty-foot-deep stage (long ago removed) originally accommodated theatrical performances before the film, this will no longer be necessary for the purposes of American Cinematheque, leaving room to extend the seating forward. The "theater within a theater" consists of a large, metal armature which is attached to the floor and to the inner walls of the stagehouse, but does not come in contact with the decorative plaster side walls of the auditorium. A balcony will also be inserted into the box defined by the armature, and will be attached to the floor of the auditorium free from the rear and side walls. The armature allows contemporary systems to be installed without running conduits through the historic structure itself: HVAC, electrical, and mechanical systems, sound equipment, and acoustical material are all carried within the armature. A series of rectangular panels attached to this frame will be retracted at the front of the auditorium when the audience enters, leaving the original volume of the 1922 Egyptian style theater visible. As the house lights dim, the panels will mechanically slide into place along the frame to provide sound and acoustical control, enclosing the audience within a state-of-the-art envelope for the presentation. Hodgetts + Fung Design Associates is generally eager to involve other professionals in their projects who bring the best standard of their respective fields to the table. In this case, the client had formed a design team of experts in every field they needed to create a state-of-the-art, "technically perfect" facility, including projection and sound consultants Boston Light and Sound of Boston, Mass. and acoustics consultants McKay Conant Brook, Inc., of Westlake Village, Calif. While American Cinematheque will employ the Egyptian's new high-tech mantle for most presentations, in the course of rehabilitations they will also gain the capability to present silent film in the authentic manner with the reinstallation of a 1922 Wurlitzer organ from Pasadena's Crown Theatre.