The best cinema seats ever? Contoured, moulded and made in Italy, the chairs will require a ticket to an Academy Museum of Motion Pictures screening if you want to test them
- The seats at the Ted Mann Theatre were made by Lino Sonego in Treviso, Italy, in a colour inspired by architect Renzo Piano’s favourite green felt-tip pen
- The chairs at the David Geffen Theatre were manufactured by Poltrona Frau in Tolentino, Italy, and ‘unique to the academy’, says project architect Jonathan Jones
It took two years to choose the seats for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ two state-of-the-art cinemas. The research-intensive process included in-person testing at manufacturing sites in Italy as well as flying the mock-ups back to Los Angeles in the US, where they were repeatedly tested by Academy Museum executives.
At first glance, the seats for the two cinemas might appear similar, but many details, including the colours, are different – bright green in the more intimate, 288-seat Ted Mann Theatre, which will accommodate multiple screenings a day, and scarlet in the 1,000-seat David Geffen Theatre, which will host big premieres and other Hollywood events as well as screenings.
Neither of the cinemas has chairs with cup holders. “That was based on current academy standards,” says Jonathan Jones, project architect at the Renzo Piano Building Workshop headed by famed architect Renzo Piano.
“In their theatres, you’re not allowed to have popcorn or drinks or anything like that. It’s really about the art that’s on the screen, and you don’t want somebody sloshing around their ice to distract you.”
Ted Mann Theatre. Seat manufacturer: Lino Sonego, Treviso, Italy
The look: A clean, simple chair with some architectural detail. If it were a suit, says Jones, it might be a tailored classic, with distinct stitching. Many of the technical elements in the cinema – sound-absorbing wall panels, speakers, overhead lighting structures – are purposefully visible, a nod to the creative and intellectual filmmaking process.