Without an image frozen on the screen, the theaters look unmoored, like they could exist anywhere. But the 130 scenes collected in his new book, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Theaters (Damiani, $60), actually reveal a lot about era and place. The photographer wended his way across the U.S., from New York to Detroit and Ohio and California, and then to Europe, canvassing Art Deco-era movie palaces dripping with gilded details, saddling up to drive-ins, and recording once-grand interiors that slid into dusty disrepair. ... When Sugimoto snapped his image of Culver City’s Studio drive-in, the screen dwarfed the nearby fence and swing sets, and towered above the silhouette of far-off palm trees. That was 1993. The nine-acre site sat vacant soon afterwards, and was demolished in 1998, purchased for $7.3 million to make way for 57 single-family homes and a park. One local told the Los Angeles Times that she was sad to see the structure go—even though it was ratty and worse for the wear; even though it was, maybe, kind of a boring way to spend the evening. “It was just something to do if you had two kids and no baby-sitter," she said.

She may have been talking about film as an escape, a way for parents to outsource the responsibility of entertainment and wrest a few minutes for themselves. But the statement also highlights one of the startling things about Sugimoto’s images: theaters are public spaces.

Devoid of patrons, the images draw attention to the scale of these environments built to accommodate hundreds or thousands of people, and the purpose of doing so.