The Hult Center is Eugene's premiere fine arts venue. It's a civic venue; the bond measure approved…read moreby Eugene's voters in the 70s covered both the performing arts center and the hotel/convention center adjacent, with no federal or state funds used in building the facility. The idea was to reinvigorate the city, which for most of its existence has existed as lumber town and has, IMO, struggled a bit as it's grown and tried to reinvent over the last few decades. The grand opening took place in 1982. Nice and forward-thinking of the city, at the time fewer than 100,000 people. (I'm hoping that my mom and grandparents were amongst those giving it a 'yay' vote.) It's located in the heart of downtown Eugene.
The building is interesting and quite striking in some ways. There's part of the exterior that is plain cement; I'm not sure who had this drab concrete vision for Eugene in the 60s-80s, but there were a few buildings built in this same style. It's definitely ugly and unfortunate. Luckily, I'd argue the Hult has one of the most beautiful lobbies of any building; it is fully glass, several stories tall. Its jagged peaks emulate the mountains surrounding the Willamette Valley, within which Eugene is situated. At night it simply glows and is quite beautiful.
The other unique feature is in the Silva Concert Hall, the main performance space. The walls and ceiling have a basket weave design which I believe was a design to solve the problem of acoustics, since it is a multipurpose building dedicated to producing performances of all kinds: opera, musicals, orchestra, and more. It hosts non-arts events--my high school graduation was here, and I think all of Eugene's high schools still hold graduation in this ~2,500 seat hall. The Oregon Bach Festival, established at the University of Oregon by the late Helmuth Rilling and the late Royce Saltzman, is perhaps the jewel in the Hult Center crown. The Soreng Theatre is the other official performing space here, though I've been to more intimate performances that have taken place in the lobby as well.
If those are some of the impressive features of the Hult Center, of course there are some downsides. One of the biggest is parking. Eugene is a city where, until the early 2000s, one of the tallest buildings was four stories, with the only skyscraper in town being the retirement center. The parking garage is not efficient in its design, and there are far too few disabled parking spots. Accessibility is another big issue; I took my mom here and dropping off in front would not have been an option because she couldn't have gotten from the street level to lobby level alone, and the only entrance from the garage was on the second floor of the parking garage (where there was insufficient disabled spots, and I'm not sure if other levels had disabled parking). These are things that I really hope their IDEA staff are considering and working to improve.
There are a few resident companies here beyond the Bach Festival. They also have touring performances, such as Broadway in Eugene, bands or performers. Amongst the shows I've seen here are Seinfeld (it was like 2003, cut me some slack); Aida, as performed by the Eugene Opera; Harry Connick, Jr.; RIverdance; most recently, Hamilton. It's always a very enjoyable evening whatever I see here. I hope you get a chance to experience it soon yourself.
