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Stage Center

Stage Center

City/Town:
Location Class:
Built: 1970 | Abandoned: 2010
Historic Designation: Abandoned Atlas Foundation Contribution to POK Most Endangered List (2011)
Status: Demolished
Photojournalist: AbandonedOK TeamBrooks McGinnis

After years of debate over the history, importance and fate of Stage Center, the end is set to start Monday (6/30/14) as preparatory demolition begins next week.

Stage Center, originally known as Mummers Theater, was designed by John Johansen, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and a member of the legendary “Harvard Five” (which also included Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, Philip Johnson and Eliot Noyes). He was hired not by the Mummers Theater, which was to be the tenant of the Oklahoma City venue, but by the Ford Foundation, which agreed to provide a $2 million grant for a modern downtown home for what was then a 22-year-old theater company.

City leaders, however, were unhappy with Johansen’s brutalist design, which called for a building turned inside out.

The theater opened in 1970 to international acclaim for the design, but inadequate funding for operations and a less than enthusiastic response by locals led to the demise of Mummers just a year after the theater opened. The building has had a series of tenants since, was closed in the late 1990s, and closed again for good after it was flooded in 2010.




 

Read More:
http://newsok.com/stage-center-demolition-to-start-monday-in-oklahoma-city/article/4983505
http://newsok.com/stage-center-the-place-the-memories/article/4983782

Adieu, Stage Center: The Long, Often Sad History of an American Icon

Michael Schwarz

Starting from a young age, I’ve always loved exploring. I can remember venturing off and scoping out the houses being built in the developing neighborhood right behind my house. As I got older, I found myself appreciating the work and love that went into architecture and just being excited to pass by the beautifully designed places in downtown.

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Michael Schwarz

Starting from a young age, I’ve always loved exploring. I can remember venturing off and scoping out the houses being built in the developing neighborhood right behind my house. As I got older, I found myself appreciating the work and love that went into architecture and just being excited to pass by the beautifully designed places in downtown.

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