Over our thirty years BFF have become one of the acknowledged leading architecture practices in the cinema and media sector. In June, Stefanie Fischer and John Burrell will be giving tours and lectures at some of our most popular cinema buildings. The events will be part of the RIBA's Love Architecture Festival 2012, which will involve a range of events across England and Wales to bring architecture alive through walks, talks, tours, exhibitions, films, children’s activities and more.
We have curated a gallery of our favourite images of the cinema published on Flickr.
Scala Cinema and Arts Centre, Prestatyn
On Wednesday 20 June Stefanie will be giving a lecture on the development of the Scala Cinema and Arts Centre in Prestatyn, hosted by the North Wales Society of Architects.
The Scala was opened in 2009, bringing access once more to film on a site with strong local memories of cinema-going and helping to revitalise the town centre in Prestatyn. In addition to a dedicated 150 seat cinema it provides a 150 seat multi-use auditorium suitable not only to cinema exhibition but also performing arts, dance and exercise classes, fairs and markets.
Cinema City, Norwich
Stefanie will run a tour of Cinema City in Norwich on Thursday 21 June, which will be followed by a talk by Jon Greenfield, the Chair of the Norfolk Association of Architects, and a screening of A Single Man.
In 2007, Cinema City, the Regional Film Theatre for Norwich and Norfolk, secured its future by redeveloping from a single-screen cinema to a three-screen venue. The cinema, Listed Grade I, occupies a converted medieval hall and an adjoining 1920s hall. Excavation created the space for additional screens below a main screen similar in size and capacity to the previous single screen. The refurbished café bar and restaurant is located in the medieval hall and its courtyard.
Click here for details of the Norwich event
Click here for details of the Norwich event
Exeter Picturehouse
On Friday 22 June, Stefanie will lead a tour of Exeter Picturehouse. This will be followed by a talk by Professor Robert Brown, Head of Architecture at the University of Plymouth, looking at the image of the architect in film, followed by a screening of the classic film The Fountainhead.
The two-screen cinema is housed in a converted 1950’s warehouse on the edge of the central conservation area in Exeter and on a prominent approach into the city centre and opened in 1997. The foyer and a café bar have been accommodated in a new extension, which animates the previously blank flank to the warehouse.
Harbour Lights, Southampton
John will run a tour of Harbour Lights in Southampton on Saturday 23 June, which will be followed by a talk on Southampton’s new Cultural Quarter and arts complex, and a screening of Inception.
Harbour Lights, is a landmark building in the former P&O docks, providing two auditoria for film and video exhibition and conferences, an exhibition space, a café bar and education facilities.
