Design and Style

Style Moderne. The Broadway was designed by Alister MacDonald in the style known today as Art Deco. During the style's heyday in the 1920s-1930s, it was most widely known as Art Moderne. Its streamlined, geometric shapes were
starkly different from Victorian design of the earlier 1900s. This made it the perfect match for the purpose-built, luxury super cinema.
We believe the name Broadway was chosen as a result of Alister's time in New York. The cinema's facade resembles a mini skyscraper! The three-storey tower, flanked by two-storey wings, was topped with a flagpole.
The Broadway's interior was also highly modern, with bright paint colours, luxurious wood panelling on the lower walls, and pink and gold carpets. There were touches of glitzy gold throughout, from the foyer walls to the tea room's pyramid-shaped cornicing. Exoticism - Camels and Pyramids. The auditorium is crowned by six iconic camel motifs on the ceiling's air vents - the favourite design feature of many today.
You might notice a repeating theme in the Broadway's design - gold, pyramids and camels (why camels?!)
Art Deco design was infused with exoticism - elements inspired by distant or ancient places and cultures, seen then as 'exotic' from the Western-world's perspective. The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 had created immense public interest in Ancient Egypt ('Tut-mania'!) including among designers and architects.

As well as creating a fashionable and modern space, these elements helped prepare Broadway audiences to be transported far from Main Street, ideally forgetting the wet weather and struggles of home.