The impresario Gabriel Astruc commissioned the theater, which opened on April 2, 1913 after construction from 1911. Henry van de Velde provided the initial scheme and resigned. Auguste and Gustave Perret designed it, but the body says they were not licensed architects and Roger Bouvard signed their plans.
The building is reinforced concrete, which the body says the subsoil and the Seine required. Rectilinear forms and decoration on marble and stucco plaques mark a radical departure from Art Nouveau, and the article calls it the first Art Deco architecture in Paris. Antoine Bourdelle made the exterior bas-relief, and Maurice Denis painted the dome.
The main theater seats 1,905, the Comédie 601 and the Studio 230. It was listed as a monument historique on December 11, 1957, and the Caisse des Dépôts has owned it since 1970.
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