The Merced Theatre is located at 301 W. Main Street, at the corner of Main Street and Martin Luther King Way, in

Merced Merced (; Spanish for "Mercy") is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California, United States, in the San Joaquin Valley. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 86,333, up from 78,958 in 2010. Incorporated on April 1 ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. (29 pages, with maps and four photos) The theatre is significant both for its role as the social and cultural center of Merced from the Depression through the post World War II era and for its mix of

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

and

Spanish Colonial Revival architecture 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 th ...

. The property was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

(NRHP) on May 1, 2009 and the listing was announced as the featured listing in the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

's weekly list of June 5, 2009. Merced Theatre tower

The Golden State Theatre Company hired

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

architects the Reid Brothers to design the Merced Theatre. Another notable building they designed is the

Hotel del Coronado Hotel del Coronado, also known as The Del and Hotel Del, is a historic beachfront hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. A rare surviving example of an American architectural genre—the wooden ...

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

. They used what was at the time the most modern

projection Projection, projections or projective may refer to: Physics * Projection (physics), the action/process of light, heat, or sound reflecting from a surface to another in a different direction * The display of images by a projector Optics, graphic ...

and sound technology, and the theatre was only the second building in Merced to have an

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

system. Their use of dramatic atmospheric features included castle facades and ventilators that sent "clouds" floating across the star-bespeckled ceiling. Builder Gian Battista Pasqualetti used steel from the Golden Gate Iron Works, ornamental iron from the San Jose Iron Works, and ornamental tiles from the Hispano Maresque Tile Company in Los Angeles to construct the Reid Brothers design for the multi-level, white

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

coated steel framed

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

building. A high tower rises above the marquee, and the orange

neon Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...

block letters proclaiming MERCED can be seen for miles. The lobby includes a

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

of Spanish exploration done by Dutch-born artist Antoon Bonaventure Heinsbergen. Original furnishings include Spanish style wooden sofas and chairs. The theatre originally seated 1,645 for filmed and live performances. For a time the Merced Theatre was part of the

United Artist United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...

chain of theatres. In the early 1980s the theatre was divided into 4 sections cutting off the entire balcony section from the main theater and splitting both. Over time the theater has suffered some wear and tear, but received a full restoration near to its original single full stage and screen design and currently has a full season of touring shows and films.

References

External links

Merced Theatre
- official site {{National Register of Historic Places History of Merced County, California Buildings and structures in Merced, California Theatres in California San Joaquin Valley Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in California Theatres completed in 1931 Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in California Tourist attractions in Merced County, California Event venues established in 1931 National Register of Historic Places in Merced County, California Merced Theatre

See also

References

External links