Preservation and modern performance meet at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, San Antonio's premier concert and theater venue. The Tobin Center opened in 2014, but the building at its core is far older: the Municipal Auditorium, a grand Beaux-Arts structure built in 1926 as a memorial to San Antonio's World War I veterans. For nearly 90 years, the Municipal Auditorium hosted everything from high school graduations to boxing matches to political conventions.
By the early 2000s, the beloved old building was acoustically inadequate and structurally challenged, and the city faced the familiar dilemma: demolish and rebuild, or preserve and renovate. San Antonio chose preservation. Architects Lake|Flato designed a renovation that retained the 1926 facade and the formal entry hall while gutting and rebuilding the interior with a state-of-the-art concert hall, a flexible performance space, and outdoor terraces that extend to the River Walk along the San Antonio River.
The result is a venue that seats 1,750 in the main hall with acoustics that serve the San Antonio Symphony, Broadway touring productions, and chamber music equally well. The Tobin Center has become both a destination for world-class performance and a daily gathering place for a neighborhood that has never had a more graceful anchor.