A gem of midcentury-modern design has gotten a new lease on life in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Among the historic structures on the grounds of the late, iconic architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin estate, the 100-seat Hillside Theater is back in business following a five-year, $1.1 million restoration, according to Architectural Digest.
The performance space, first opened in 1933, was a lively venue in Wright’s day, hosting regular film screenings among other events. But it had fallen into disrepair in recent years, significantly as a result of the outmoded construction techniques used to build it in the early 1900s.
So it was with great fanfare this past Saturday, June 8 — on what would’ve been Wright’s 157th birthday — that the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Taliesin Preservation celebrated the Hillside Theater’s reopening with remarks and a performance by the Grammy-winning quartet Third Coast Percussion.
“We’re very happy to present this space to you today,” Ryan Hewson, Taliesin’s director of preservation, said at the event, AD reported. “The need for this project has been steadily more urgent as the space continued to physically deteriorate.”
The freshly completed renovation included such functional revamps as new roofing, plumbing and electric systems, as well as the installation of a multi-camera streaming system.
Now that the building — which had been closed for the endeavor since 2019 — is back in business, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation aims to make it into a modern community hub, as it was during Wright’s own time.
“Reopening the Hillside Theater is more than just a preservation milestone; it’s about reinvigorating a cornerstone of our cultural heritage and providing an immediate benefit — in the form of a newly restored theater — for our neighboring communities and visitors to the region,” said Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation CEO Stuart Graff in a statement, AD reported.
