You are here

Marian Blakemore Planetarium

-A A +A
1972, Frank Welch Associates; 2009 addition, Rhotenberry Wellen Architects.

Early in his career, Welch worked for O’Neil Ford of San Antonio, whose influence shows in the massing and brickwork of this windowless building, in which a one-story rectangular office-and-exhibition block with rounded corners intersects the two-story, cylindrical planetarium. An addition in 2009 on the north side of the planetarium is a simple square with a facade wall of black brick with a scattering of white, symbolizing the West Texas night sky. The neutrality of the facade avoids competition with the geometric forms and ornate brickwork of the museum’s earlier, adjacent buildings.

To the west of the planetarium at 1805 W Indiana Avenue is the Haley Memorial Museum and Research Library founded in 1961 by the eminent historian of the Southwestern Range, J. Evetts Haley.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
×

Data

What's Nearby

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Marian Blakemore Planetarium", [Midland, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-02-MT13.2.

Print Source

Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019, 459-459.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,