Pictures of Harrogate

The Harrogate Odeon is a striking modernist building that was first built back in 1936 by an architect named Weedon. The Weedon Partnership became involved with the Odeon chain in 1934 and were responsible for designing a number of the odeon buildings across the country, using his distinct streamlined modernist style.

As someone whose grown up in Harrogate i love the concept that our Odeon Cinema is still standing and functioning as a popular cinema and has a history behind it.

The Odeon has a quintessential design involving a curved entrance, which today has the illuminated odeon sign across it and the film titles they are currently showing, a tall bricked fin with with the word cinema spelt out at the top of it, a brick faced auditorium and is finished with faience tiles, which is a non-clay ceramic material, same material you often see down in the London tube stations.

Harrogate Odeon built in 1936

Harrogate Odeon as it stands today

Typically each Odeon Cinema was built different to the next so each cinema was unique, but interestingly two Odeon Cinemas were built to be almost identical, the odeon in Sutton Coldfield (now renamed Empire) and the Harrogate Odeon, this design is also one of Weedon's most successful for the Odeon chain. The Odeon Cinema in Sutton Coldfield was built a few short months before the Harrogate version, both these buildings are still used as Odeon Cinemas today with the Harrogate Odeon being a grade II listed building.

Unfortunately a lot of the odeon buildings have been demolished or are unused, but the ones that remain are exquisite examples of British modernist architecture.