John Eberson (1875 – 1954) American Designer famous for the atmospheric theatre

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.”

Majestic Theatre Houston Texas designed by John Eberson
Majestic Theatre Houston Texas designed by John Eberson

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.

Iris at Kalamazoo State Theatre
Iris at Kalamazoo State Theatre

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.

Anderson Paramount Theatre Indiania designed by John Eberson
Anderson Paramount Theatre Indiania designed by John Eberson

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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    One of the leading designers of the American design movement from the mid-20th centuryRead More →

  • Hilton McConnico (1943 – 2018) American interior and furniture designer

    Hilton McConnico (1943 – 2018) American interior and furniture designer

    Hilton McConnico ( 1943 – 2018) was American furniture and interior designer. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He worked professionally in Paris.Read More →

  • Dominick Labino (1910 – 1987) American glassware designer and ceramicist

    Dominick Labino (1910 – 1987) American glassware designer and ceramicist

    He began his work as an instrument builder for the Bacharach Instrument Company in Pittsburgh. He then moved on to Owens-Illinois Glass Company, where he developed a lifetime interest in glass. He established small laboratories to create new glass batches and fabricate small glass objects while in command of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company milk-bottle plant.…

  • Harvey Littleton (1922 – 2013) American glassware designer

    Harvey Littleton (1922 – 2013) American glassware designer

    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…

  • Ray and Charles Eames a partnership

    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 →

  • John Eberson (1875 – 1954) American Designer famous for the atmospheric theatre

    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,…

  • Emeco American Designer Furniture

    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 →

  • LaGardo Tackett (1911 – 1992) American Ceramicist

    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 →

  • Arthur J. Pulos (1917- 1993) American industrial designer and educator

    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 →

  • Tucker Viemeister (b.1948) American Product Designer

    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 →

  • Dakota Jackson (b.1950) American furniture designer

    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 →

  • Thomas Molesworth (1890 – 1977) an American furniture designer

    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 →

  • Ray Komai (1918 – 2010 ) American Graphic, Industrial and Interior Designer

    Ray Komai (1918 – 2010 ) American Graphic, Industrial and Interior Designer

    Ray Komai was a Japanese American; he was a graphic, industrial and interior designer. He studied in Los Angeles at the Art Center College. He settled in New York in 1944, where he worked in advertising and set up a graphic design and advertising office (with Carter Winter). J.G. Furniture created Komai’s 1949 moulded plywood…

  • Eugene Schoen (1880 – 1957) was an American architect and designer

    Eugene Schoen (1880 – 1957) was an American architect and designer

    He set up his architecture practice in New York in 1905 and, after visiting the 1925 Paris ‘Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes.’ He began offering interior design services. In 1931, he became a professor of interior architecture at New York University. He sold his own and imported textiles and furniture and Maurice…

  • Candace Wheeler (1827 – 1923) American textile and wallpaper designer

    Candace Wheeler (1827 – 1923) American textile and wallpaper designer

    THE MOTHER OF INTERIOR DESIGN She is noted for helping to open the field of interior design to women, supporting craftswomen, and for encouraging a new style of American design.Read More →

  • Richard Josef Neutra (1892 – 1970) Austrian American Architect & Designer

    Richard Josef Neutra (1892 – 1970) Austrian American Architect & Designer

    Richard Josef Neutra (1892 – 1970) was an Austrian American artist and designer. He was born in Vienna and lived in Los Angeles and southern California for much of his life.Read More →

  • Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848 – 1907) Irish American sculptor

    Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848 – 1907) Irish American sculptor

    Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848 – 1907) Irish American sculptorRead More →

  • Michael Graves (1934 – 2015) – American architect and industrial designer

    Michael Graves (1934 – 2015) – American architect and industrial designer

    Alessi Design Collection Michael Graves (1934 – 2015) was an architect and industrial designer from the United States. He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and lived and worked in Princeton, New Jersey. Read More →

  • Alexander Girard (1907 – 1993) American interior, & Textile designer

    Alexander Girard (1907 – 1993) American interior,  & Textile designer

    Alexander Girard (1907 – 1993) was a man of many design talents. He trained as an architect, and he practisedRead More →

  • Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976) American Designer & Artist

    Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976) American Designer & Artist

    He worked as an engineer in Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1919, and as a draftsperson and engineer in West Coast logging camps from 1919 to 23; from 1923 to 1930, he was active in New York, sketching for the National Police Gazette 1925—26; in 1926, he travelled to England and Paris, where he produced his…

  • Don Albinson (1921- 2008) – American furniture designer

    Don Albinson (1921- 2008) – American furniture designer

    The 1965 stacking Albinson chair produced by Knoll was similar to British Designer’s Robin Day trendy chair for Hille, although Albinson’s was more sophisticated. They stack, hook together side by side and comfortable to sit in. After Knoll he became a consultant designer to Westinghouse on office seating and furniture systems.Read More →

  • Winold Reiss (1886-1953) German artist and designer

    Winold Reiss (1886-1953) German artist and designer

    Influenced by the international modern art movements that had recently swept across Europe, he blended cubism, which used geometric shapes to create abstract images, and fauvism, which favoured the use of bold colours to suggest shapes, with interest in ethnography to create a unique style of portraiture that sought to reveal the subject more thoroughly…

  • Herb Lubalin (1918 – 1981) renowned graphic designer

    Herb Lubalin (1918 – 1981) renowned graphic designer

    Renowned American graphic designer, Herb Lubalin, best known for his collaborations with Ralph Ginzburg on the magazines Eros, Fact and  Avant Garde,  is regarded as one of the seminal designers of the 20th century. The, 17 March 2018, will mark what would have been Lubalin’s 100th birthday.Read More →

  • Ray Eames an American Designer

    Ray Eames an American Designer

    Ray Eames (b. Bernice Alexandra Kaiser 1912-88) was an American designer. She was born in Sacramento, California. She was the wife of Charles Eames. Read More →

  • Milton Glaser (1929 – 2020) American Graphic Designer

    Milton Glaser (1929 – 2020) American Graphic Designer

    Co-founder of Push Tin Studios. The colourful posters of designer-illustrator Milton Glaser epitomise an era for the Woodstock generation. His psychedelic ‘American Sixties style’ was a synthesis of various influences ranging from Surrealism to Islamic painting.Read More →

  • Mainbocher (1890 – 1976) – Simplicity without Boredom

    Mainbocher (1890 – 1976) – Simplicity without Boredom

    When designing his 1945 spring collection, Mainbocher – the noted French designer who worked in New York after the fall of Paris in WWII. Declared that he had attempted more than ever to make clothes “that would embody the right amount of novelty, were stimulating for today,Read More →

  • Albert Frey (1903 – 1998) and Desert Modernism

    Albert Frey (1903 – 1998) and Desert Modernism

    Frey was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and obtained his architecture diploma from the Winterthur Institute of Technology in 1924. Frey got technical training in traditional building construction rather than design education in the then-popular Beaux-Arts style. Frey worked in construction during his school vacations and apprenticed with architect A. J. Arter in Zurich before getting…

  • Samuel Yellin (1885 – 1940) Polish American Blacksmith

    Samuel Yellin (1885 – 1940) Polish American Blacksmith

    Samuel Yellin was born in the Russian Empire in 1884 to a Jewish family in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Ukraine. He was apprenticed to a master ironsmith when he was eleven years old. He finished his apprenticeship at the age of sixteen in 1900. He left Ukraine shortly after and travelled across Europe. He arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,…

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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.

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