cinema

Terraced four-bay two-storey former cinema, built 1921, now in use as retail outlet. Balustraded parapet with segmental-pediment. Ceramic tile cladding to walls with Ionic columns, pilasters, archivolts, imposts, keystones and entablature. Venetian windows to first floor with wrought-iron balconies and timber fixed windows. Fixed windows, glazed doors and name fascia, c. 1990, to ground floor.

This former cinema is an interesting example of early twentieth-century architecture and makes a positive contribution to the streetscape in Saint Patrick's Street. The unusual material cladding the walls enhances the architectural interest of the surviving façade. The neo-Classical devices such as the Venetian windows, Ionic pilasters and balustraded parapet, are offset by early twentieth-century detailing such as the wrought iron balconies. The off-central segmental pediment carries the scarred remains of lettering reading "PAVLION CINEMA". The cinema opened on the 10th March 1921 with a showing of “The Greatest Question” (1919) directed by D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) and off centre segmental pediment with stepped surround. The cinema boasted a seating capacity of 900 and its screen was framed within a proscenium measuring twenty-six feet wide. The cinema was the first in Cork to be equipped for sound and its first "talkie" premiered on the 5th August 1929. The cinema closed in August 1989 but its auditorium survives largely intact with a barrel vaulted ceiling showing decorative plasterwork enrichments.