West Virginia Culture Center

One few days following the united states of america celebrated its bicentennial, Governor Arch Moore devoted the West Virginia Science and customs Center on July 11, 1976. Situated just west regarding the state capitol and behind the Governor’s Mansion, the $14-million structure, designed by C. E. Silling of Charleston, was built to showcase the hill State’s artistic, social, and historical history. The guts became home of the brand new western Virginia Division of community and background, including its arts and historical conservation units, as well as the State Archives, the Norman L. Fagan State Theater, State Museum, plus the State Museum store. The West Virginia Library Commission stocks the building, having its offices and an important collection truth be told there.

The center’s great hall, featuring its white Alabama marble wall space accented by West Virginia pine, a purple Tennessee marble flooring, gold and wood coffered ceiling, and two large dodecahedron-shaped bronze and crystal chandeliers, welcomes visitors. The 468-seat theater, behind the fantastic hall, hosts West Virginia’s doing music artists, dance, movie theater, jazz, and film celebrations, affairs of condition, and gratification broadcasts of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s ‘‘Mountain Stage.’’ The Library Commission’s research space reaches the left of this great hallway and also the Archives library is to the right.

The State Museum closed for renovation in 2006 and reopened in 2009. The museum displays items and displays profiling West Virginia’s land and people, paleontology, minerals, frontier life, companies, and record. Changing exhibitions inside great hallway display things from the museum’s considerable collections also taking a trip exhibits and winners associated with the biennial western Virginia Juried Exhibition. The building’s non-public upper amounts house book and manuscript collections of the State Archives in addition to closed piles for the Library Commission. The community Center is the site of annual Vandalia Gathering people event each Memorial Day week-end, and hosts other occasions throughout every season. Before 2009, the center ended up being known as the Cultural Center.