Charleston's Art Deco Grande Dame

The Charleston Municipal Auditorium is the kind of building the New Deal built when it wanted to make a point. Designed by local architect Alphonso Wysong and completed in nineteen thirty-nine with Public Works Administration funding, this monolithic concrete and steel structure is the largest theater in West Virginia, seating more than thirty-four hundred people. Five thousand West Virginians attended the opening night dedication in November of nineteen thirty-nine, staying four hours for concerts, speeches, and a walkthrough tour.

The Art Deco exterior has barely changed since, earning a National Register of Historic Places listing in nineteen ninety-nine. For decades it hosted everything from symphony concerts to boxing matches to political rallies. It has been closed since February of twenty twenty-four over structural concerns, but it stands as a product of Depression-era civic ambition that outlasted the era that built it.