Offcite Blog | Design. Houston. Architecure.

Connect the Dots Goes to Midtown

Map of HCC/Ensember area [Courtesy Morris Architects]

Cite Editor, Raj Mankad, and Editorial Chair, Christof Speiler, spoke on KPFT 90.1 FM radio’s Connect The Dots with host Robert Muhammad on Wednesday, December 9, 2009. They were on during the final fifteen minutes of the show to discuss the new issue of Cite (number 80) and an article [...]

Cite 80: Houstopia 2035

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, [...]

Revisiting Cite 74: Sacred Space

Cite 74, published in the Spring of 2008, looked at some of Houston’s sacred architecture and sites including the Seminarian and Student Chapels at the University of St. Thomas, Lakewood Church, and the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.
Table of Contents

Revisiting Cite 73: Houston Traditions

This issue, published in the winter of 2008, could not sit still. It looked forward, it looked back, and then forward again. It considered the reshaping of Houston institutions including the University of St. Thomas and Texas Southern University. The Rurban Horseshoe examined the historically black neighborhoods on the periphery of the city. Rafael Longoria [...]

Revisiting Cite 72: Who Owns the Street?

Originally published in Fall 2007, Cite 72 is now available free online in pdf format. Click on the titles below to download.
Letter from the Guest Editor
By 2035, the Houston Area will grow by 3.5 million people. That’s the forecast from the Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC), and while there may be argument about the numbers, there’s [...]

Reading Recommendations

High Pressure Gas Well, Bammel Storage Facility [Photo by Sharon Steinmann]

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 [...]

Cite 79: The Hidden Machine

Cite 79 Cover: A map of all the pipelines of North America, excluding waterlines, courtesy HTSI
Letter from the Editor
My day normally begins with a bicycle ride through the bungalows near the Menil Collection, across the Dunlavy bridge over the Southwest Freeway, and through Boulevard Oaks and Southhampton to Rice University. The nearly continuous live [...]

Revisiting Cite 71: The Hurricane Issue

Cite 71 was sandwiched in-between several hurricanes. Published in the summer of 2007 — after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and before Hurricane Ike — the issue managed to digest the still-raw lessons learned from the devastation in New Orleans and offered a prescient analysis before the arrival of Ike.
The issue asked experts what the worst-case [...]

Authors in Architecture Series and Cite

Cite issues 75 through 78

The Architecture Center Houston and the Houston Public Library hold a monthly program called Authors in Architecture. The series highlights one book or publication. It is held every 3rd Thursday of each month with a presentation and discussion at the Downtown Library and a following reception and book signing at the [...]

Cite 78: Texas Reaches for the Stars

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 [...]