Architect Levi Newcomb designed the original building on the Modern Theatre site in 1876, four years after the Great Boston Fire destroyed the nearby business district. Built in the French Renaissance style, it housed showrooms and warehouse space for the Dobson Brothers, the largest carpet manufacturers in the United States. In 1913, as motion pictures evolved from makeshift nickelodeons to theaters, the owners converted the first three floors of the Dobson Building into the Modern Theatre, making it Boston’s first theater designed specifically for film screenings. Patrons paid 15 cents for admission and enjoyed musical accompaniment from a custom-designed Estey Organ. Wallace Sabine, who also consulted for Symphony Hall, designed the theater’s acoustics.

Architect Clarence Blackall led the Modern Theatre conversion. His firm  designed 17 other Boston theaters, including the Colonial, Wilbur, and Metropolitan (now the City Performing Arts Center), which still stand today. In addition, Blackall designed Boston’s first steel frame skyscraper, the Winthrop Building, also on Washington Street.

The Modern Theatre, equipped with cutting-edge technology, premiered Boston’s first “talkie,” The Jazz Singer, in 1928. The theater later pioneered the double feature to compete with newer venues that combined movies and vaudeville.

In 1979, the National Register of Historic Places listed the Modern Theatre as part of the Washington Street Theater District, and Boston designated it as a landmark in 1995. The building served as a theater continuously until the 1980s, when it fell vacant. Years of neglect left the interior seemingly beyond repair, until Suffolk University stepped in to save the historic façade and transform the site into student housing and a new performance space

In 2008, Suffolk University began work on its new Modern Theatre residence hall and theatre. The historic building’s façade was carefully dismantled, with several thousand stones sent to a masonry restoration expert before the remainder of the structure was demolished. The stones were then properly reassembled in a completely new building. The resulting facility features a fully restored façade, a 185-seat state-of-the-art theatre,and a 197-bed student residence hall.

Prior to the Modern Theatre’s demolition, historic preservationists evaluated which original architectural elements were worth saving. Though most features existed only in fragments, a 22-foot scrim survived completely intact. Originally designed as a decorative covering for an acoustic opening in the theatre’s proscenium, the scrim—created by an unnamed artist—incorporated architectural details visible in early interior photographs. Under the guidance of CBT Architects, Bob Shure of Skylight Studio removed and restored this artifact, which now  hangs in the rear of the lobby—the sole decorative element to endure nearly a century of neglect and deterioration

To infuse the interior with greater depth, theatricality, and a sense of history, Suffolk University commissioned John Lee Beatty
—one of Broadway’s most respected and prolific designers—to create original murals for the stage house walls. A Yale School of Drama graduate and Theatre Hall of Fame member, Beatty has designed dozens of plays on and off Broadway, earning acclaim from New York’s top critics and amassing numerous design awards. The murals, produced at EverGreene Studios in New York, were generated using state-of-the-art computer technology but Beatty over-painted the surfaces himself. Upon close examination, the murals reveal subtle modernizations of distinctive features from the original façade and interior design.

Architects worked with Suffolk University to create an environmentally sustainable building, achieving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification through “green”design principles applied across all phases of design, construction, and use. The residence hall, which opened in January 2010, won a prestigious LEED Gold award—a distinction held by only a handful of student residence halls in Massachusetts. This commitment to sustainability is not new for the University. During the construction of the Beacon Hill campus in the 1920s, when a building at 51 Temple Street was demolished, Suffolk negotiated with the demolition company to salvage nearly 150,000 bricks, which were cleaned and repurposed in a new construction project. Today, the University continues to seek innovative solutions to environmental challenges, consistently integrating sustainable practices into its operations.