Le architetture per lo spettacolo di Francesco De Intinis. I cinema, i cine teatri e le loro trasformazioni

Francesco De Intinis (1894-1950) graduated in 1922 from the Royal School of Application for engineers in Rome. Due to his talents as a designer and builder of entertainment structures he was an important figure in the Italian architectural scene at the end of the thirties, but above all immediately after the war. In fact he designed several cinemas and cinema/theatres in Rome: Cinema Savoia (1938-1939) in Via Bergamo, now the Savoy multiplex), Cinema Vascello (1946-1947 in Via G. Carini, now the Vascello Theatre), Theatre-Cinema Atlante (1947-1949 in Via della Lega Lombarda, now the Jolly multiplex), and the Cinema-Outdoor Cinema Corallo (1947-1951 in Piazza Oria, now a supermarket). These specialist architectures are the result of experimental architectural and structural solutions - sometimes quite bold and daring – that were implemented in the thirties and forties when designers were searching for a new typological configuration. Except for the Cinema Corallo, all the others had a retractable roof. This is why the design and construction of these architectural structures, their characteristics and innovative features, has sparked so much interest, not to mention their subsequent architectural and structural transformation and use, in some cases entirely prompted by consumer and market-oriented requirements. Since only partial studies and research have so far been carried out regarding the life and work of Francesco De Intinis, this contribution will also provide more extensive information about the engineer based on several studies performed by Giorgio Muratore.