Safety innovation at Tuschinski

The British authoritative magazine Time Out proclaimed Pathé Tuschinski the ‘most beautiful cinema in the world’.
Rightly so, as far as we are concerned.
The national monument from 1921 is simply beautiful and has an almost breathtaking Art Deco and Art Nouveau interior.
It has also been well preserved and has been extensively restored in recent years.
For Mactwin, it was a great honour – and challenge – to renew the fire alarm and evacuation alarm system in this iconic building. David Hanemaayer, the proud theatre manager and ‘care keeper’ of the building, tells us in detail about the cinema and the replacement of both installations.
“Tuschinski is much more than a cinema. People come here for a night out. In addition, we regularly rent out the halls, foyers and bar for events and we receive many requests for photo shoots or film shoots. And then there are the big film premieres – national and international. In October we will be 100 years old. The intention is that we are going to celebrate this in a big way! In the meantime, the renovation of rooms 2 and 3 in the old part has also been completed. It turned out very nice. In room 2 the original murals have been reconstructed and in room 3 the walls have been painted with a new design based on the original. In addition, luxurious, comfortable chairs and benches have been placed in both rooms. So in October we have every reason to celebrate.”

Precision work in monumental building

A reliable fire alarm and evacuation alarm system is essential and also mandatory in a cinema.
“At Tuschinski, the wooden construction of the building poses an additional risk. And once it’s lit, it’s lightning fast!” explains Hanemaayer.
When it turned out in 2020 that the fire alarm and evacuation alarm system was outdated and could no longer be certified, they acted quickly.
Mactwin was commissioned to completely renew the installation.
A beautiful, but challenging assignment.
Especially because almost everything in the building is historic and of great value and we were not allowed to affect the interior in any way.
Hanemaayer: “Just imagine, in our building you are allowed almost nothing, but cables still have to go everywhere… Everyone therefore had to work extremely carefully and carefully. If you remove a detector (to replace it), you have to be careful that no wallpaper comes loose. The mechanics also sometimes had to work in very tight places where it was really ‘crawl through, sneak through’. It has not always been easy for these technicians and logically the lead time of the project was therefore a bit longer than in many other buildings.”
What Hanemaayer meant exactly by ‘crawl through, sneak through’, we could clearly see when we took a look at the attic where an aspiration system has been installed…

Twan Reuvers (Account Manager at Mactwin): “To prevent any unnecessary (visible) damage to the building, we left the old speakers that were actually no longer needed. If we had removed them, you would have seen damage in the wall everywhere and we would have been further away from home. At the moment, Pathé still uses the old loudspeakers for background music (instead of as a public address system).”

Aesthetically pleasing fire protection

In addition, the fire protection measures in the publicly accessible areas in the monumental building were allowed to be as invisible as possible.
“Visitors’ attention should mainly be focused on the building and the beautiful decorations and not on fire detectors…”, says Hanemaayer.
This resulted in some tensions here and there.
Fortunately, Mactwin came up with good solutions for this as well.
Reuvers: “Many detectors were sprayed in the colour of the wall or ceiling and we selected, for example, the smallest possible side panel that we also made dark brown; the same colour as the wooden wall on which the panel is attached. We placed the firebeam smoke detectors and slowwhoops (sirens) in the main hall inconspicuously near the ornaments on either side of the large canvas.”