Cleveland Playhouse Complex--page 1 (of two pages)

Philip Johnson
1983





A complex of theaters

Although Cleveland is Johnson's home town, this is his only structure for that city. Here is actually a series of buildings, joined with the existing red brick 1920s buildings, creating a "village" of theaters. This design, created during Johnson's most obvious post-modern period, quotes from earlier architecture, specifically Bernini's church of Santa Maria dell'Assunzione in Ariccia. This porticoed rotunda serves to unify the structures and provides a grand entrance to the complex. In Johnson's original design in addition to the 160-seat Brooks Theatre and the 522-seat Drury Theatre, the new construction provided more than 600 seats in the Kenyon C. Bolton Theatre as well as a blackbox theatre. Sadly, this complex proved to be too expensive for the acting company and the buildings have been sold to the Cleveland Clinic, the largest property owner in the area.
 

Views of entrance portico
 

 

Side entrance

 

 

 

Pre-existing facility

 



Continue to page 2.



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