The New Birmingham c. 1964

Project 4

Location	Holloway Circus
1964 Status	Complete
2014 Status	Extant
Name	Scala House

Scala House, on the corner of Smallbrook Queensway and Horsefair at Holloway Circus, was originally described as a, "six-storey extension to the original Ringway Shopping Centre".  In November 1964 it was very nearly complete.  It got its name from the Scala cinema that had occupied the site previously and the new building contained a 650-seater cinema called the Scala Superama.  When I was 12, my mum and I queued for ages to get in to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind and we got the last two seats in the house!

The cinema closed in 1988 and, in 2014, the whole building was looking rather down at heel as result of 50 years of time, occupation and weathering.



Scala House, c. mid-1964.  Photo from the Geoff Thompson Archive.




Scala Picture House, June 1958.  Photo by D. J. Norton.




Scala House, April 2014

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