John Eberson (1875 – 1954) was an american designer who was known for his cinema décors. One of his earliest, the 1923 Majestic Theatre in Houston, Texas, was a loosely recreated garden of a late-Renaissance palazzo in Italy. Through his workshop Michelangelo Studios, he was was successful at producing elaborate plasterwork for his theatre décors in Spanish, Moorish, Dutch, Chinese and other styles.
Over the course of his 50-year career, he designed over 500 theatres. He earned the moniker “Father of Atmospheric Theatre.”
Biography
John Eberson was born in Bukovina, Romania in 1875 and studied at the University of Vienna in 1893 and immigrated to the United States in 1901.
“We visualise and dream magnificent amphitheater, an Italian Garden, a Persian Court, a Spanish patio, or an Egyptian templyard, all canopied by a soft moonlight sky.”
John Eberson
Eberson settled in St Louis Missouri, where he learned theater design while working for the Johnston Theatrical firm. Upon gaining knowledge of all facets of theatre building he moved to Hamilton, Ohio, in 1904, where he continued his architectural practice.
The Atmospheric Theatre
While he also planned conventional theatres, he was best known for the unique concept of atmospheric design. He provided theatre audiences with a romantic fantasy escape, an outrageously diverse architectural tradition. His work took on four basic atmospheric styles: Moorish, Persian Courtyards, Italian Gardens and Egyptian Temples.
While other designers hung elaborate chandeliers Eberson created simple Mediterranean blue evening skies with wispy clouds and twinkling lights simulating stars, which brought his design costs to 25% less than other builders of the day.
The Atmospheric Theatre – the experience
An atmospheric theatre recreated the sensation of being in an exotic outdoor setting, typically a Mediterranean courtyard or garden, with an azure sky overhead. The introduction of new technology in the form of the Brenograph projector resulted in wispy clouds drifting lazily across cerulean heavens, which were actually a domed plaster ceiling resembling that of a planterium. As the film began, the illusion of a sunset began, gradually deepening to a deep velvet mauve. Twinkling lights in constellation patterns became visible as the ceiling was revealed.
Eberson’s goal was to bring the outside in. His nine “P” motto was: Prepare Practical Plans for Pretty Playhouses – Please Patrons – Pay Profits.
With the 1923 opening of The Majestic in Houston, Texas, Eberson’s first atmospheric theatre came the demand for the more of the same. He built in many different parts of the United States as well as overseas. But, as quickly as the birth of the atmospheric theatre arrived, it departed. In just seven short years, with the arrival of the Great Depression came the death of the boom of Eberson’s atmospherics.
Sources
Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.
Naylor, D. (1981). American picture palaces: the architecture of fantasy. Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Williams, C. M., & Froehlich, D. E. (n.d.). In Contribution and Confusion: Architecture and the Influence of other Fields of Inquiry = 2003 ACSA International Conference. https://www.acsa-arch.org/proceedings/International%20Proceedings/ACSA.Intl.2003/ACSA.Intl.2003.80.pdf.
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Between 1939-42 and 1946-47, he studied at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, receiving a bachelor’s degree in design. In 1941 and 1949-51, he studied Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, receiving a master’s degree in ceramics. In 1945, he was a student at the Brighton School of Art, Brighton, under Nora Braden’s…
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Ray and Charles Eames a partnership
They were full collaborators as husband and wife. Design is infrequently a solitary endeavour, and husband-and-wife teams are not uncommon. The collaborative nature of the Eames work, on the other hand, was easily obscured by Charles’s widespread public recognition as an individual designer and thinker.Read More →
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John Eberson (1875 – 1954) American Designer famous for the atmospheric theatre
John Eberson was an american designer who was known for his cinema décors. One of his earliest, the 1923 Majestic Theatre in Houston, Texas, was a loosely recreated garden of a late-Renaissance palazzo in Italy. Through his workshop Michelangelo Studios, he was was successful at producing elaborate plasterwork for his theatre décors in Spanish, Moorish,…
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Emeco American Designer Furniture
Wilton C. Dinges founded the Electric Machine and Equipment Company (Emeco) in 1944 with $300 in savings and a used lathe for machine work. He started bidding on government manufacturing contracts out of a loft in Baltimore, Maryland, beginning with experimental antennas and jet engine parts. Read More →
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LaGardo Tackett (1911 – 1992) American Ceramicist
He ran a pottery studio from 1946 to 1954. He taught at Los Angeles’s California School of Design, where he and his students developed outdoor pottery planters, which resulted in establishing the Architectural Pottery in 1950.Read More →
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Arthur J. Pulos (1917- 1993) American industrial designer and educator
Arthur Pulos (1917 – 1993) was a well-known design teacher, promoter, and industrial designer. Arthur Pulos was renowned for his writings, lectures in developed and developing nations, and involvement with important organizations like the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID).Read More →
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Tucker Viemeister (b.1948) American Product Designer
Tucker Viemeister graduated from Yellow Springs High School in 1966, went to two different colleges. He ended up studying industrial design at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, from which he graduated with a degree in industrial design in 1974. Read More →
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Dakota Jackson (b.1950) American furniture designer
Dakota Jackson is an American furniture designer best known for his Dakota Jackson furniture line. He was a magician’s son, and by the time he was six, he became a professional magician. He performed in public until his early 20s.Read More →
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Thomas Molesworth (1890 – 1977) an American furniture designer
Molesworth ranch style furniture has inspired contemporary Western furniture designers such as Jim Covert, Jeff Morris and Marc Tagesger with its large brass pads, Native American motifs and wildfire imagery.Read More →
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Oliver Messel (1904 – 1978) British theatre, film and interior designer – Encyclopedia of Design
Oliver Messel was a British theatre, film, and interior designer who lived from 1904 to 1978. He worked professionally in London and Barbados. He attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He met Rex Whistler at the Slade, with whom he began making papier-maché masks.
Josef Pohl (1894 – 1975) Czech lighting designer – Encyclopedia of Design
Josef Pohl (1894 – 1975) was a Czech lighting designer. He designed the 1929 precursor of the adjustable lamp. Gerd Balzer produced his model. As part of its Kamden collection, Korting und Mathieson created a similar lamp. Pohl and others at the Bauhaus also executed the prototype adjustable wall lamp illustrated in Staaliches Bauhaus, Weimar and produced by Jucker.