Alley Theatre (Houston, Texas)
Posted by: 
Raven
N 29° 45.717 W 095° 21.918
15R E 271296 N 3294752
The Alley Theatre is an indoor theatre in downtown Houston, Texas. One of the most unusual buildings in Houston, it is one of the three oldest extant theatres in the United States.
Waymark Code: WMGXBR
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 04/19/2013
Views: 3
The Alley Theatre is an indoor theatre in downtown Houston, Texas. It is is one of the three oldest resident theatres in the United States and hosts two stages: the "Hubbard" main stage with seating for 824, and the smaller "Neuhaus" with seating for 310.
Designed by Ulrich Franzen in 1968, the Alley Theatre is of the most unusual buildings in Houston: all its mechanical equipment (plumbing, elevators, HVAC system) were purposefully placed inside nine concrete towers placed along the perimeter of the building, giving the entire structure a distinctive fortress-like look and feel. Open-air concrete terraces are interspaced in between the towers, with a staircase rising from the entrance vestibule to the second-floor lobby.
The Alley Theatre's distinctive Brutalist architectural style was chosen by Ulrich Franzen who wanted to create "a building that sings from any viewpoint". In 2009, the Houston Press ranked the building as one of the ten least photogenic buildings in Downtown Houston. John Nova Lomax, the author of the list, commented "Yeah, yeah, I like the curves and all that, but this concrete hulk still looks like something Stalin’s favorite architect would have come up with on 'shrooms."
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