The Saenger Theater - A Sense of Place

It is really hard to think of a good place that has 'place.' After thinking for a while, and still not completely settled on this example, I am going to start with the Saenger Theater on Canal Street in New Orleans. The theater is evocative of another era, and I feel that distinguishes it from other, similar facilities. I also feel that the theater has place because it can transport whoever is inside of the theater to another world. By that I mean it is easy to forget all of the surroundings that impress someone when they enter, but when the show starts, it is easy for all of it to fade away instead of turning into background noise. Just as when I read a really good book, I stop noticing that I am actually looking at black type on white pages, the book transforms into something else. I think that is what good architecture can do. It becomes the purveyor of information. It is all that creates space. It can be simultaneously present and invisible.
I think that 'place' is a word to describe what architecture can make a person respond, or how it makes someone participate or interact in space. A 'place' like Wal-mart doesn't make me want to do anything (except to run screaming sometimes). But the Saenger Theater makes me do certain things. There has always been a certain sense of excitement, or knowing that I was going somewhere special on days I got to go to the theater. When you finally get to the theater, I feel like it makes you notice things. I love how tall the lobby is, and how the mezzanine levels feel sometimes large and sometimes comfortable. But my favorite thing to do is to look up at the ceiling in the main theater space. I can never decide if I can see it or if it is invisible. Sometimes I think it looks like a really dark cloudy night sky, sometimes it looks like nothing.
The last reason I picked the Saenger theater, is because I wish it was still open. I is disappointing that the experience of being in a place like that is not possible. Hopefully in the coming months the renovations of the theater will finally be complete, and it can again welcome people to its own particular world, and the places that world can take us.