Lisner Auditorium is a performance venue sited on the Foggy Bottom campus of The George Washington University, at 730 21st Street Northwest, Washington, D.C. Named for Abram Lisner (1852-1938), a university trustee and benefactor whose will provided one million dollars towards its construction, it was designed in 1940 and completed in 1946. Constructed in the stripped classicist style of the late Art Deco and host to major classical, folk, rock, blues, opera, and theatrical performances over the decades, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 for its dual significance as an architectural work and as a performance venue. It also played a key role in desegregation at GW and in D.C.; its 1946 grand opening became a city-wide target for the desegregation of D.C. thea