Alley Theatre - The New Alley Building

The New Alley Building

The opening of the new home of the Alley Theatre in November 1968 was a nationally chronicled event. It has two stages – the Hubbard Stage, which has 824 seats, and the more intimate Neuhaus Stage, which has 310 seats. The Alley’s building at 615 Texas Ave. was designed by Ulrich Franzen, who, along with Ms. Vance, wanted to create “a building that sings from any viewpoint.” The theatre building has no right angles but does have wide bands and terraces and is “reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings.” Franzen selected the concrete exterior because he was inspired by Houston’s location and the warm weather of the Southwest. There are three triangles in the main building and “the curves cling to and move around the triangles.”

Franzen designed the Alley in what is known as the Brutalist style that was popular from the 1950s through the mid-70s. The term “brutalism” was coined in 1953 and comes from the French béton brut meaning "raw concrete.” Concrete is the material most widely associated with Brutalist architecture.

The Alley’s building is among many famous Brutalist structures, including Washington D.C.’s L'Enfant Plaza, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, and the Metro stations (WMATA), Yale University’s Art and Architecture Building, Boston City Hall, the FBI Academy, and the Royal National Theatre (London).

The new Alley Theatre became “the most modern, elastic theatre house in the world for the dramatic arts” thanks to Yale University professor George Izenour’s first-of-its-kind light grid, adjustable walls and analogue recorder. The tension wire grid, which Izenour described as similar to a bedspring, was made of a couple miles of aircraft cable, which formed a mesh 19 feet above the stage, allowing lighting technicians to easily walk on it before shows to adjust lighting and eliminated the need for footlights, spotlights and curtains.

Houston architect Preston Bolton wrote of Franzen and the Alley building, “I believe the architect, Ulrich Franzen, has created a most successful building for the Alley Theatre – one that will receive much recognition for the city, and enhance the excellent productions that are to come.”

Newsweek wrote about the new Alley Theatre, “the most striking theatre in the U.S. … another step along the road toward ending Broadway’s domination of the American theatre,” and Sydney Johnson of The Montreal Star wrote, “… it looks as though the new Alley Theatre is going to be one of the best – and probably the very best – in the U.S. at least, simply because the building has been designed to house a specified stage and auditorium instead of the other way round.”

The new Theatre was deemed “a very successful statement of both theatrical and architectural values” and was cited by the American Institute of Architects as “inside and out, a brilliant theatrical event.” Of the Brutalist theatres built in the 1960s, including the Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center, Arena Stage in Washington D.C., Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, only the Alley Theatre’s architect, Franzen, won the national Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects for designing the theatre (1972).

In 1994, the Alley Theatre was chosen to receive the Twenty-Five Year Award by the American Institute of Architects/Houston, which recognizes distinguished architecture of lasting quality.

In 1996, the Alley was featured in the “Book of American Architecture: 500 Notable Buildings from the 10th Century to Present” by G. E. Kidder Smith.

In 2002, the Alley unveiled its new state-of-the-art Center for Theatre Production, a 75,000-square-foot facility that is one of the most complete and largest facilities of its kind anywhere. It is adjacent to the main theatre building.

The Houston Press, along with others like the George R. Brown Convention Center, 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."