A concrete sombrero crowns downtown El Paso. The Abraham Chavez Theatre at 1 Civic Center Plaza, beside the convention center, is a 2,500-seat concert hall whose circular, column-free Brutalist form - cast-in-place concrete walls, lozenge-shaped openings and a saddle-backed cable-hung roof that dips in the middle like a hat brim - made it the city's most recognizable building the moment it rose. Designer Bernard Mulville of Garland and Hilles was a Taliesin Fellowship alumnus, and the low elliptical arches nod openly to Frank Lloyd Wright's Marin County Civic Center. The El Paso Symphony opened the hall on 23 September 1974 with the New World Symphony, conducted by native son Abraham Chavez Jr. - the beloved concertmaster-turned-conductor who led the orchestra from 1975 to 1992 and whose name the city fixed to the building in February 1992. Inside, a three-story glass entrance feeds a 5,000-square-foot lobby of arched staircases and chandeliers, with seating in three tiers: a 995-seat orchestra level, 1,057-seat grand tier and 395-seat flying balcony above a 78-seat pit, backed by a 40-by-56-foot stage and fourteen dressing rooms. Operated by ASM Global for the city, the theatre carries El Paso's mid-size calendar - Broadway tours, symphony programs, comedy, children's shows and concerts - while the plaza outside circles the hall with Silver Lining, Barbara Grygutis's fourteen-piece installation of tall steel light sculptures inspired by the palms that once ringed the building. Film trivia completes the picture: the theatre's curved frame appears under construction in scenes of the 1972 Steve McQueen picture The Getaway. The theatre works as one half of the El Paso Live downtown campus - the Judson F. Williams Convention Center adjoins it across the plaza, sharing box office, parking garages and the pedestrian core of downtown, with the Plaza Theatre's restored movie palace three blocks away handling the Broadway runs the Chavez's concert-hall format does not. Between them the city keeps a genuinely walkable events district, and the sombrero silhouette remains the postcard: no other American hall looks remotely like it.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 1 Civic Center Plaza, El Paso, TX, United States, 79901

Website: https://www.elpasolive.com/venues/abraham-chavez-theatre

Capacity: 2500

Opening Date: 23/09/1974

Accessible