STRUCTURES : Closing Down Area Landmark : The Dorril B. Wright Cultural Center, a 500-seat facility for theater and musical events, is falling victim to budget cuts.

Sometimes, you have to pull back to get the whole picture. You walk out to the end of the Port Hueneme pier and look back at one of the more distinctive and uncrowded beachfront vistas in Southern California.

You see a broad copper gable roof nestled somewhat mysteriously in a grove of palm trees. The large, gleaming geometric plane contrasts with the knotty complex of condo roofs all around.

Under that massive roof, you can imagine purposeful gatherings of the public. If you didn’t know better, you’d think that this architectural oasis--basically a monumental triangular form, inventively adorned--looks like a postmodern church or gymnasium.

Of course, it is neither; it’s the Dorril B. Wright Cultural Center, one of the better-kept secrets in the county. Wright was Port Hueneme’s mayor at the time the center was built in 1984. The center was conceived as the nucleus of a community redevelopment plan that was to radically alter this once-blighted coastal area.

In the periphery is the “bubbling springs recreation greenbelt,” a slough transformed into a quaint duck-filled waterway along a bike path. As make-overs go, this one was pretty dramatic.

As part of the plan nine years ago, the state Coastal Commission stipulated that a community center be built. Wright pushed for a cultural center to create a forum in town for the arts.

A sewage treatment plant once stood here. Now, the center is an acoustically sound, 500-seat facility useful for both theater and musical events, and is also an impressive example of home-grown architecture.

But now, the center is feeling the crunch of the state’s budgetary crisis. On May 8, the theater came alive for the last time--at least in this stage of its existence--with a revue called “17 Times a Virgin.” Now, it’s a modestly majestic structure with an uncertain future.

Last week, workers were busy sealing up the place, and generally getting ready for a long winter. Dennis Murrin, the theater’s manager and program director for the past five years, scurried around in preparation of making the place dark.

The beginning of the end came last summer when state funding was drastically curtailed. Last winter, the Port Hueneme City Council voted to end its funding for the Wright Center, which cost the city about $147,000 last year.

“We knew something was going to give,” Murrin said. “In the end, the issue was, could the city even keep cops on the street?” At this point, the theater’s status is in limbo, minimally maintained while the next step is considered.

As Murrin said, “the city is not going to walk away from this building.”

A nonprofit organization, led by Wright, is being formed with hopes of getting the center operating again.

The center has additional significance for the region because it is built by Scott Ellinwood. Ellinwood, a Ventura architect, has designed several notable structures in the county, including the Bank of A. Levy building in Ventura and, most recently, the award-winning Ray Preuter library in Port Hueneme.

Ellinwood’s two Port Hueneme structures are alike in many ways. Energy efficiency is a prominent concern in both designs. Preuter, like Wright, is an ex-mayor of the city and is still an influential figure in town. And budget cuts are forcing operations at the library to be suspended.

The Wright Cultural Center is a more imposing edifice than the Preuter branch library, which sits with a deceptive gentility on its suburban property.

But, despite its size and commanding presence on the beach, the Wright Center is a tasteful model of understatement and function. As you approach from the south, the copper roof makes a striking impression.

Aside from its visual effect, the roof’s reflective material is part of an energy-conscious design that includes skylights and a solar collector inside a wing-like appendage on the roof’s apex.

Zig-zagging planes of green-tinted glass create a kind of curtain effect across the theater’s wide entryway. The ample lobby area acts as a kind of greenhouse, equipped with a system to distribute warm air to other areas of the building.

Cobblestone flooring suggests a buffer zone between inside and out.

The ticket booth--which reportedly, at a cost of $90,000, is the most expensive structure per square foot in the county--is an elaborate glass-lined rectangle, topped by a subtle marquee (which was added later).

Inside the theater, a full-size stage can accommodate touring theatrical productions, while the intimacy and acoustical clarity also makes the theater suitable for recitals without a sound system.

The seating area itself is another example of adaptability.

With an innovative, electronically controlled arrangement, the seating can be easily compressed, like a collapsible grandstand. With little effort, the place changes from a theater to an open-floor banquet room or dance hall, as has been the case with the annual Glenn Miller band dances held here.

Still, Murrin notes, “It wasn’t really a multipurpose space, but a cultural center that could be converted.”

Keeping a cultural center alive in precarious financial times, especially in a small, relatively remote community like Port Hueneme, is a tough task. Building the center in the first place was a grand, ambitious gesture--one well-done from an architectural perspective. Now the problem becomes keeping the dream alive.