State Theatre Building Wan Chai & Northeast Hong Kong Island

Look up past the crumbling facade and you'll see flying buttresses on the roof, like a whale carcass. The last of Hong Kong's post-WWII luxury theatres, it opened in 1952 with Just for You starring Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman, and for years, catching a flick here was a big deal. The buttresses in a Soviet Constructivist style served to hold the roof from above, allowing for a large pillarless hall, a truly avant-garde design at the time. Under enormous pressure from hungry developers, a campaign to have the building awarded protected-heritage status was underway at time of research.