outdoor courtyard, surrounded by highly ornamented asymmetrical facades and exotic flora and fauna, underneath a dark blue canopy; when the lights went out, a specially designed projector, the Brenograph, was used to project clouds, and special celestial effects on the ceiling. Lamb's style was initially based on the more traditional, "hardtop" form patterned on opera houses, but was no less ornate. His theaters evolved from relatively restrained neo-classic designs in the 1910s to those with elaborate baroque and Asian motifs in the late 1920s. The movie palace's signature look was one of extravagant ornamentation. The theaters were often designed with an eclectic exoticism where a variety of referenced visual styles collided wildly with one another. French Baroque, High Gothic, Moroccan, Mediterranean, Spanish Gothic, Hindu, Babylonian, Aztec, Mayan, Orientalist, Italian Renaissance, and (after the discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922) Egyptian Revival were all variously mixed and matched. This wealth of ornament was not merely for aesthetic effect. It was meant to create a fantasy environment to attract moviegoers and involved a type of social engineering, distraction, and traffic management, meant to work on human bodies and minds in a specific way. Today, most of the surviving movie palaces operate as regular theaters, showcasing concerts, plays and operas. List of movie palaces This is a list of selected movie palaces, with location and year of construction. Akron Civic Theatre (formerly Loew's (Akron) Theatre), Akron, Ohio, 1929 Alabama Theatre, Birmingham, Alabama, 1927 Alameda Theatre, Alameda, California, 1932 Albee Theater, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1927 Alex Theatre, Glendale, California, 1925 Arcada Theater, St. Charles, Illinois, 1926 Arlington Theater, Santa Barbara, California, 1931 Arvest Midland Theater Kansas City, Missouri, 1927 Avalon Regal Theater, Chicago, Illinois, 1927 Aztec Theatre, San Antonio, Texas, 1926 Bama Theatre, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1938 Biograph Theater, Chicago, 1914 Boyd Theatre, Philadelphia, 1928 Brauntex Theatre, New Braunfels, Texas 1942 Broadway Theatre, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, 1920 Byrd Theatre, Richmond, Virginia, 1928 California Theatre, San Jose, California, 1927 The Capitol, Melbourne, Australia, 1924 Capitol Cinema, Ottawa, Ontario, 1920 Capitol Theatre, Rome, New York, 1928 Capitol Theatre Port Chester, New York, 1926 Capitol Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia, 1921 Carlton Cinema, London, UK, 1930 Carolina Theatre, Durham, North Carolina, 1926 Carpenter Theater, Richmond, Virginia, 1928 Castro Theatre, San Francisco, California, 1922 Commodore Picture House, Liverpool, UK, 1930 Chicago Theatre, Chicago, Illinois, 1921 Circle Theatre, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1916 Congress Theater, Chicago, Illinois, 1926 Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, Massachusetts,