BETTINA HOLWERDA

The Oude Luxor Theater on Kruiskade in Rotterdam opened on 22 December 1917, built by two entrepreneurs as a cinema that was immediately the largest in the Netherlands. Its original interior set a standard for luxury: thick carpeting, heavy armchairs, and brass ashtrays fitted into the seatbacks. With 1,180 seats, it was also by far the biggest cinema Rotterdam had seen, though it was only the seventeenth in the city at the time. One of the most remarkable facts about the building is that it survived the devastating German bombing of May 1940, which levelled a large part of central Rotterdam, leaving it among the very few pre war structures still standing in the city centre. After the war, the theater was leased to the Rotterdam Art Foundation, which used it to meet the enormous post war hunger for live entertainment. Theater performances ran alongside film screenings to compensate for the loss of the Rotterdamsche Schouwburg, and revue shows featuring the comedy duo Snip and Snap drew large crowds. By the early 1970s the building had fallen into serious disrepair, and in 1972 architect Wirtz undertook a thorough reconstruction that left little beyond the exterior walls intact. The balcony was removed, the auditorium was reconfigured to 909 seats, and a distinctive circular light ring was introduced, a feature that still defines the interior today. The Oude Luxor now operates alongside its newer counterpart, the Nieuwe Luxor Theater on the Wilhelminapier, as part of the same theater organization. Its programming covers musicals, cabaret, theater concerts, dance and variety, drawing on over a century of continuous use as one of Rotterdam's central entertainment venues.