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Farnsworth & Chambers Building

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Houston’s historic Farnsworth & Chambers building, located at 2999 S. Wayside, held its grand reopening opening last night following the rehabilitation of this architecturally and historically significant building. Visitors, many who had not set foot there in decades, marveled at how the building looked the same yet felt much lighter and updated — a great complement to the project team. The building is presently known as the Gragg Building after the second owners who sold it and the surrounding acreage to the city in the late 1970s.

The building was commissioned by the Farnsworth & Chambers Company, a Houston-based construction company that worked regionally in the southwest, Louisiana, and Central America, and completed in 1957. Houston architects MacKie & Kamrath, local proponents of Frank Lloyd Wright, designed the building in a modernist style reminiscent of Wright’s Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona and includes steeply-slanted, rough-faced green quartzite walls and concrete vertical shapes that evoke the talud and tablero construction techniques of Mesoamerica.

Planning for the building rehabilitation started in 2006 and the owner, The City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department, insisted on a sensitive rehabilitation that respected the original architectural vision, upgraded all of the systems, and introduced needed additional light to the interior to provide a state-of-the-art building that took advantage of the verdant site and provided employees with a delightful workspace. In addition, the owner requested all levels of historic designation, city, state, and federal. Architects for the project, Daniel Kornberg and Kris McGraw of HarrisonKornberg Architects, successfully adapted and improved the functionality of the building and introduced nine new hipped roof clerestory skylights.

Additional alterations include the introduction of additional egress doors, enlargement of the ribbon windows on the north and south (secondary facades), replacement of floor-to-ceiling window systems where they were too corroded to be restored. Original elements including the interior mahogany paneling and light coves, wooden intake grills, steel-framed ribbon windows, and interior circulation were maintained and any damaged elements replicated in kind. Plans for the alterations, including site line studies, were reviewed by historic preservation agencies at the state and local level to ensure the changes would not compromise the original character defining elements of the building.

Contrary to common public perception, historic buildings can be rehabilitated — meaning new elements can be introduced and buildings adapted to a new or changed use. New elements must be sensitively designed and integrated so that collectively they do not compromise the historic integrity of the building. This approach demands that the architect, owner, and historic preservation consultant be willing to creatively explore complicated design solutions, understand the character defining elements of the historic building, know the limits, and work to reach the desired outcome.

The building is significant at the local level for its association with architects MacKie & Kamrath and for its association with Farnsworth & Chambers Company. It is significant at the national level as the headquarters of the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston while the Clear Lake campus was being designed and constructed. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had several satellite offices in the vicinity of South Wayside for personnel and laboratories, yet its headquarters were here from 1962-1964. Mercury astronauts including Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton, as well as project director Robert Rowe Gilruth, maintained offices at the building. The building is listed as a Protected City of Houston Landmark, a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Anna Mod works for SWCA Environmental Consultants and served as the historic preservation consultant for the rehabilitation of the building.

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