Fort Worth responded to the Texas Centennial celebration in Dallas and that city’s construction of Fair Park (DS91) with this group of buildings consisting of a colossal coliseum, an auditorium, and the 209-foot-tall Pioneer Tower on a 20-acre site two miles west of downtown. Named for humorist Will Rogers, who died in 1935, the project was directed by his friend, publisher Amon Carter, and funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA). The 2,500-seat auditorium was the location for many rock concerts including the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, and the coliseum has been the home of the Stock Show and Rodeo since moving from Fort Worth’s Northside Coliseum in 1944. Buff brick and gray Texas limestone form the taut modernist forms with Art Deco ornament in cast aluminum and Monel metal. Ceramic tile friezes above the monumental, curved, six-pier porticos of the coliseum and auditorium by Herman P. Koeppe (chief designer in Hedrick’s office) depict the cultural and economic heritage of Texas and the Southwest. The 200-foot, three-hinged steel arches with pinned top joints spanning the Coliseum were designed by Herbert M. Hinckley (also of Hedrick’s firm), a previously untried structural solution. The Beaux-Arts formality and allées of trees influenced Louis I. Kahn in his design of the Kimbell Art Museum (FW33).
To the west of the Will Rogers Center is the original Fort Worth Art Center (1954; 1300 Gendy Street) by the Bauhaus-trained designer Herbert Bayer and A. George King and Associates, which was extensively remodeled and expanded by Ford, Powell and Carson in 1974 and now contains the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. Adjacent are the 500-seat William Edrington Scott Theater (1961) by New York City stage designer Donald Oenslager with Joseph R. Pelich and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame (2002, David M. Schwarz Architectural Services) at 1720 Gendy.