End of the Road for the Old Rivoli Theater

I’m sad to say, that the Ancient Greece -inspired ceiling mural you see me looking at in the picture above is about to be demolished. 

My father and I recently visited an average-looking building in Berkeley. He’d read that it was scheduled to be closed and torn down, and he wanted to be sure I saw it before that happened. Then a humble 99¢ Only Store, it took a walk inside and a look at its ceiling to see what made it so special. Built in the 1920s, this building once housed the Rivoli Theater, which operated for thirty years before being converted to a series of pharmacies and discount stores that continued in business up until earlier this year.

At the time it was built, at the corner of San Pablo and University Avenues, the Rivoli Theater was at a major crossroads: it was a short trip up or down University Ave. to reach either the college (U.C. Berkeley) or the ferry to San Francisco (the Bay Bridge was still a decade from being built), and San Pablo Ave. was easily the area’s biggest north-south thoroughfare. Just a year after the Rivoli opened, San Pablo Ave. was included in the new coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway, and cars traveling on our country’s first transcontinental road drove right past the theater’s front door.

In its prime, the beautiful theater by architect Mark T. Jorgensen (I’ve been unable to identify any further designers who contributed to its ornamentation) was adorned with elaborate golden-age detail that took inspiration from Greek themes and subjects. One wall featured a gorgeous crest surrounded by detailed carvings of cupids, fish, gryphons, and lyres (a kind of instrument).

Above these was a painting of a Greek warrior astride his horse, raising his spear to strike another soldier below. This painting was done in shades of pink and white, giving it the appearance of a relief carving.

In the center of the ceiling, there was a lovely centerpiece covered with delicate carvings and bright paint. It was surrounded by a spiderweb pattern and eight small paintings that resembled Greek busts. Even the upper walls were decorated with a raised lattice covered with trumpeters and flowers.

After its conversion to a store, the ceiling decoration and a significant section of the seating were left in their original state, initially hidden above a suspended ceiling, and then – after removal of the second ceiling – visible to the public and covered with flyaway balloons. The exterior was still the traditional shape of a theater, though it had been painted over and was harder to see.

The artistry of the Rivoli has even helped inspired further art recently. French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, who specialize in documenting aesthetic urban decay, have included the Rivoli in their recent work focusing on abandoned and repurposed theaters (2005-21). They recently published a book of their photos from that project. One review of their theater imagery commented that the Rivoli “offer[ed] a fitting example of what Meffre called ‘the spectacle of modernity penetrating the baroque.’” and quoted Meffre further as saying, “The [shuttered theaters] that stayed unused the longest were above supermarkets or places that were actually functioning. It’s a kind of preservation by neglect.”

Unfortunately, ‘preservation by neglect’ for this beautiful ceiling has ended. The building is now closed to the public and scheduled for demolition to make room for a multistory housing complex. Its last day open to the public was November 18; the door has been barricaded, and a hand-written “PERMANENTLY Closed” sign is posted on its glass.

There are always tradeoffs when big projects go up. We DO need more housing. But I don’t like absolute dichotomies (“It’s either this or that!”) – I may discuss this in a future post about recent European protestors gluing themselves to famous artworks – and I wish this specific building would have been built around or modified to preserve its wonderful art. Or, if that wasn’t possible, I at least wish its artistic elements would be preserved and relocated, but it doesn’t seem likely (the staff didn’t know of any effort to do so when we asked, and the little discussion I’ve found about it online doesn’t suggest that arrangements have been made). Sadly, soon all we will have left of the beautiful theater embellishments will be memories and photographs.

There has been a lot of debate on the value of pastiche works, replicas, and other sorts of artistic appropriation. I tend to think of them at least as potential teaching tools, and I’ll be including some others in this blog going forward. I’m not trying to suggest that the Rivoli ceiling was irreplaceably amazing, nor that every work deserves the Abu Simbel relocation treatment.  But I had already been leaning toward starting this blog as outreach to encourage other art-minded teens, and wishing the Rivoli had been better known and viewed has given me a further nudge toward getting that underway.