The Arlington Theatre is the largest movie theater and principal

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...

venue in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

, United States. In addition to regular screenings and artists, it is home to many events associated with the annual

Santa Barbara International Film Festival The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) is an eleven-day film festival held in Santa Barbara, California since 1986. The festival boasts screenings of over 200 feature films and shorts from different countries and regions. SBIFF al ...

History

Located at 1317 State Street, the Arlington was built in 1931 on the former site of the Arlington Hotel, which was destroyed following the 1925 earthquake. The current structure was erected in 1930 as a showcase movie house for

Fox West Coast Theaters Fox Theatres was a large chain of movie theaters in the United States dating from the 1920s either built by Fox Film studio owner William Fox, or subsequently merged in 1929 by Fox with the West Coast Theatres chain, to form the Fox West ...

. It was restored and expanded in the mid-1970s by Metropolitan Theaters Corporation. It opened in its current incarnation in 1976.

Architecture

The Arlington was designed in the

Mission Revival The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century ...

and

Spanish Colonial Revival style The Spanish Colonial Revival Style ( es, Arquitectura neocolonial española) is an architectural stylistic movement arising in the early 20th century based on the Spanish Colonial architecture of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In the ...

s in a period when Santa Barbara was being rebuilt in that style following a powerful earthquake in 1925. It was designed by the Santa Barbara architectural firm of

Edwards and Plunkett Edwards and Plunkett was an American architectural firm active between 1925 and 1940 in Santa Barbara, California. It was founded by William Albert Edwards (1888–1976) and James Joseph Plunkett (1900–1946), who were among the most famous prac ...

, which was formed in 1925 by William A. Edwards and Joseph J. Plunkett and dissolved in 1940 when Edwards left to take a government job.Michael Redmon,
Architect Joseph J. Plunkett: Designed gems from the Arlington to the airport
, ''Santa Barbara Independent'', 2 March 2017. The exterior has a Mission Revival steeple that ends in an art deco finial. The red tiled building features a covered courtyard with fountain and a free-standing

ticket booth A box office or ticket office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket. By extension, the term is fr ...

. The interior is elaborately decorated. The ceilings of the lobbies are heavily beamed and painted. The auditorium itself seats 2,018 on the main floor and balcony. It is built to give theatergoers the impression that they are sitting outside in the plaza of a colonial Spanish town, each wall features houses, staircases, and balconies, not painted on but built out from the walls. The

proscenium A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

, in the original theater, was formed by what appeared to be a large stone arc, through which could be seen a river and hills (these were painted on the curtain.) Today, this effect is gone, and the proscenium is topped by the equipment necessary for lighting stage shows. The original ceiling remains to give patrons the impression that they are sitting outdoors under the stars. One of the Arlington's signature features is a Robert Morton

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

from the

Loew's Jersey Theatre The Loew's Jersey Theatre is a theater in Jersey City, New Jersey. Opened in 1929, it was one of the five Loew's Wonder Theatres, a series of flagship Loew's movie palaces in the New York City area. It was designed by the architectural firm of Rapp ...

that was installed in 1949. Hidden below the orchestra floor, the organ's console rises on a platform into view when played at a performance.

Notes

External links

The Arlington Theatre
- Venue Official Website
Santa Barbara Film Festival
- Main page features photo illustration of the Arlington marquee. {{Authority control Cinemas and movie theaters in California Tourist attractions in Santa Barbara, California Music venues in California Concert halls in California Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in California Mission Revival architecture in California Buildings and structures in Santa Barbara, California Event venues established in 1931