James McKissack — Cinema Architect

James McKissack was one of Scotland's most prolific cinema architects. McKissack’s designs, spread throughout Central Scotland, reflected every significant new trend in British cinema design, from the earliest cinemas of the Edwardian period, inserted into existing shop units, to the most glamorous ‘super cinemas’ of the late-1930s, and even include Scotland’s first specialist ‘art house’ cinema – the Cosmo [now GFT] in Glasgow. Notwithstanding having produced so vast and significant a body of work, the details of McKissack’s remarkable life have largely been forgotten by architectural history and the majority of his designs have long since been demolished.

By piecing together surviving fragments of information about his life and works, this article aims to tell the forgotten story of James McKissack – Cinema Architect.

The Early Works of John McKissack and Son

James McKissack was born in Glasgow in 1875, the son of John McKissack, a successful architect in the city. At that time McKissack Senior had recently formed a partnership with William G. Rowan and this was to continue 1890.

John McKissack, born in 1844, was noted for his church designs, in particular Girvan Parish Church, Clydebank United Free Church and another in Tarbert, Loch Fyne. Many other churches designed before 1890 are attributed to him, but were probably actually the work of his partner, Rowan. These include churches in Pollokshields, Paisley, Queen’s Park, Govanhill and Swinton Road, Glasgow. By 1890 when the partnership was dissolved, James McKissack was already working for his father as an apprentice, having joined the firm in 1889 at the age of 14. He was to continue in this role until John McKissack’s death in August 1915 at the age of 71.

Having commenced his career under his father’s tutelage, James McKissack would have spent a lot of time copying and working up his designs, for then, as now, drawing was a vital professional skill for the architects, designers and artists. Consequently, in 1890 the McKissack attended drawing classes at Glasgow School of Art. There, staff and students had a keen awareness of the need to educate first-rate designers for what was the ‘Second City of the British Empire’. Drawing at this time was instilled as a professional language requiring great precision on the part of the draftsman.  The following year McKissack attended the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College to study Architectural and Building Construction under Professor Gomlay A.R.I.B.A.

As McKissack Senior was a successful architect, he could afford to send his son to Europe to study and so in 1891 the young James McKissack travelled in Italy and France. As essential parts of an architect’s training included sketching details of architectural construction and classical façade composition, it can be assumed that McKissack filled many sketch books with studies of the buildings he saw. In 1900, at the age of 25, he commenced practice in Glasgow, in partnership with his father. He clearly had aptitude, but was also fortunate to be able to work in the family firm at such a young age.

The First Cinemas by James McKissack [Part 1]

In the 1911-12 period, McKissack designed his first cinema buildings, the Eglinton Electreum and La Scala in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. Cinema was still in its infancy, for it was less than 20 years since Louis and Auguste Lumiere had shown a paying audience their Cinematographe, which projected moving film onto a large screen; but was already commanding huge public attention. In designing these buildings he was taking the first steps towards a career in cinema architecture, which was to develop fully after World War One.

McKissack had a great interest in photography, which probably explains his interest in the cinema as a genre. This interest was probably encouraged by his father, whose obituary in 1915, described him as a well-known artist and photographer, in addition to his architectural endeavours.

In 1911, James McKissack was accepted as a member of the Royal Incorporation of British Architects.  At that time, he was also convenor of the photographic section of the Fine Art display at the Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art and Industry at Kelvingrove in Glasgow. In this role, he was assisted by Archibald Cochrane and Frank P. Moffat, who operated the Salon Cinema in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street.

It is said that he occasionally exhibited his own photographs on visits to mainland Europe and New York  and as a member of the Edinburgh Photographic Society (EPS), McKissack gave a lecture on ‘Rothenburg and other Bavarian Towns’ in 1912, where his architectural knowledge must have added a further dimension of interest for the audience.  Later, in 1916, it is recorded that he lectured to them on ‘Exhibition Pictures and how they were shown’. This interest in photography must have been sustained throughout his life, as in 1935, five years before his death, he was the Open Exhibition Judge for the E.P.S.

At this time many buildings were adapted for use as cinemas, rather than entirely new ones being built. This was not surprising given that, at that time, the cinema remained something of a fairground novelty; films spools were relatively short and silent (except for musical accompaniment), and so the cinema venue might have been expected to have had a lifespan no longer than a leased shop unit. Larger venues could be fashioned from churches, factories, music halls and even roller skating rinks; once that Edwardian pastime fell out of favour. Showmanship was all important, however, and one of the architect’s most important jobs was to design an entrance façade, which promised romance, mystery and escapism from the hard life many of the cinema’s patrons lived and worked in.

McKissack’s first cinema design was indeed a conversion of a shop unit, located beneath tenements in Glasgow’s populous Laurieston district. Its frontage certainly was eye-catching, it being in a debased version of, the then fashionable, Art Nouveau style. Glasgow, being a forward-looking industrial city, has always adapted to new design trends. Although Art Nouveau is nowadays most associated with such distinguished architects as Mackintosh and Burnet and their celebrated works, as a style, it was used equally to adorn such ephemeral premises as shop facades and public houses, many of which have since been lost.

The frontage of the Eglinton Electreum appears to have been vividly coloured with an ornate timber-framed arcade to give some shelter to those waiting outside. The name sign above used a typically Art Nouveau font. Two circular windows on either side of the main entrance appear to be similar to those on Mackintosh’s country houses. Could it be that McKissack was inspired by his work? Certainly, he was acquainted with Miss Catherine Cranston, the Glasgow tearoom owner and hotelier, for whom Mackintosh designed several premises.

The Eglinton Electreum’s interior consisted of a small entrance hallway under the front third of the tenement block with a staircase descending to the rear. The auditorium filled the remainder of the space and extended into the back green. This steel framed structure was two storeys high, but with only a single level of seats on a gently raked floor. The seating consisted of wooden forms in the front section with leather-upholstered tip-ups behind. The Eglinton Electreum was one of a number of cinemas in Edwardian Glasgow built in this manner and occupying the back courts of tenements.

Cinemas in these locations not only robbed the occupants of the surrounding tenements of their drying and playing areas but also blocked out daylight and prevented fresh air from entering into their homes. Nevertheless, permission was usually granted for their construction by local authorities as cinemas offered cheap local entertainment for poorer citizens and provided a warm sheltered place away from the cramped conditions of many homes. They kept some out of pubs and others out of trouble. Perhaps these considerations were felt to outweigh any possible nuisance factors for their neighbours.

The First Cinemas by James McKissack [Part 2]

The next cinema in which McKissack was involved was both more substantial and salubrious – indeed it was an early example of a city centre ‘picture palace’, complete with an orchestra, tearooms and luxurious appointments. Opened in 1912, La Scala was located in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, a bustling and fashionable thoroughfare containing some of the city’s finest department stores, theatres, several pre-existing cinemas and Hengler’s Circus, an indoor circus amphitheatre. Thus, the street was at the heart of the Glasgow entertainment scene and almost every tram service was routed through it. Almost directly opposite La Scala stood The Picture House – Scotland’s first true ‘picture palace’, opened in 1910.

La Scala was converted from a large shop and warehouse retailing music and musical instruments (which explains the excess of windows in its sandstone frontage). The rebuilding involved something of a ‘façade retention’ many decades before such tactics became commonplace and this was probably to save money, rather than for any more selfish reasons (like building conservation). On this project, McKissack worked alongside another Glasgow architect who had found a niche in cinema design work, Neil C. Duff of Duff and Cairns. As with McKissack’s firm Duff’s had previously specialised in churches, but went on to design cinemas almost exclusively.

Incidentally, Duff had only recently designed a smaller cinema for the same owners as La Scala, Glasgow Photo Playhouse Ltd. This was the Regent (opened in 1911) in the city’s Renfield Street.

The architects inserted a relatively narrow entrance to La Scala between shop units (a frequent ploy in such city centre locations either to make extra money through leasing out the shops or to lessen the cinema’s rateable value by using less expensive street frontage space). Even so, advertisement was required to tell passers by that this was a venue of luxury, taste, refinement and, above all, respectability. Thus, the entrance portico consisted of mahogany doors, flanked by ivory-painted cast iron composite columns with enriched shafts featuring strap-work in low relief. Above, there was an arch containing a leaded glass window and the whole ensemble was brightly illuminated by white electric bulbs. Signage was also important and so the cinema’s name was spelled out both horizontally across the façade and vertically by means of a protruding sign, thus enabling the cinema to be pinpointed from up and down Sauchiehall Street, amid the maelstrom of tramcars, traffic and pedestrians.

The design incorporated a large entrance hall with a carved wooden pay- box; from this a warren of passageways and staircases took the patrons to the auditorium, much like many theatre designs, which still exist today such as HMS Theatre, Aberdeen. The auditorium was rectangular and airy, with a balcony, with side- slips, suspended on columns, which must have spoiled the view of the screen for those in the rear stalls.

The building was, of course, a compromise and there may have been a limit to how large a span could have been accommodated in an existing structure. Even so, The Glasgow Herald of 18 October 1912, recording the opening, noted the otherwise excellent appointments:


It was thought romantic to take high tea while watching a film, and the tea rooms with their shaded lighting soon became popular with courting couples. As Scottish Country Life noted in 1928, this feature became the outstanding attraction of La Scala:


Cinemas such as La Scala aimed to attract an upmarket audience from Glasgow’s more salubrious areas – patrons who would never have considered visiting premises such as the Eglinton Electreum, but rather whose points of reference for design values appropriate to an entertainment venue would have been a theatre or concert hall. Comfort was of great importance, as was cleanliness and a high quality of furnishings and decoration.

Little survives to show how La Scala’s interior originally looked as the building was totally reconstructed and enlarged in 1936 to a design by Alister G. MacDonald (the son of the Labour prime minister). The original decoration, however, was by Guthrie and Wells, a fashionable Glasgow firm that also decorated Cranston’s premises in Renfield Street (within a shell by James Miller). La Scala survived [after a tripling] until mid-1984 and the Glasgow branch of Waterstone’s has replaced it, behind the same Victorian façade, which of course pre-dates the cinema.

McKissack’s next cinema was an entirely new building – the Silver Cinema in Nicholson Square in Edinburgh. Although little evidence has been found about this venue, The Last Picture Showsby Brendan Thomas records that it too was rather upmarket and seemingly aimed to attract ‘posh Southsiders.’ Its façade was symmetrical and of Craigleith stone. On either side of the arched entranceway, there was a bell tower. One year after first opening, the cinema was re-named the Lyric and continued as such until its closure. Plans were lodged, however, in 1934 for a proposed rebuilding and enlargement, but these were never carried out. It is not clear what architect was involved in this abortive scheme.

In 1916, McKissack was employed by Miss Catherine Cranston, the doyenne of Glasgow tea room owners, to act as ‘ Film Advisor’ to her new cinema venture in Renfield Street. The cinema was part of an entertainment complex called Cranston’s De Luxe which contained several tea rooms, a restaurant, billiard rooms and a cinema, all within a beaux arts style block faced in white faience tiling and designed by James Miller. McKissack must, therefore, have been rather a well – known film enthusiast for her firm to rely on his selections, as she promoted an upmarket image for this her only cinema using the slogans ‘Cranston’s Programmes are Always the Best’ and ‘Cranston’s Pictures are First Run Glasgow.’

A person with a wide range of talents, or interests can be described as a renaissance man, a description which certainly seems appropriate when applied to James McKissack. It would seem, however, that his chief interest was cinema, and he was to channel much effort into designing buildings, which would in different ways attempt enhance the film-going experience for the public.

The Search for Style: Cinemas of the 1920s [Part 1]

While the British had been fighting the First World War, the Americans had been perfecting the art of making movies. Hollywood now had the biggest stars, the most exciting stories and seemingly limitless finance and expertise. To show off their latest epics, the major studios built chains of luxury cinemas throughout America and beyond. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, then considered the most glamorous studio, was able to boast ‘More Stars Than Are In The Universe’ and proved its status with palatial architecture. B. Marcus Priteca, a Glaswegian who emigrated to the United States, designed some of its most innovative West Coast movie theatres – such as the San Francisco Pantages (1911) and the Seattle Coliseum (1916). Priteca went on to design a series of opulent theatres for the Pantages circuit, culminating with the stunning Hollywood Pantages (1930).

Thomas Lamb, another Scots émigré from Dundee, became MGM’s chief architect, producing well over a hundred movie palaces, usually in flamboyant French baroque style, all over the USA. In London, he designed MGM’s showcase Empire in Leicester Square, which opened in November 1928 on the site of an old music hall. Not surprisingly, British architects who became involved in cinema design in the latter 1920s copied American precedents. Some architects even visited there to study the latest examples.

In Scotland, John Fairweather was to design the largest new picture palaces – each one obviously influenced by American practice. After his earlier visits to New York, McKissack would have been very aware of the kind of glamorous imagery associated with the Hollywood scene, skyscrapers and ocean liners (some of which were, after all, built on the Clyde).

During the war, the cinema had become well established as a favourite entertainment for many urban Scots. Thus, cinema buildings, both entirely new and converted from existing premises, were established throughout the country. No cinemas were built during the war as materials and effort were expended on achieving victory, rather than on satisfying the increasing market for entertainment – indeed all so-called ‘luxury buildings’ were banned until 1921.
                         
The First World War proved difficult for the cinema and many existing cinemas were forced to close. A shortage of staff and musicians (due to conscription) and similarly a short supply of new films (due to the Atlantic Blockade) are obvious reasons. A third was the introduction of an Amusement Tax in May 1916   – no doubt to raise money for the War Effort – meant that cheaper tickets disappeared.

Even so, McKissack did design The Picture House in Cowdenbeath, which was completed in 1919; probably because coal was vital to the success of the war effort and thus construction of entertainment facilities for miners’ welfare may have been acceptable in that context. Cowdenbeath was, of course, at the heart of the Fife Coal Field. Not surprisingly, this cinema was something of an ‘austerity’ design, it being a rather pedestrian hall of brick over steel frames, clad externally in harling and with rusticated cement stucco on its façade.

Within, it had a balcony with the small entrance hall below, whilst the auditorium was largely unadorned, except for the proscenium arch which had egg and dart mouldings, and fibrous pilasters on the sidewalls, expressing the positioning of the main structural members. The ceiling was barrel-vaulted, being formed of plasterboard attached to the inside of the roof trusses – common practice in cinema outfitting at that time.

La Scala in Hamilton, which opened in 1921, was rather more invigorating than The Picture House in Cowdenbeath. Indeed, in some ways, it looked back to Edwardian design practice, albeit on a more substantial scale. Its façade, for instance, was capped on either side by bell towers, similar to those on the pre-war Silver Cinema in Edinburgh. Furthermore, the entrance doors were flanked by cast iron columns identical to the ones found at La Scala in Glasgow. Otherwise, the entrance portico was finished in blocks of moulded white faience – ideal in grimy industrial conditions - and the remainder of the steel-framed structure was clad in red facing brick. It looked prosperous and even had a certain civic dignity.

The interior of this cinema reflected the long and relatively narrow fue  upon which it was built. It only had a very shallow entrance hall with stairs on either side to the balcony. This faced the screen squarely (there was no need for a curve to improve the sightlines due to the great depth of the auditorium relative to its width). Decoratively, it was largely unadorned, save for pilasters on the sidewalls and other details similar to Cowdenbeath. Once again, expenditure was focused on the proscenium arch and this one had a plaster cartouche, surrounded by scrolls and foliage.

Thereafter, cinema building again slumped for a few years. One probable cause was the increasing popularity of another new entertainment – radio - which reduced cinema attendance. Nevertheless, a number of existing cinemas in prominent locations were very successful and some were enlarged to maximise their potential.

The Search for Style: Cinemas of the 1920s [Part 2]

One such project was the Caley cinema, opposite the Caledonian Railway’s Princes Street Station and Caledonian Hotel, at the foot of Edinburgh’s Lothian Road (1923). This had a Renaissance-style façade of Craigleith stone and was entered through a Venetian arch. The local architects James S. Richardson and John R. McKay had designed it for a syndicate headed by the Edinburgh businessmen Robert McLaughlin and Captain W.M Cameron. Within, it initially seated 900 in a lofty auditorium the style of which reflected the exterior.

Such was its good reputation that after only four years, it was closed for a major reconstruction supervised by McKissack. Property was acquired behind shop units to the left of the Caley, and so its direction was changed to run parallel to the rear of these.

The existing auditorium was incorporated to form the back section of the new one, which could accommodate 1,800 and which was also heightened with a mansard roof. Such radical rebuilding works were not uncommon and time was of the essence for each day of closure lost the owners money, so specialist cinema architects, such as McKissack, building contractors and decorators became highly skilled at planning construction work to cause a minimum of disruption. Cinema owners often insisted upon penalty clauses to recoup losses suffered by delays, but contractors were usually very careful to guard their reputations in what was a lucrative and close-knit business. Evidently McLaughlin and Cameron were well pleased with McKissack’s work on the Caley for he went on to design a whole series of suburban cinemas for their firm during the 1930s.

In Glasgow, meanwhile, McKissack was employed by George Smith and James Welsh to design a new cinema at Cathcart on the city’s South Side. Both Smith and Welsh were staunch Labourites - indeed George Smith was the Corporation’s housing convenor and he believed that cinemas were important social amenities, which greatly enhanced such new housing developments. Smith was also an entrepreneurial businessman and a cinema pioneer. He had first organised cinema shows in 1910 in Corporation-owned halls around the city.

For this project, McKissack abandoned his earlier neo-classical vocabulary in favour of a themed approach, no doubt influenced by the suddenly popular American influence of ‘atmospheric’ design. John Eberson, an American interior designer, was the greatest exponent of the style. Within, an ‘atmospheric’ cinema would attempt to create the illusion that the seated audience was in a wondrous courtyard, with internally-lit three-dimensional plaster buildings and foliage adorning the walls and a smooth blue plaster sky above, complete with projected cloud effects and twinkling stars. The almost exclusively American films shown within their fake plaster walls of such cinemas may frequently have been filmed in exotic locations, but they were silent and in black and white. The ‘atmospheric’ cinema brought the fantasy world of the movies alive in three-dimensional colour and the exciting architecture became a part of the film-going experience.

The Kingsway opened in 1929. It had a long, gently curving facade in a fairly convincing Spanish American style, yet when it came to the interior, McKissack appears to have run out either of inspiration or of money for it was rather plain, albeit with Spanish-inspired details such as the door architraves.


The advent of ‘talkies’ in 1928 gave the industry new impetus and, thereafter, it expanded rapidly. Technically, films with added sound were not a new idea as in 1907 a film of the variety star Harry Lauder with a synchronised sound track on a record had been shown at the Hippodrome Theatre in London’s Charing Cross Road. Warner Brothers used their Vitaphone system to add sound to The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson (1927), which was released in Britain the following year, and The Singing Fool (1929).  ‘Talkies’ gave the cinema new potential and audiences grew bigger than ever. The advent of talking films in 1929 led to a vast expansion of interest in cinema and new buildings proliferated throughout the country.

Consequently, it was from 1927 until his death in 1940 that McKissack designed most of his cinemas. The majority were in Glasgow and its environs, although a few were built further afield, as far away as Stranraer, Dundee, Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh. In the 1920s, his output was rather varied as he, like so many other cinema architects, struggled to find a new and appropriate aesthetic for what was a fast-moving medium in every sense.

Scotland had a particular affinity with cinemas in the 1930s and Glasgow eventually had more per head of population than any other city in the world.  For a cinema proprietor, it was vital to attract clients to their particular premises, and so the frontage of the cinema was crucially important. This was not to be wondered at for the cinema’s architectural expression originated in the fairgrounds of the late-Victorian era and much of the carnival razzmatazz clung to it as it developed from show booth to city to suburb. Consequently, ‘facadism’ prevailed with vivid colours, ornate columns and canopies, advertisements and brightly tiled entrances attempting to emphasise the elegance, luxury and modernity of a venue to passers by.  At night, when most people were likely to attend, facades were enhanced by floodlighting and by strips of coloured neon. As cinemas tended to occupy prominent high street locations, surrounded by other buildings, their rear quarters were less visible. Thus, their vast auditoria, while ornate inside, outwardly were usually little more than an undecorated, windowless, brick clad sheds. There was desperation to find a new and appropriate look to distinguish cinemas properly from theatres and to signal their growing importance as venues of the fastest-growing and most progressive entertainment of the period.

The prominence and decorative eclecticism of cinemas certainly made them vulnerable to criticism and they incurred the wrath of pro-modernist critics, such as Philip Morton Shand, Maxwell Fry and others who were already looking to the recent German developments of the Bauhausler and the expressionists, such as Eric Mendelsohn, and demanding a purer architecture which would amply reflect and emphasise the modernity of the cinema medium. Shand, in particular was so incensed by what he considered the inability of British architects to follow the trends set by continental modernists that in 1930 he published a book, The Architecture of Pleasure: Modern Theatres and Cinemas to show how much better he felt contemporary German cinema design in particular was than its British counterpart:


While his chosen illustrations with hindsight show that he was a man of advanced taste, at the time it was perhaps too advanced for the majority of the British audience. However, Shand’s book demonstrates the influence of 1920s German cinemas on British buildings of the 1930s; as it contributes to architectural desire to improve such designs.
  
While Shand was clearly a man of advanced taste, it was perhaps too advanced for a popular audience in an industrial city such as Glasgow. While he advocated purity, a large cinema aiming to attract a ‘mainstream’ audience required to offer vivid colour and decoration, so as to transport its patrons away from the possibly harsh reality of life out with its walls. Thus, Art Deco and its derivative, the Jazz Moderne style became popular for many cinemas (and, indeed, cafes, bars and shops) in the early-1930s.

Art Deco and Jazz Moderne [Part 1]

The term Art Deco was derived from the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, although as a style, it pre-dated and outlived that exhibition. Stylistically, it ranged from such avant-garde exhibits as Melnikov’s Soviet Pavilion and Le Corbusier’s Pavillon De L’Esprit Nouveau to relatively conventional beaux arts-influenced designs. As its title makes clear, however, the exhibition gave prominence to the decorative arts and so the Art Deco tag came to describe a style mixing late-Art Nouveau with Colonial ‘jungle’ motifs and, later, imagery from popular culture.

Far from being a pallid imitation of something else, true Art Deco was a decorative subculture entirely unto itself. Art Deco buildings were distinguished by vigorous ornamentation - multi-layered recesses and exotic Egyptian, Mayan or ‘jazz’ imagery. They were decorated with etched glass, vitrolite, chrome, gilding and polychromatic tiles - and all the parts contributed towards to their visual climax - balconies, ironwork, lamps, graphics, windows, doors and parapets. The full-blown Art Deco style was relatively uncommon in Britain and was usually heavily diluted. In architecture, it was most popular in America, simultaneously taking on the sophisticated metropolitan look of such New York skyscrapers as the Chanin and Chrysler buildings and the tropical look of Miami Beach. Art Deco probably fed into British entertainment architecture as much through our attraction to American culture - especially the ‘screen deco’ of Hollywood movies – as through the direct influence of the Paris exhibition.

Jazz moderne was a mainly British and American derivative of Art Deco, inspired by the syncopated rhythms suggested by jazz music and the bright colours found in cubist painting, expressionism and De Stijl. It found brief popularity in commercial architecture and shop fitting during the late 1920s and early 1930s, but was much derided by ‘serious’ architectural commentators. While true Art Deco tended towards opulent excess, jazz moderne relied on cheap painted zigzag and wave patterns, bright clashing colours and ‘sunburst’ motifs. The style had a longer impact in home furnishings – rugs, carpets, upholstery, ceramics and the ubiquitous ‘sunburst’ suburban garden gate.

McKissack’s first commissions in these styles were for Robert McLaughlin’s Edinburgh Cinema Properties circuit (for whom he had converted the Caley cinema some years previously). Edinburgh was not an easy place for would-be cinema developers. Its city centre was already densely developed. The Old Town had few large enough sites to be worthwhile and the Georgian New Town was a ‘fait accompli’ , and so most projects in the 1930s served newly built suburbs, be they municipal or private developments. James McKissack designed a series of medium-sized super cinemas for various subsidiaries of Robert McLaughlin’s circuit to serve Edinburgh’s new peripheral housing estates. – such as the Carlton, Piershill.

He also designed the Raith in Kirkcaldy, Fife for the same owner. While the former two were of conventional appearance, an idiosyncratic cloud-shaped entrance portico distinguished the entrance to the Raith. McKissack gave a similar treatment to the Embassy in Troon, designed for another of his important clients, the Ayrshire-based K.R. Blair circuit (which also ran cinemas in Irvine, Beith and Girvan). Altogether, McKissack worked mainly for four cinema proprietors, located right across Central Scotland. His most important designs were for Glasgow-based circuits. That city had been in perpetual expansion since the Industrial Revolution and in the 1930s it increased further with new garden suburbs of bungalows for the middle classes and further municipal housing schemes to relieve inner city congestion. Glasgow was regarded by the film industry as ‘Cinema City’ and the CEA established that the average Glaswegian must have gone to the cinema a staggering fifty one times a year to achieve the attendance figures recorded in the late 1930s. This is remarkable as some people, particularly in prosperous areas, rarely if ever went to see a film, preferring the city’s many live theatres; the others simply went several times a week.

With 139 cinemas in business at the outbreak of the Second World War (Edinburgh had only 65) , Glasgow could boast more cinema seats per head of population than any other city in the country and these were evidently occupied more often than those in Manchester, the city with the next highest ratio.

In Glasgow, McKissack designed exclusively for the Smith and Welsh and Singleton circuits. Smith and Welsh, it will be remembered, were Labour councillors; Smith being the city’s Housing Convenor, and thus whenever a new municipal development was proposed in the 1930s, a cinema for Smith and Welsh to a McKissack design was sure to be included on a prominent site. Today, such an apparent conflict of interest might well cause political scandal but, equally, Smith and Welsh were ensuring that the occupants of Glasgow’s new housing schemes enjoyed the use of large and spacious cinemas, which were much-needed recreational amenities.


The Mecca in Possilpark, then thought to be a model of municipal housing design, was the first of these outer suburban schemes and was completed in 1932. It was unusual in that the auditorium was essentially an asbestos cement-clad ‘tent’ over steel frames, yet the façade to Balmore Road was, in contrast, a sturdy composition of red sandstone, faience and harling. It looked well when viewed square on, but its side elevation to Hawthorn Street was (and still is) messy and reveals the essential cheapness of its construction. 

None-the-less, internally the Mecca was colourfully decorated in ‘jazz moderne’ style with stained glass lights in the stairwells, robust terrazzo flooring in the hallways and an ornate proscenium arch and curtains, adorned with waves and zigzag motifs. Also dating from 1932, the lumpish Regal at Stranraer was truly an ugly intrusion into the townscape. This medium-sized provincial cinema was built for a local syndicate (which may have been working to an extremely tight budget) and it presented to the street a tall and rather poorly resolved expanse of harled brickwork, within which a small faience-clad entrance portico was buried.

Art Deco and Jazz Moderne [Part 2]

In appearance, the New Tivoli in Edinburgh (1934) followed a similar pattern, but appears to have been more generously financed as its equally lumpish façade to Gorgie Road was faced with red sandstone. The interior of this cinema (now a bingo hall) remains in excellent near-original condition, however, with acid-etched in ‘jazz moderne’ style in the door architraves and many other period details. As with the Mecca, the auditorium of this cinema was largely clad in asbestos cement panels, but this was buried from view behind a continuous street frontage.   McKissack’s other main client, George Singleton, was a man of advanced ideas. Describing his first purpose-built cinema, the Broadway in Shettleston, Singleton explained his own philosophy about cinema design:

The Broadway did indeed boast the prominent corner portico ordered by its owner; almost three storeys high, it was clad in stripes of blue and cream tiling. This, however, was rather dominated by the intrusive bulk of the auditorium looming behind. As to the interiors, which were largely unornamented: We never felt that ornate decoration would be needed because we always showed films in continuous performances and usually started them before the audience was allowed in, so they rarely saw the auditorium with the lights on. This trick also spared electricity and in that respect our cinemas were ahead of their time as simple interiors became standard practice for everyone later in the thirties…

McKissack went on to design further Singleton cinemas - the Commodore, Scotstoun (1933) and the Vogue cinemas in Rutherglen and Strathmartine Road, Dundee (both 1936). These were all similar in that they had freestanding tiled entrance porticos, flanged by shop units, with commodious entrance hallways. Their auditoria were located on vacant land some way to the rear (in the cases of Scotstoun and Dundee, these were at right angles to the street frontages). Intriguingly, and in complete contrast to the Mecca Possil, all three were solidly constructed with reinforced concrete frames containing brick infill. All appear to have had rather plain interiors, mixing neo-classical details with Art Deco motifs. As ever, McKissack tended to emphasise door architraves and proscenium arches with applied decoration as audiences in the semi-dark most readily noticed these features.

Commodore, Scotstoun

Vogue, Rutherglen

Vogue, Dundee

Also in Dundee was the Empire in Rosebank Street, a former music hall, purchased by George Singleton in 1927 and extensively modernised by McKissack in 1934. A completely new entrance was made possible by the demolition of some adjoining houses. This comprised a large yellow, cream and brown faience-clad portico with a neon-lit canopy; a large neon sign announcing the name of the theatre. The entire balcony was re-seated and the walls were decorated in a scheme of orange and brown and gold.

That September, Singleton sold his entire circuit to Oscar Deutsch’s expansive Odeon Empire, which was anxious to gain a Scottish foothold. Apart from the four modern super cinemas described above, the remainder of the Singleton circuit consisted of venerable halls – such as the Paragon in Glasgow’s Gorbals, converted from an abandoned church in the early days of cinema and subsequently little improved. Singleton later recalled that he only sent Deutsch photographs of his most recent cinemas and that Odeon paid well over the odds for the entire business, believing that all the cinemas were of a similar standard.  Scruffy as some were, they were all good earners and at least Odeon gained Scottish representation in towns as far apart as Hawick, Dundee and Coatbridge as a result.

Streamlining in the latter 1930s

A transitional style is seen in the Embassy (1936) in Shawlands on Glasgow’s South Side which retained the twin-towered look of the earlier Commodore and Dundee Vogue, but carried the façade detailing round the building’s side walls. This commodious 1,638-seat cinema was built for the Harry Winocour Circuit – one of Glasgow’s smaller cinema firms, but sold thereafter to Glasgow Photo Playhouse, the owner of La Scala.

Ironically, with the money he made from the Odeon deal, Singleton was able to build many more super cinemas. This later batch included some of McKissack’s finest designs and each attempted to incorporate the bulk of its auditorium into a single, coherent architectural statement.

Perhaps the effect of work by Mendelsohn in Germany and Frank Lloyd Wright in the United States was at last being felt in Scotland. If so, it most likely filtered through to architects such as McKissack via projects by Thomas Tait, Basil Spence and the group of architects later associated with Tait and the 1938 Empire Exhibition (Tait, of course, was the assessor of the De La Warr Pavilion competition). Moreover, McKissack would have been well aware of new developments in cinema architecture elsewhere in Britain – such as Dreamland in Margate (1934) by Leathart and Granger and the many fine cinemas designed by assistants of Harry Weedon for Odeon. These were published in a glossy and fulsomely-illustrated monthly magazine called Cinema and Theatre Construction, to which anybody involved in cinema design in the 1930s would surely have subscribed.

Thus, Singleton’s Vogue in Govan (1937) stood on a corner with a curving cream frontage in fluted tiles carried to full height and screening the mass of the auditorium, which was otherwise shielded from view by surrounding tenements. The Riddrie (1938) for Smith and Welsh was located in the municipal suburb of that name and developed the concept of differing volumes, arranged in proportion and building up to the centrally-placed name sign.

Vogue - Exterior

Vogue - Interior

Riddrie - Exterior

Riddrie - Interior

These were large cinemas with 2,500 and 1,750 seats respectively. Within, they had compact front-of-house spaces and spacious auditoria, the design of which emphasised the side exit doors and the proscenium arches. At Govan, the entire front section, ceiling, splay walls and curtain, was covered in silver paint and illuminated by a continuous lighting trough, whilst Riddrie featured closely-grouped columns with recessed decorative panels above the side exit doors. Each interior made effective use of concealed lighting.

New Design Directions: the Aldwych and Cosmo

The Aldwych in Cardonald (1938) for Smith and Welsh was rather more austere and abandoned streamlining altogether in favour of a savvier look rather closer in spirit to mainstream modernism. Essentially, it was a gigantic rendered box tied tight by a deep cornice of a size and proportion to comprehend the auditorium within. Alas, the Aldwych was something of a white elephant (in every sense) as its 2,500 seats were rather superfluous to Cardonald’s needs (it was already served by two existing cinemas).

Moreover, it was a middle-class outer suburb which was barred from showing the latest releases until they had already played in the city centre and inner suburbs. After the Second World War, residents in such areas were among the first to equip themselves with televisions.

Singleton acquired the Smith and Welsh cinemas in 1950 (the two firms had always co-operated closely) and all were re-named Vogue. The former-Aldwych was demolished for a supermarket in 1964.

James McKissack’s final cinema design was also his firm’s masterpiece. Opened in May 1939 as the city centre flagship of the Singleton circuit, the Cosmo was the largest and the only purpose built 'art house’ in Britain outside London's West End.
 

By then McKissack’s health was failing (he died in 1940), and so the Cosmo was actually drawn up by a younger assistant, W.J. Anderson. The idea for a continental cinema came from Charles Oakley, a polymath Devonian who lectured at Glasgow University. Oakley was devoted to the city. He was a founder member of the Glasgow Film Society (formed in 1929 and thus having a claim to being the world's first), which specialised in screening the foreign films to which he was so devoted. When 'talkies' came along the mainstream cinemas tended to show only English language films, pushing out even the high quality European ones. The Cosmo set out to put matters right. Moreover, while an independent cinema operator like Singleton could easily obtain sufficiently up-to-date British and American films to show in his big suburban cinemas, in the city centre, there was greater competition and the ‘first run’ cinemas belonging to Paramount, Gaumont and ABC showed the newest releases.

Thus, the Cosmo plugged a gap in the market where there was no direct competition. The name was derived from 'Cosmopolitan', a small cinema associated with Cambridge University, with which Oakley was familiar. Singleton, whose interest in the venture was more business like, insisted that a catchy five letter name was needed.

The Cosmo's geometric brown brick facade was clearly influenced by the Curzon, an upmarket art cinema in London built in 1934 designed by Francis Lorne of Burnet, Tait and Lorne – a highly respected Glasgow firm that also had a substantial London office. The Curzon was a building of elegant simplicity. Its neatly detailed brick frontage was partly the result of fierce opposition to a cinema opening in the heart of Mayfair and it had to be less than thirty-five feet.

The Curzon, in turn, was inspired by the work of Willem Dudok. As town architect of Hilversum in the Netherlands between 1920 and 1935, Dudok successfully solved the problem of creating visual integrity in large public buildings. His brick clad structures were conceived as series of massed cubic volumes playing off each other and were often topped by a central tower feature. His designs were obvious models for cinema architects. Built on an awkward sloping sight on Rose Street, near Sauchiehall Street, the Cosmo was similarly well proportioned. Clad in Ayrshire brick finished with faience cornices, detailed in cream and amber, and set on a base of black Swedish granite, the cinema’s facade was as much an expression of internationalism as its programmes. Since the planners insisted that the Cosmo be set back from the adjacent frontages an extravagant large canopy and sign were fitted to advertise its presence.

Inside, the international theme was continued with a globe over the stalls entrance in the two storey high foyer. The vestibule was panelled in walnut. Two suites of offices, including a directors' room, were provided. Following the maxim that audiences would expect and appreciate fine surroundings the streamlined auditorium had neutral and pink toned walls, which flowed in a series of subtle curves towards the proscenium. There were satin curtains and indirect lighting to create an air of ‘seductive sophistication’. 'Entertainment for the Discriminating' was its trademark.

In 1974 the Cosmo was bought by the Scottish Film Council to become the Glasgow Film Theatre. It was subdivided into a 404-seat cinema in the former balcony and a conference cum exhibition space in the stalls. In 1988, a 144-seat cinema replaced the conference room and later a bar (now known as Café Cosmo) was added. The Glasgow Film Theatre is now independently owned and makes a significant and unique contribution to the cultural life of Glasgow and  the West Coast of Scotland.

Conclusion

When McKissack died, on 24th June 1940, Britain was again at war and, by its end, society had changed radically. Even so, the cinema remained popular - for a time.

Whilst the aim of any architect is to design buildings that stand the test of time, also appealing to current fashion, they have also to recognise that unless these buildings are outstanding and exhibit strong, recognisable traits of the period in which they are built, most of them will eventually disappear. McKissack’s cinema designs, which so accurately reflected the popular modernity of the 1930s are no exception - indeed it is remarkable that any of them still exist today.

At the time of McKissack’s death in 1940, cinema was, perhaps, the most popular form of entertainment for the majority of people. For the generations who had grown up between World War 1 and World War 2 a visit to the cinema had been an escape from unemployment, poverty, bad housing and the general drabness of their existence. Cinemas were ‘a haven of comfort, where you could come in out of the cold, be entertained, have a sleep, have a cuddle, and four hours later be only a few pence worse off’.

Thus the colourful, decorated and illuminated fascias and the lavish interior designs were an important part of the cinema- going experience; but just as the admission price was cheap, the materials used to achieve the effects were also inexpensive and ephemeral and would inevitably become decay over time. 

The ephemeral nature of the materials used to build and decorate many cinema buildings, only intended to last for a fairly short period, meant that by the 1950s and 1960s, the buildings would have required extensive refurbishment which would not have been cost-effective, so it is hardly surprising that many were demolished, especially as they occupied land which had considerable value for other building projects. However some were to survive and their salvation was Bingo.

As Cinema declined as a popular entertainment, reform of gaming laws meant that bingo flourished, and is still popular today, although converted cinemas have largely been replaced by new premises. Of McKissack’s designs, the New Tivoli in Edinburgh, the Riddrie in Glasgow and the Vogue in Rutherglen are still bingo halls and in good condition. The La Scala in Hamilton and the Mecca in Possilpark in Glasgow are derelict and likely to be demolished.
[In 2006, the New Tivoli is currently derelict, the La Scala is due for demolition but the facade will be retained, and the Mecca has been turned into shops]

Today only one of McKissack’s designs is still a cinema. The Cosmo, now the Glasgow Film Theatre, is perhaps the finest work of his firm, and while substantially altered to accommodate two screens, it remains a well-constructed, dignified and comfortable haven in which to enjoy the magic of cinema.