- Jan. 4, 2010
- 6:26 PM
Wallpaper City Guide: Houston
Rather than plainly document a bounty of recreational attractions, the recently-released Wallpaper City Guide: Houston (published jointly by the Wallpaper magazine and Phaidon) postures itself as the “fast-track” guide for the discerning traveler, offering a “tightly edited,” “ruthlessly researched,” “rigorously selected,” and “discreetly packaged” list of the city’s design-conscious locales. Instead of the design-minded denizen, the target audience is the weekend tourist or business traveler — so it’s tempting for a local to scrutinize the 100-page volume.
Promising to offer an “insider’s checklist of the world’s most intoxicating cities” (to date, there are 70 guides), Wallpaper City Guide: Houston is at best a pat on the back for the city’s design offerings (and a win over the state’s more pretentious metroplex). While the book highlights spas and painfully posh bars, the editors focus foremost on the artistic and architectural landscape. Proper due is granted to icons like Williams Tower, Penzoil Place, Link-Lee Mansion, and the Astrodome, as well as more recent additions such as the Brochstein Pavilion. Given the brevity of the guide, some of the choices are arguable. The editors, an anonymous group of the magazine’s travel experts, glamorize the disproportioned intervention of the Chapel of St. Basil at the University of St. Thomas campus, as well as the art gallery complex at 4411 Montrose. Two of the featured hotspots, Raye and Raindrop, had already closed by the book’s printing.
Wallpaper City Guide Houston redeems itself in the poetic summary of the city’s contemporary conundrum of coming to terms with the worst excesses of urban sprawl — “a place with little sense of place” and a repressed inferiority complex. That Wallpaper encourages the reader to overlook “the urban schizophrenia” and “discover the Houston underneath” credits the publisher’s expectations for tourists’ tenacity (or the occurrence of tourists in Houston to begin with). Indeed, were Rick Steve or even Lonely Planet to cover the city, gems like the Beer Can House or Jefferson Chemical Company Building would probably not receive mention.
Wallpaper’s guide makes for an interesting comparison with Placenotes: Houston, published by the University of Texas’ Charles W. Moore Center for the Study of Place. Stephen Fox’s Houston: Architectural Guide is in an altogether different category. Decidedly Texan, Placenotes emphasizes the city’s architectural heritage and — gasp — escapes into nature, as well as more easily-identifiable commentary by local architects and cultural literati. Although Placenotes offers a more thorough exploration of the city’s landmarks, you won’t find footnotes about booking the most decadent suite at Hotel ZaZa.
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Filed Under: Books, Tourism
