| Atlanta's Fox Theatre, originally the Yaarab Temple Shrine Mosque, was designed in the late 1920's as headquarters for the 5,000-member Shriners organization.
It was a beautifully outlandish, opulent, grandiose monument to the heady excesses of the pre-crash 1920's, a mosque-like structure complete with minarets, onion domes, and an interior decor which was even more lavish than its facade.
Entering the huge auditorium, an early reviewer for the Atlanta Journal described "a picturesque and almost disturbing grandeur beyond imagination. Visitors encounter an indoor Arabian courtyard with a sky full of flickering stars and magically drifting clouds; a spectacular striped canopy overhanging the balcony; stage curtains depicting mosques and Moorish rulers in hand sewn sequins
and rhinestones." |
