A Multiplex Conversion of a Historical Cinema

Abstract

The cultural Heritage building is a valuable trace of the past social life for a city. One peculiar typology of building is the theatre or, more recently, the cinema. Within this indoor space, the community of people actively live an emotional feeling over the time causing memories linked to not only the show itself, but also to the place. Furthermore, cinemas are often located in city centers where buildings are historical-oriented form the architectural point of view and for this reason an added-value needs to be recognized. Nowadays, the introduction of pay-TVs has dramatically compromised the cinema business and so-making the turnout of clients more limited. In addition, the recent COVID-19 pandemic situation has further and severally damaged the economy linked to cinema. In this scenario, the modernization and the improvement of old cinemas is becoming an interesting topic in the field of civil engineering. In fact, the new technologies make the experience more comfortable and enthusiastic because of the modern video and audio tools. On the other hand, the expectation of the clients is full-filled when the cinema is able to provide a large choice of views; which means arranging many projection rooms. In order to empathize this aspect, the structural strengthening for a multiplex conversion of an historical cinema is herein reported. The structure required a seismic joint (separating the masonry to the reinforced concrete structural bodies) and a deep strengthening of a very long span beam due to a relevant overloading (in seismic loads combination) caused by the new architectonical project. The numerical simulations demonstrated the validity of different bending strengthening systems (i.e. FRP-plate and Beton Plaquè) in terms of both load bearing capacity and maximum deflection. This overview is a part of a larger study in the way of a global structural interventions which will also involve the masonry members.