Movie Trailer. No, Trailer Movies. Never Mind.
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.15.07
We love transportable architecture and mobile design- why build a permanent structure for a temporary use? That is one reason container projects like the Freitag store are so interesting. It is not a new idea; Bookmobiles have been around forever, and evidently there used to be moviemobiles like the 1938 Trailer Theater from Modern Mecanix. No, it is not a theater where you watch trailers (though they give away so much of a movie these days, and we all have such short attention spans that such an idea might work) but a trailer where you watch movies.
"Traveling from town to town throughout the northwest, a trailer theater is bringing talking movies to communities lacking theaters of their own. This mobile movie house is fifty-five feet long and comfortably seats sixty persons in bus-style chairs, which are permanently fixed. A small stage over the front wheels permits vaudeville or lectures, and two projectors in a fireproof booth show up-to-date movies against a rolling screen. If power lines are not handy, the plant can furnish its own 110-volt current. Electric fans have been installed." ::Modern Mechanix
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- The Shop of (Design) Delight Pops Up
- What Credit Crunch? Two More Ecocity Projects from the Persian Gulf
- Emergency Response Studio by Paul Villinksi
- Stair of the Week: Clayton St House by Mork-Ulnes Design
When I first read this I though "WTF, a movie theater that needs diesel fuel and drives around? How green is that?"
But then, I realized that odds are people would drive into the city on their pickup trucks to see a movie.
Or they could just get netflix or on-demand. The jury is still out for me.
In my parent's village they get they get 1 film once a week in the village hall from the council's mobile cinema!
They can even take beer + wine in! I can't do that at the multiplex....
There is some social value in community activity over, say, streaming video at home, and unless you get 100 people commuting to the multiplex, there is economic and environmental value as well.
That said, I think the mobile movie theater is a poor solution to the question of "permanent structure for temporary use," first because I don't understand why a movie house is "temporary use," and second because multiuse spaces solve the problem with greater efficiency, comfort, and ease. If a movie theater is open from 3 PM to midnight, maybe it can double for other uses in the mornings. If you are talking about small towns or rural, sparcely populated areas, the town hall, community center, or church can be a movie theatre among its other thirty uses, right?
I worked on the design of a mobile cinema for use in the highlands of scotland about 10yrs ago.
The results you can see here:
http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/screen-machine-history.htm
or
http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/screen_machine2_gallery.html
It's all up and running and similar designs are used in rural france.
Nice post! You have said it very well. Keep going.
You are right, what was I thinking.