About

The Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Virginia is a 55-acre center for the arts and arts education that, through adaptive reuse, utilizes existing structures on repurposed land in the former Lorton Reformatory - one of Virginia's recognized historic sites. A strong community partner with a growing national reputation, the Workhouse hosts celebrations, offers space for special events, and showcases Fairfax County's commitment to the arts. The Workhouse is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and relies on the generosity of WAC partners and community.

Once surrounded by barbed wire fence, the Workhouse Arts Center is now an open arts center. Artists rent studio space, actors perform on the stage, students of all ages take classes on an arcaded campus built on the same Jeffersonian plan of linked pavilions as found on the main grounds of the University of Virginia. The center welcomes over 100,000 visitors each year, hosts more than 800 unique arts-related events each year, and boasts more than 10 unique galleries with over 100 exhibits each year. The most recent addition is the Lorton prison Museum and the Lucy Burns Gallery which tells the 91-year history of the District of Columbia's Correctional Facility and honors the suffragists who were imprisoned there in 1917.