Vogue Theater

rivest266 on November 5, 2015 at 2:14 am

December 24th, 1937 grand opening ad in photo section.

Joe Vogel on March 16, 2012 at 7:03 am

This theater, and the Vogue Theatre in Manistee, Michigan, present a problem. I don’t know the source of the attribution of these houses to both architect Percival Pereira and to the the firm of Pereira & Pereira, but as Percival Pereira was never a member of that firm, one claim or the other has to be wrong.

The firm of Pereira & Pereira was founded in 1931 and lasted until 1943, so William and Hal Pereira could have designed these two theaters. On the other hand, Percival Pereira was based in Detroit (the Pereira brother’s office was in Chicago) and I’ve been unable to discover how long his career lasted. He might well have still been designing theaters in the late 1930s, though he was older than the Pereira brothers- how much older, I don’t know. I’ve been unable to find his year of birth.

In the absence of any reliable source from the period, I honestly can’t say if these two Vogue Theatres in Michigan were designed by Percival Pereira or by Pereira & Pereira. The Streamline Moderne style of the Detroit Vogue in particular certainly resembles the work of the brothers, and if I had to guess I’d be inclined to say that William and Hal designed them both, but I’m just not sure.