You are here

Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont » Virginia Beach » Pavilion Convention Center (Demolished)

Pavilion Convention Center (Demolished)

-A A +A
1975–1981, Walshe and Ashe with Odell Associates, Inc. 1000 19th St.
  • Pavilion Convention Center (Richard Guy Wilson)

The Pavilion Convention Center was conceived during the 1970s as part of a strategy to develop a year-round market for Virginia Beach's many oceanfront hotel rooms. Positioned prominently at the end of the Virginia Beach–Norfolk Expressway, the building was also intended to serve as a kind of monumental gateway to the resort strip. The resulting design is a highly serviceable if somewhat uninspired reworking of Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum (1966–1972) in Forth Worth, Texas. Ten white, steelframed barrel vaults with end walls of darktinted glass unfurl rhythmically along the south side of the highway, effectively screening the rectangular exhibition halls and 1,000-seat theater from view. The main entrance faces the parking lot on the rear elevation. From this perspective, the unfenestrated walls of precast concrete panels appear particularly dreary.

The Pavilion was demolished in 2005 for the construction of a new convention center that opened in 2007.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
×

Data

Timeline

  • 1975

    Built

  • 1981

    Opened

  • 2005

    Demolished

What's Nearby

Contemporary Art Center of Virginia
Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum
Old Coast Guard Station
Cavalier Hotel
Virginia Marine Science Museum

Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Pavilion Convention Center (Demolished)", [Virginia Beach, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-VB10.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 457-457.

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.

,