With last week’s note on significant architectural interiors in Detroit – starting with the Peacock Room that used to occupy the Freer House – I thought I might do a series of short glimpses of other architectural interiors that contribute to making Detroit one of the preeminent collections of urban architectural eras and styles.

I thought I might continue with one of the most noteworthy, yet outrageous – the Fox Theater. Not so much the outside – although that’s way above average – but what’s beyond the façade:

Every major American city usually has a least one knock-out performance venue. Detroit, however, overflows with them: the Gem, the Fillmore, the Hillberry, Orchestra Hall, the Bonstelle, the Majestic, Music Hall, the Masonic Temple, the Opera House (another note), the Fisher (another note), the Redford (another note), and many more. But there is nothing like the Fox.

Designed as a movie palace by C. Howard Crane (who designed some 250 theaters across America) in the waning years of the Roaring Twenties, the Fox might well have been the lovechild of a bacchanal in a Hindu temple involving Liberace and the cast of the King and I.

One starts with the exuberance of the lobby, with soaring ceilings adorned with intricate plasterwork . . . showy marble floors and deeply colored carpeting . . . ornate chandeliers . . . even forbidding lions.

The auditorium is a theater architect’s fantasy.  Corinthian columns  . . .  a celestial mural complete with twinkling lights suggesting stars and a deep blue center oval . . . dramatic indirect lighting. And its acoustics – maybe because of all the crazy surfaces and angles – are exceptionally good.

Pictures don’t begin to do justice. Find an excuse to go, even if it’s to see a Beachboy tribute band.

Rip

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