Ritz Theatre Downtown Talladega AL – an Art Deco Delight!

Talladega, AL

    • Roadside Rustic
      April 25, 2011 at 9:30 pm

      Thank you for including our photo. You did a great write up. Sorry it rained on you. 🙁 It’s def a beautiful old building.

      • Mod Betty
        November 26, 2011 at 7:06 pm

        I know, isn’t it gorgeous? Bummer that the link to your photo isn’t working anymore!

    • Amy
      April 25, 2011 at 9:35 pm

      Wow! That is GORGEOUS.

    • Debbie
      April 26, 2011 at 8:03 am

      Great looking place. I’m glad it’s still up and running.

    • W. White
      May 26, 2012 at 2:26 am

      I am an Alabamian and an architectural historian; Vitrolite is a perfectly acceptable term to use for the glass panels on the Ritz Theater in Talladega. Carrara Glass is not an entirely accurate description for the panels on the Ritz Theater. Vitrolite is the term I use for the product, though not all of the glass panels we see and refer to as Vitrolite are technically Vitrolite, which was a trade name used by Libby-Owens-Ford Glass for their product. Pigmented Structural Glass or Vitreous Marble are other, non company specific names for Vitrolite.

      Carrara Glass resembles marble much more than Vitrolite; it was popular for bathrooms since it did not absorb bacteria like real marble (which in the “good ole days” of architecture was used for bathroom floors, counters, stall dividers, wainscoting-like wall panels, and even bathtubs). After germ theory was discovered and accepted, people realized that porous marble all over bathrooms would absorb both water and whatever was in bathroom water, a fairly unhygenic thought. Carrara Glass was used as a marble substitute in bathrooms since it gives all the class of marble with the hygenic qualities of glass; it absorbs nothing. Both Carrara Glass and Vitrolite are made the same way; they simply have different appearences and, to a degree, different applications.

      • Mod Betty
        May 26, 2012 at 6:37 am

        W- thanks so much for the additional info! As a fan of, but not an actual architectural historian, I love hearing these details, and am glad to know I wasn’t off the mark using the Vitrolite term. I love the look of it on old storefronts and buildings. Thanks for swinging by Retro Roadmap!

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