Tuschinski Theatre

Behind a facade flanked by two towers in a narrow street off Amsterdam's Rembrandtplein lies one of the most extravagant cinema interiors ever built. The Tuschinski Theatre mixes Art Deco, Art Nouveau and the expressive brick idiom of the Amsterdam School, adding ceramic sculpture, leaded glass and touches of Asian ornament. The lobby was designed to make visitors feel they were stepping out of the street into an illusion, and the main auditorium, with its balconies, painted ceiling, stage and organ, has served both as a cinema and a live performance space since the day it opened.

The theatre was the dream of Abraham Icek Tuschinski, a cinema owner who already ran four houses in Rotterdam, and his brothers-in-law Hermann Gerschtanowitz and Hermann Ehrlich. Building began on 18 June 1919 and cost around four million guilders. Tuschinski was determined to open with a theatre organ, the first in the Netherlands, and when the American builder could not deliver in time he travelled to Brussels to buy one from another cinema. The doors opened on 28 October 1921, to newspaper praise that spoke of expectations exceeded, and the building's advanced heating and ventilation system was considered revolutionary.

The theatre's history darkened during the Second World War. Tuschinski lost his Rotterdam cinemas in the bombing of May 1940, and after the German occupation he and his partners were removed from their own company; the Amsterdam house was taken over by the German firm Tobis and renamed the Tivoli. As an act of defiance, Dutch and British flags were once flown from one of its windows on Queen Wilhelmina's birthday. Tuschinski and Gerschtanowitz were deported to Auschwitz and Ehrlich to Sobibor, and all three were murdered in 1942. After the liberation the founder's name returned to the facade. The building was declared a national monument in 1967, and on its centenary in 2021 it received the royal title, becoming the Koninklijk Theater Tuschinski.

Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, grew from a dam on the Amstel into a great trading city ringed by canals, and the Tuschinski stands at the edge of its historic centre.

Getting there

The theatre is on Reguliersbreestraat in central Amsterdam, about 1 km from the city centre, close to Rembrandtplein and served by city trams and the metro. The nearest airport is Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS), about 11 km away.