This project was Lysle Oliveros’s 2009 Masters Thesis project. The concept originated as a point of humor during a dinner party. “I asked my neighbor if he recently mulched the yard (due to a pungent odor), and he replied that the smell was from a local landfill established previous to the housing development.”
more >
"Bicycle Freedom," an art work made from Hurricane Ike debris by Nicholas Auger and hung on the Hazard street bridge over I-59
In Amsterdam, Berlin, or Shanghai, masses of men, women, and children bicycling together would be nothing unusual. Why not Houston? Though the climate and flat terrain are ideal for bicycling, inadequate accommodations on Houston’s abundant roadways limit their use by “vehicular cyclists.”
An update of the City of Houston’s comprehensive Bikeway Plan is under way to boost Houston’s efforts to become a bicycling-friendly community.
more >
Possible site of future "gateway" to the Menil, Richmond Hall (left) and the Richmont Square Apartments (right) at the corner of Loretto and Richmond [Photo Raj Mankad]
In the May issue of Cite (78), Marc El-Khouri wrote about the recently announced selection of David Chipperfield Architects by the Menil Collection to create a new master plan. You can download a pdf of the article by clicking on the title, “Art Urbanism: Chipperfield and the Menil Master Plan.” Below is my interview of Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil.
Raj Mankad (RM): How would you describe the currents stage of the master planning process?
more >
Cite 78, May 2009 [Facade detail of Wyly Theatre cover photo by Jason Grant, nostalgicglass.org]
Let’s start at the end. In order to set the context for the work featured in this issue, we asked Stephen Fox—the preeminent historian of Texas architecture—to trace the descent of architectural stars upon the state. His essay on the last page of this issue reveals just the tip of the iceberg. Visit his post on this blog for a comprehensive list of projects built in Texas since 1886 by prominent architects from other parts of the world.
We visited Dallas and San Antonio to follow up on the latest batch of stars transforming the Texas landscape.
more >
Detail from the book cover [above], Elsie De Wolfe and a room designed by her [below, Wikimedia Commons]
Since there are few serious studies of interior design, The Modern Interior, however slight and scantily illustrated, is a welcome addition to the library. Penny Sparke, an English critic, has written on the subject for several years, including Elsie De Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration (Acanthus Press, 2005). Sparke’s book is not a visual tour of modern interior design. Rather it describes the way people live in an industrialized world and identifies in different characters of the spaces they create for themselves the locus of the “modern life.”
more >
2009 art car parade passes by Federal Reserve Building designed by Michael Graves [Photo by SMercury98]
April 28 scene at Katy Freeway (I-10) and Beltway 8 [Photograph by finna dat]
