Holly Theatre, Entry Tile Design

Awhile back I reported on the “thrill” of discovered ceramic tile in the exterior foyer of Medford’s Holly Theatre.  We found ceramic tiles, buried underneath a thin layer of concrete, that had been hidden by indoor-outdoor carpets (Really, you have to wonder what people were thinking in the 1970s sometimes).

Anyway, as might have been expected, the tile was pretty chewed up and beyond salvage but gave us plenty of information to design something appropriate to replace it with.  The foyer originally had a small outdoor ticket booth, sort of coffin-shaped according to the footprint, and a series of speckled brown and green octagonal field tiles.  

The Holly, operated by a non-profit (the JPR Foundation) needs, in addition to a nifty, historically appropriate, entry way, a mechanism to recognize major donors.  After coming up with a simple design and the materials for the field tiles (the octagons) we used the shape and location of the ticket booth as the inspiration for a donor medallion, to be made of the same tile materials with an etched brass “H”, the building logo, that was taken from the top of the original marquee.

All of this will be water-jet cut to create precision joints that can be easily installed.  The tile is in production now.  It should be installed sometime in late March or early April if all goes according to plan.  There is more tile too, vertical work to protect the sidewalls.  If you are in southern Oregon in early Spring, watch the news for a dedication ceremony and the “Grand Relighting” of the neon sign!