The Odeon at Kingstanding, Birmingham, was a 1930s cinema in the Odeon chain. Though closed as a cinema in 1962, the building survives as a bingo hall, and is

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The cinema was constructed between 1935 and 1936 to a symmetrical, modernist,

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 ...

design by

Harry Weedon Harold William "Harry" Weedon (1887 – 17 June 1970) was a British architect. Although he designed a large number of buildings during a long career, he is best known for his role overseeing the Art Deco designs of the Odeon Cinemas for Oscar Deu ...

and

Cecil Clavering John Cecil Clavering Order of the British Empire, OBE (17 April 1910 – 6 October 2001) was an England, English architect, best known for his work designing Odeon Cinemas as part of Harry Weedon's architectural practice in the 1930s, and his lat ...

, the latter having joined the former's practice, as an assistant, in 1933. It was commissioned as an independent cinema, and was due to be called "The Beacon", after nearby

Barr Beacon Barr Beacon is a hill on the edge of Walsall, West Midlands, England, very near the border with Birmingham. It gives its name to nearby Great Barr (the Beacon borders the Pheasey area of Great Barr) and to the local secondary school Barr Beacon ...

, but

Oscar Deutsch Oscar Deutsch (12 August 1893 – 5 December 1941)Allen Eyles, ‘Deutsch, Oscar (1893–1941)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200accessed 29 April 2011/ref> was a British-Hungarian businessman. He was the fou ...

became involved, and the cinema opened as part of his Odeon chain on 22 July 1935. It was built to serve Kingstanding's new, 4,000-home working-class housing estate and had 968 seats in the stalls and 324 in the circle. The first film was '' The Lives of a Bengal Lancer'', starring

Gary Cooper Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, quiet screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, a ...

. The brick building occupies a wedge-shaped site between Kings Road and Kettlehouse Road, overlooking and facing Kingstanding Circle. The centre of the glazed cream and black tile ("''

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ad ...

''") frontage features three slender fins, also finished with faience, above a stepped brick parapet. Clavering, inspired by the

Lichtburg Lichtburg ("fortress of light" or "light castle") has been a popular name for cinemas in Germany. Those in Berlin, Essen and Düsseldorf have been particularly famous; the Lichtburg in Oberhausen is the site of the International Short Film Festi ...

cinema in Berlin, originally intended that these fins would be topped by a searchlight.Richard Gray, ''Cinemas in Britain: One Hundred Years of Cinema Architecture'', London: Lund Humphries, 1996, , p. 92: "The original idea was for a searchlight to be mounted on the fins which would scan the night sky, like at the Lichtburg in Berlin. This idea was dropped when Deutsch took over he cinema. The cinema closed on 1 December 1962, the final film being '' To Hell and Back'', starring Audie Murphy.

Bingo

The building was refurbished and opened as a Top Rank Bingo Club, subsequently becoming a Mecca Bingo Club, in which use it continues. It was given Grade-II listed status by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

just 44 years after its erection, on 10 October 1980. It has been described as "one of the best surviving examples of Odeon cinemas in Britain".

References

External links

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Pictures
in the

archives
Blog post with early photos

{{BirminghamBuildings Kingstanding Grade II listed buildings in Birmingham Cinemas in the West Midlands (county) Odeon Cinemas Theatres completed in 1935 Streamline Moderne architecture in the United Kingdom Grade II listed cinemas