I have a weird kind of love for the Regal Hollywood 27 movie theater in the Berry Hill section of town. And it has nothing to do with the quality of the sound there or the butter they squirt on their popcorn.
As far as I know, the Regal is the only building in town designed in the mode of the Memphis Group - the 1980s Italian art movement, not a pickup band in the famous river city 200 miles to our southwest.
The building has all the hallmarks of Memphisian design: it's very graphic, colorful, symmetrical and cheery (the Memphis Group was reacting to decades of what they saw as soulless Modern design.
The name came from - of all things - a Bob Dylan song. Check out this excerpt from the Design Museum:
Originally dubbed The New Design, the project was rechristened Memphis after the Bob Dylan lyric "Stuck Inside of Mobile (With the Memphis Blues Again)" stuck repeatedly at "Memphis Blues Again" on (Milan furniture designer Ettore) Sottsass’ record player. "Sottsass said: ‘Okay, let’s call it Memphis," wrote Radice, "and everyone thought it was a great name: Blues, Tennessee, rock’n’roll, American suburbs, and then Egypt, the Pharoahs’ capital, the holy city of the god, Ptah."
Well, I guess Dylan gave us Nashville Skyline; it's the least he could do for Memphis, right?
I snapped these pics the other night, when my sister Millie and I went to see The Hangover, which is kinda awesome. I love Ed Helms.
No comments:
Post a Comment