Stage Center (Mummer's Theater)

The Mummer’s Theater distinguishes itself from earlier designs from Johansen. While early projects were simpler exposed concrete designs, the architect chose a more unconventional approach here. Not unlike the Smithson’s “as-found” aesthetics, Johansen took preexisting, everyday materials found in farm structure catalogs and turned them into “high-art” in combination with exposed concrete. This concept was subsequently furthered by Robert Venturi in Learning from Las Vegas and Frank Gehry’s House in Santa Monica.