An Art Deco picture palace that has stood the test of time

In partnership with City of Glasgow College, we are looking at some of the city’s outstanding buildings. This week, the Glasgow Film Theatre

THIS really is one of Glasgow’s Art Deco gems. When it opened in 1939, as the clouds of war gathered, The Cosmo was the largest dedicated art house cinema outside London. It attracted cineastes and discriminating audiences for its programme of international, speciality, repertory and arthouse films.

Now renamed the Glasgow Film Theatre, commonly known as the GFT, the Rose Street cinema is a wellloved part of Glasgow’s architectural heritage. The cinema’s thoughtful use of materials both internally and externally, and its modernist lines mark it out as something special.

The Cosmo ran from 1939 to

1974, showing the best of British, American and international films. It was then bought by the Scottish Film Council and renamed the Glasgow Film Theatre. The GFT became a listed building in 1988, and is an independent, not-for-profit, registered educational charity.

The GFT is situated on a corner site. The two streets which form the corner, slope away from the cinema. Despite the awkward plot, the cinema occupies the space well. Interestingly, the architects ignored the potential for a corner entrance, a common typology for cinemas, but placed its idiosyncratic entrance on Rose Street, making it visible from one of the busiest streets in Glasgow at the time, Sauchiehall Street.

It was designed by James McKissack and WJ Anderson. Their design for the Cosmo did not include windows and its spare geometry of austere brick volumes was said to have been influenced by the designs of Willem Marinus Dudok, a noted Dutch architect, whose design for

Hilversum Town Hall it resembles.

In addition to the plain brick walls, other architectural features added to the allure of The Cosmo.

Features such as a tower above and a canopy over the entrance, the brick masses, and a curving high-level structure which encloses and echoes the shape of the auditorium within, all exerted a powerful influence on Glasgow’s cinema-going public, who were already the most enthusiastic film-goers in the country, if not the world. The brick walls in Rose Street, although modernist, carry within them vertical openings which contain brick detailing and lighting, and evoke the spirit of Art Deco.

Further design details are represented by the materials used, the detailing in the Ayrshire brick, the faience (moulded ceramic tiles) and the Swedish black granite base. Considered European in style, these features provided an apposite facade for a cinema showing international films. Additionally, the dramatic realisation of the name Cosmo, above the entrance added to the excitement of the cinema, both in the experience and in the design.

Internally, the Cosmo, was as impressive in its décor and ornamentation as it was in its architecture. There was an elegant twin staircase and a double height lobby which added to the cosmopolitan nature of the interior. The international feel continued throughout the cinema, in details such as the use of walnut on the walls and in the Art Deco fittings and furniture. A globe was placed above the entrance to the stalls.

Much of the décor remains but the GFT has changed with the times, and the interior has been redeveloped to provide two more screens allowing it to offer more choice.

Although the main auditorium’s size has been reduced, the double height reception area and elegant twin staircases have gone, the spirit of the Cosmo lives on in the cherished design and in the work of the GFT.