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The New Gaillard Center
Its Inaugural Spoleto Festival
This year's Spoleto is particularly exciting, as will be the first Spoleto Festival in the New Gaillard Performing Arts Center, which officially opened in 2015. Given my last name, I often get asked about any personal connection to the Gaillard Center. So, I thought I would share a little here about the connection and give a little history of the venue.
The original Charleston Municipal Auditorium was opened in July 1968, during my grandfather, J. Palmer Gaillard's, tenure as mayor of the City of Charleston. It was later dedicated to him and became known as "The Gaillard." At the time it was built, it was a modern space suitable for the size and cultural atmosphere of Charleston; however, as Charleston has grown, particularly in the last two decades, the need for a larger and more sophisticated venue became apparent.
After years of planning and private-public partnership fundraising, the new Gaillard Center broke ground in 2012 with the official ribbon cutting in fall of 2015 and an inaugural concert featuring Yo Yo Ma and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. The new Center features a state of the art performance hall, 16,000 square feet of meeting, exhibition, and convention space and 7,300 square feet of directly accessible outdoor terrace lawn space.
Given all of the individuals and entities that came together to make this new Center possible, it is a great honor to our family that the powers that be chose to keep the "Gaillard" name on the complex. There is no doubt that Granddad Palmer would be proud!
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| | Granddad Palmer Gaillard (mayor from 1959-1975) and the original Gaillard Municipal Auditorium (opened in 1968). |
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| | The New Gaillard Center: What was once just a 3-D architectural model is now a reality. |
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| | The Gaillard Center on the night of the grand opening, October 2015. |
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