Henri Zipcy (1873-1950)

Mavi Boncuk | Henri Zipcy (1873-1950) by Michèle Alfonsi translated to English by Catherine Saiko, 2011

Henri Zipcy was born and raised up in Constantinople and went to Paris to complete his studies of architecture in the 1890ies at the renowned “École des Beaux-Arts” in the art-class of Gaston Redon, the brother of the famous French symbolist painter Odilon Redon. Henri was the cousin of my Smyrna-born great-grandmother Amélie and my mother still remembers well attending Sunday-afternoon parties with delicious homemade cakes and pastries at his home in Paris before WW2.

There are only few documents about Henri in the family-archives but there is his best-known project still standing at the Carrefour Barbès, Paris. 

The name of the architect Henry Zipcy was long distorted in Ripey, just like that of Amédée Tiberti, the painter who carried out the interior decoration of Luxor, was in Amédée Tiberi.

Henri Joseph Marie Zipcy was born on the 10th of December 1873 in Constantinople (Istanbul) into an Armenian Catholic family originating from Smyrna (Izmir). His father, André, was an owner and chief-editor of newspapers and published e.g. “La Turquie” and “L’Orient” in French. The family archives contain correspondence between him and Pierre Loti. He belonged to the respectable society of Pera, a district of Istanbul where Levantines lived in harmony next door to Armenians. Mansions, elegant homes and palaces of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy were aligned next to the various embassies, life was pleasant, parties were celebrated, and the families spoke several languages fluently. So it is natural that Henri Zipcy went to France for his studies. In 1889 he arrived in Paris and in 1892 he was a student at the Beaux-Arts of Gaston Redon, the brother of the famous painter.

Little is known about his professional activities after he finished his studies in 1897. Did he start working in Paris, where several addresses are known of him at that time? Or did he work in Constantinople, where he married in 1912 a Catholic Italo-German Levantine, Frieda Leonhardi (the daughter of an engineer at the Ottoman Tobacco Régie)? The couple soon moved to Paris and from 1914 lived at the Boulevard Garibaldi No. 33 which became their home as well as the workshop of the architect.

Qui êtes-vous, M. Zipcy ?

Le Louxor | The Luxor is a movie theater located in n o  170, Boulevard de Magenta in the 10 th  arrondissement of Paris , built by architect Henry Zipcy and inaugurated October 6 , 1921 .

Listed as a historical monument onOctober 05, 1981(facades and roofs) , it was transformed into a nightclub in 1983. Closed in 1988 and abandoned, it finally reopened the April 17 , 2013 , completely renovated and now has three rooms.

Located in the 10 th  arrondissement of Paris, at the corner of Boulevard de la Chapelle and the Boulevard de Magenta , the cinema was built in 1921 on the site of the store Sacred Heart News , by architect Henry Zipcy  on behalf of Henry Silberberg [1] (as evidenced by the original plans).

Inaugurated on October 6 , 1921 , with on the program a silent Danish science fiction film from 1918 400 million leagues from Earth (Himmelskibet) directed byHolger-Madsen, accompanied by short films and excerpts from Métempsycose(The Star Rover) by Edward Sloman (1920),Pour un corset(Betty's Green-Eyed Monster) by Arvid E. Gillstrom andLui… sur des roulettes(Don't Shove / Poussez pas!) By Alfred J. Goulding and Hal Roach, with Harold Loyd (1919) and Gaumont news.

A rare survivor of pre-war cinemas, Luxor is a remarkable example of the ancient architecture of the 1920s . The neo-Egyptian facade - from which it takes its name in reference to the city of Luxor  - and the roofs of this building were included in the supplementary inventory of historical monuments on October 05 , 1981. The multicolored mosaics of the facade (cobalt blue, black and gold), the work of decorator Amédée Tiberti  , were produced by the Gentil & Bourdet ceramic factory  , located in Billancourt and very famous in the 1920s- 1930. The floral motifs are complemented by scarabs , cobras and, above the small terrace, a large winged disc. The room with its two balconies then offers 1,195 seats.

Silberberg, bankrupted by an Italian bank, dies in November 1921 . The Luxor, put into liquidation inJanuary 1922 , is purchased in April 1922by the Société des Cinémas Lutétia directed by Paul Fournier.

During the 1920s , the Lutétia cinemas played a leading role in cinematographic exploitation with the Aubert cinemas. The Lutétia network had thirteen rooms in Paris in 1924, including the very prestigious Lutétia-Wagram (opened in 1913) and Royal-Wagram (opened in 1918). In 1929, the group's twenty establishments were taken over by the Pathé company, which adapted it to sound cinema .

The Luxor, like so many neighborhood cinemas, suffered the consequences of the decline in attendance that began at the end of the 1950s , forcing the cinema to renew itself and operators to modernize their cinemas. Color, cinemascope , sound quality, the Luxor follows the movement and adapts. While it retains its original structure over the years and still has a large room with two levels of balcony, it has undergone several transformations, notably in 1954 and 1964.

Programming, too, must adapt to sociological changes and to the tastes of the public who frequent it. For a long time popular cinema which has played both mainstream French successes and American films, the Luxor chose to screen from the 1970s “exotic” films ( Indian , Egyptian for example) in their original version, likely to attract an immigrant population. in increasing numbers in the north-east of Paris as well as soft porn. In 1976, the screening of the film Chronicle of the Burning Years became a cultural and social event for the neighborhood.

The November 29, 1983The last Luxor screening is held and Pathé sells the building to the Tati company, which wants to set up a business there and prevent a competitor from setting up there. Without being able to modify the facade, the project failed and Tati handed over management to nightclub operating projects in the mid-1980s: first a West Indian nightclub called La Dérobade , it becameAugust 1987the largest gay nightclub in the capital under the name Megatown . It closed in 1988, shortly before the death of its creator David Girard in 1990, and the building was abandoned. 

The Luxor - Palais du Cinéma then experienced a long eclipse. 

Why did you choose ancient Egypt rather than Rome or the reign of Louis XVI - so much in vogue in theaters? It was a question of distinguishing this cinema from its competitors, and the Egyptian style presented a strong originality. The historian François Loyer, in an article published on the Action-Barbès website, advanced the hypothesis of the influence of a film on Cleopatra, with Theda Bara ; " Cleopatra " shot in 1917 for the Fox Company by J. Gordon Edwards . However, nothing proves this assertion, especially since the origin of the Egyptian decoration is rather to be sought in the architectural field (Universal Exhibition of 1900 and other Parisian Egyptian buildings)  . Did the investor Henri Silberberg himself choose the name of Luxor and its neo-Egyptian decoration, or is it an initiative of the architect Zipcy and the decorators? 

From 2001, neighborhood associations - including Action Barbès - mobilized to save this heritage from ruin. Their demand is twofold: that the city of Paris redeem Luxor and return it to its cultural vocation. After two years of mobilization, the Parisian municipality succeeded in reaching an agreement with the Tati company and bought the building on July 25 , 2003. In 2008, the architect Philippe Pumain was appointed to carry out a rehabilitation operation [ 16 ] , the work of which began in 2010, for an opening scheduled for spring 2013. The date of the inauguration was finally set forApril 17, 2013, and the opening onApril 18, 2013with the films The Grandmaster by Wong Kar-wai , No by Pablo Larraín , Free Angela by Shola Lynn and Le Repenti by Merzak Allouache. 

[1] Henry Silberberg was a businessman who bought the Haussmann building to build in its place a luxurious building, designed to be a movie theater, which he intended to manage himself.