Hauts-de-France
Interwar cinemas, theatres and function halls in Hauts-de-France
From Le Touquet to Lille, this route brings together seven entertainment and function halls built or rebuilt between 1925 and 1928. In Le Touquet, Louis Quételart’s former Normandy cinema combined a bar, a dance hall and an auditorium with 314 seats in the stalls; in Saint-Léger-lès-Domart, the function hall known as le Foyer bears a mosaic and sgraffito decoration showing three women in a landscape in the antique manner. The Salle des Feuillants in Soissons belongs to the town’s reconstruction after the First World War; in Maubeuge, Jean and Henri Lafitte built a function hall behind the façade of the former Jesuit chapel, and in Le Quesnoy, the former Palavicini barracks became an Italian-style theatre, inaugurated in 1929. The route ends in Valenciennes, at the Egyptian-influenced façade of the Palace cinema, rebuilt in 1927, and in Lille, at Marcel Cools’s Fives function hall, a 1,112-seat hall inaugurated in 1928, whose eclectic-inspired façade is tinged with Art Deco.
7 stops · Duration region-wide · Distance multi-villes
Cinéma Le Normandy, puis Le Select — Le Touquet-Paris-Plage
This cinema was built in 1927-1928 by the architect Louis Quételart on the site of the café-bar-restaurant, an annexe of the Hôtel Normandy designed by Auguste Bluysen, which had b
Salle des fêtes dite le Foyer — Saint-Léger-lès-Domart
After the First World War, the municipality planned a covered playground shelter next to the boys' school, which in the end became a free-standing festival hall, built on the edge
Salle des Feuillants
This meeting and performance hall was built between 1926 and 1928 as part of the reconstruction of Soissons after the First World War.
Salle Sthrau (ancienne chapelle du collège des Jésuites)
Of the former Jesuit chapel, built in 1620-1625 and destroyed during the First World War, only the façade remained; within it the town had a festival hall built, completed in 1927.
Théâtre des Trois Chênes (ancienne caserne Palavicini) — Le Quesnoy
Built around 1720, the barracks known as Palavicini were finally handed over to the town in 1921.
Ancien cinéma Le Palace (façade et hall)
A first cinema opened on this site in 1906 and was rebuilt in 1927, the date carried on the façade.
Salle des fêtes de Lille-Fives
In the 1920s the City of Lille bought the Barrois property in Fives and had a 1,112-seat festival hall built there by the Lille architect Marcel Cools.
Translated from the French original.