A model of a taco truck by Donna Kacmar's design studio at the Initiatives for Houston exhibition.
The conversion of the Architecture Center Houston (ArCH) into a think tank of what Houston is, could be, and should be is worth the visit. The curated exhibition of Rice Design Alliance’s Initiatives for Houston Grant Program captures ten years of thinkers, dreamers, and designers putting their heads together to better understand our city and steer its future.
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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.
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Cite 80 cover [Art by Jorge Galvan, Color Aid paper, thread, and pins]
Letter from the Editor
In the 1990’s, a new wave of architecture professors at Rice University took on Houston as an experiment in urbanism. Whereas American cities like Boston and New York offered infill and contextual strategies by which to analyze and investigate, the seemingly blank canvas of the “Space City” offered up the idea of a new breed of city, or anti-city. As students we were rolled out to all corners of the region to investigate the hidden city — how the industrial warehouse, the bayou, the suburban tract, the mega-mall, the parking lot, and all the spaces in between created the tapestry that is Houston.
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Photos courtesy of Dean Liscum
A sign blocks the steps to the porch—plywood with orange spray paint bearing a three-digit address. You step around it and onto the screened porch. Two bright orange stickers from the city’s Code Enforcement Group pasted to the window announce the obvious—you should not be here. This building is condemned and slated for demolition. You hold your hands to the glass and look through your reflection into a house with no roof, no floor, no inside. Beyond your reflection, open to the elements, lies an ovoid hole.
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Galerías Mall, Maracaibo, Venezuela, courtesy Wilfredo R. Rodriguez H.
Imagine driving across the United States, from San José to New York City, without speaking to anyone. Sounds difficult, right? Credit card swipe machines, internet check-ins, and automated food ordering allowed Andrew Wood to accomplish this feat with only uttering four words, all in the first day of his cross country drive. The journey, among the stories in his seventh book, City Ubiquitous: Place, Communication, and the Rise of Omnitopia, portrays our social landscape as generic and provides the foundation for his thesis: our world “has become condensed into an enclosure of the same place.”
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Peter Buchanan is one of those individuals touting many titles: writer, architect, critic, urban designer. It was primarily as a critic that Mr. Buchanan approached the subject of the evening, Towers in Architecture, as a critic of the decadence of the architectural object and of the American influence on the inhabitation of our cities. (For Zeke Minaya’s report on the lecture, entitled “Getting High or the End of a Bad Trip,” click on this link to ricedesignalliance.org.)
Given the current state of the economy many of us nod along with his argument. Towers are “abandoned half-way up,” commissions have been canceled or slowed, project scopes have been drastically reduced.
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Sept. 10 marked the release date of the latest issue of Cite. It focused on infrastructure; largely ignored by most but, nonetheless, the bedrock on which all other endeavor— literally and figuratively—rest. During the time that the editors of Cite worked on the issue they came across several books that added significantly to their understanding. Below are their reading recommendations if you are looking to get your infrastructure fix.
Christof Spieler
I know a book is good when it makes me see everyday life differently.
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Bill Arning, Director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) addresses the NoZoning Forum [Photo from CAMH Facebook page]
Metropolitan Theater [Photos courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, via cinemahouston.info]
The cover of David Welling’s book Cinema Houston is a stunning sepia photograph of the interior of the downtown’s lost Metropolitan Theater, known in its time for a booming Wurlitzer, disappearing orchestra pit, and opulent faux-gold Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Its extravagance bears little resemblance to the Houston theaters of the 90s and 00s I grew up in, where the investment was not in decoration but in the number of screens and parking spots. This very American transition from the movie palace to the multiplex, amplified in our city, is given a definitive treatment in Cinema Houston.
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Everything Must Move [Cover design Thumb]
The May issue of Cite (78) included a reflection by Ben Koush on the fifteen-year tenure of Rice School of Architecture Dean Lars Lerup. You can download a pdf of the article by clicking on the title, “Lars Lerup Goes to Rome: Former Student Reflects on Transition at Rice School of Architecture.” Below Koush extends his reflection.
Everything Must Move was published on the occasion of the fifth Kennon Symposium honoring Rice School of Architecture (RSA) Dean Lars Lerup as he steps down this year. According to the subtitle printed on its bright red cover, the book documents “a decade-and-a-half of propositions about the suburban city in general, and Houston in particular.” (Author’s note: I was a graduate student who matriculated roughly in the middle of Lerup’s tenure.)
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