Eden Teatro

This was one of Lisbon’s major cinema/theatre buildings and its imposing facade still dominates the main city square Praca dos Restauradores. It opened in 1931 and was designed by architects Cassiano Branco and Carlo Florencio Dias.

Across the top of the huge facade is a stone frieze depicting stylized actors performing before a film crew and cameras. The name Eden Teatro is centrally located in the stonework above. On the ground floor was an arcade of shops and the theatre was reached by a series of stairways which led onto the first floor where the actual theatre entrance was located. Seating in the large auditorium was located at orchestra level and two balconies above.

Sadly this magnificent cinema closed in 1989 and lay unused for many years. It was used as a location in the Wim Wenders movie “Until the End of the World” (1991).

In 2001 it was converted into a 134 room apartment hotel known as the Orion Eden Hotel. The facade has been retained but slightly modified by removing the two huge film advertising film poster spaces and ‘opening up’ the space by providing an atrium. The rooms are apparently ‘pie-shaped’ to fit inside the former auditorium space.

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