ABSTRACT

In this essay, I consider the building and demolition of the Alhambra, once known as Cape Town’s Mother Theatre, as a way of approaching the transformations of the city centre in the twentieth century. I show how city planning schemes and segregation policies transformed the central district’s cinema theatres – particularly the area informally called “Theatreland” – and proposed alterations to the seashore land that restricted pedestrian access from and to the sea. My essay identifies three moments that ordered these configurations of the central district and its cinemas, and how they became implicated in the city’s competing aesthetic projects. Cinemas, I argue, offer an important lens onto urban transformations in Cape Town, particularly in relation to the city’s maritime connections and the construction of the Foreshore. I trace these “cinema-scapes,” from their metropolitan ties to civic nationalist symbolism, and the different imaginaries of the public in Cape Town which, I suggest, inform a contemporary nostalgia for cinema.

摘要

在这篇文章中，我将阿尔罕布拉宫（曾经被称为开普敦的母亲剧院）的建造和拆除视为接近 20 世纪市中心转型的一种方式。我展示了城市规划方案和隔离政策如何改变了中心区的电影院——特别是非正式地称为“剧院区”的区域——并提议对限制行人进出大海的海滨土地进行改造。我的文章确定了对中心区及其电影院的这些配置进行排序的三个时刻，以及它们如何与城市的竞争美学项目有牵连。我认为，电影院为了解开普敦的城市转型提供了一个重要的视角，特别是在与城市的海上联系和前滨建设相关的方面。