Atelier Doazan Hirschberger

Zoetrope Cinema

Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie

Zoetrope Cinema

ADH

ARCHITECTS
ADH

LIGHT CONCEPTION
Pixelum

ACOUSTICS EXPERT
Altia

ARCHITECTS IN CHARGE
Benoîte Doazan, Elisabeth Salvado, Stéphane Hirschberger

SCENOGRAPHER
Architecture & Technique

SIGNAGE
Marc Rosensthiel

ECONOMIST
Ipi

PHOTOGRAPHS
Herve Abbadie

AREA
1100 m²

YEAR
2013

LOCATION
Blaye, France

CATEGORY
Cinema

Text description provided by architect.

The Zoetrope is Blaye’s newest cinema. It includes two rooms of 280 and 120 seats respectively, as well as a café open on the town’s main street. The cinema belongs to municipal authorities.

Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie
Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie

Visible in the style of 1930s and 1950s cinema, when such venues were a place of life and not of mere consumerism, its program reflect a public ambition: offer a welcoming and comfortable space, where people can spend a good time before and after their movie starts.

To exist in the city, this cinema must be recognizable, its architecture singular. It does not want to blend in, it wishes to dialogue with the city, to start a vivid and periodic cultural scene.

This project is a tribute to the history of film, to its mechanical debuts, a nod to the citadel at the foot of which it is installed.

Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie
Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie

This project is based on an analogy with the Zoetrope, a machine developed in the 19th century by William Horner, and consists of an image carrier cylinder rotating on an axis.

The geometry of the lobby is constructed from this figure. The name is also a tribute to Francis Ford Coppola and his production company, American Zoetrope.

Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie
Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie

Friendly and familiar, it is a space the people of Blaye can make their own, the way we do when certains places become part of our family.

The cylindre, recalling that of the Zoetrope, is the reception space of the cinema; it attends a gallery that leads to the projection rooms.

Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie
Zoetrope Cinema
© Herve Abbadie

It is constructed out of metal and The projection rooms are covered by micro-perforated metal plates. The images they depict are from Earwards’s Muybridge’s « Man ascending stairs ».


Zoetrope Cinema
Section 1
Zoetrope Cinema
Section 2


Zoetrope Cinema
Ground Floor Plan
Zoetrope Cinema
First Floor Plan

Atelier Doazan Hirschberger
T +33 5 56449254
Atelier Doazan Hirschberger
15 Rue Sansas, 33000 Bordeaux, France