The impresario Max Glücksmann commissioned the building as the Teatro Gran Splendid, and the architects Peró and Torres Armengol designed it. It opened in May 1919 as a theater. The article gives no construction dates and calls the style eclectic. Nazareno Orlandi painted the ceiling, and Troiano Troiani made the caryatids and other sculpture. The interior has ornate carvings and crimson stage curtains. It covers about 2,000 square meters over three floors.
The theater became a cinema in the late 1920s. Around 2000 the architect Fernando Manzone removed the cinema seating and installed bookshelves, while the theater boxes remain. A cafe occupies the back of the former stage.
Grupo Ilhsa leased the building in February 2000, and it is the flagship bookshop of the El Ateneo chain. It is open to the public.
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