The Corso cinema-theatre was designed and built between 1915 and 1917 by one of Italy’s most important architects of the 20th Century, Marcello Piacentini. The European Secession movement heavily influenced him during a trip he took in Germany in 1913, but the finished theatre caused a huge scandal. So much so that he had to alter the design at his own expense to hide the features that suggested Viennese models. Marcello Piacentini is also famous for his opening dome invention.