Raiford Stripling Honored by Texas A&M
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Cite Fall 1983 3 Citelines ffi Big Cite Beat Raiford Stripling High-rise m- Speculation on what might have caused the damage that Hurricane Alicia inflicted on the curtain walls of two of downtown Honored by Texas A&M Apartment Planned Houston's flashier new buildings is rife. One for San Antonio's Houston architect is confident that he knows Raiford Stripling, the 72-year-old San Augustine ar- the answer, however; "That's just what hap- chitect best known for his restoration and preservation pens when you put a green one next to a work, was honored at a symposium held in San An- RiverWalk pink one." tonio on 10 September called "Texas: A Sense of Place, A Spirit of Independence." The symposium m- Helmut J arm kicked off the Houston De- was sponsored by Texas A&M University, the Uni- Arrow Associates, the architecture and urban-design sign Center's series of public lectures by versity of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures, the Texas firm organized by Cyrus Wagner, currently has in celebrated designers on 23 August before a Committee for the Humanities, and the National En- design a 19-slory condominium apartment tower, to packed house in Greenway Plaza. Climaxing dowment for the Humanities. be called The Riverton. for downtown San Antonio. the talk was J a h n ' s presentation of the mul- Located at West Market and Navarro streets, the tiple alternatives he developed for the design Stripling, who is registered as Texas Architect No. building will also face the RiverWalk just across the of the Southwest Center, which, like the Hous- 198, directed the restoration of Mission Espiritu Santo San Antonio River from La Villita. ton Design Center, is being built by Century and of Presidio La Bahia in Goliad, of Fort Parker in Development Corporation. Although the 82- Mexia, and of numerous structures in San Angustine, Arrow's design takes careful account of the building's story Southwest Center will be J a h n ' s first Austin. Beaumont. Galveston, and Waco. urban situation. A six-story base contains river- and Houston building, it will be the Murphy street-level retail space beneath five floors of parking. firm's second. In 1938, for a model house The symposium, organized by Gordon Echols, a pro- On the river side of the base, however, apartment building program sponsored by Life maga- fessor in the A&M School or Environmental Design, units displace parking. A 13-story tower, containing zine, Shaw, Naess and Murphy designed a was divided into three parts: a photographic exhibi- the majority of the huilding's 106 apartment units, house built at 2241 Stanmore Drive in the tion documenting Stripling's major projects; a 30- rises above the base. The tower is stepped in plan on River Oaks courts, occupied originally by minute video tape on Stripling, narrated by Amy all four sides and has a picturesque skyline profile. Adele Boettcher Neuhaus. It is 80 stories Freeman Lee. San Antonio artist and philosopher; and The big scale and simple massing of the base is in- shorter than the Southwest Center. a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Lee. Participat- tended to relate to such surrounding low-rise build- ing in the discussion were Raiford Stripling, Austin ings as the small, but monumental. Public Library architect Robert Coffee, and Austin architect and (1930. Herbert S. Green, architect). The setback architectural historian Eugene George. massing of the lower responds to the presence nearby of such downtown landmarks as the Smith-Young In remarks made prior to the symposium. Stripling Tower (1929, Atlee B. Ayres and Robert M. Ayres, stepped outside his role as celebrated preservationist architects) and the Alamo National Bank Building to pay a debt he owed to the women of Texas. They (1930, Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, arc, he said, the leaders of historic preservation and architects). architectural restoration in Texas and have constituted the majority of his clients over the years. With tena- According to Gregory Warwick, a principal in the city and an independent spirit, and despite unfavor- Arrow firm. The Riverton will be of rcinforced-con- able odds, a number of women, acting individually or crele construction, faced with brick and glazed tile. collectively, have preserved many historic sites within Construction is scheduled to begin in May 1984. the state. Southport Development Company is developing the project, which will be the first high-rise residential Lee set a witty philosophical pace for the panel mem- building to be constructed in downtown San Antonio. bers. She posed questions that addressed the roles of preservation and restoration today. The panel con- Embassy, which he plans to inaugurate in 1986, the curred on the suggestion that the preservation of an year of Texas's sesquiccntennial. historic site, whether it be a whole town or a single Life House #8 (Neuhaus House), Houston, 1938. structure, perpetuates the events and people connected Shaw. Naess and Murphy, architects (River Oaks However, the Texas Embassy has encountered con- Magazine, 194!) with it. Destruction severs the thread tying the past to siderable opposition from individuals and organiza- the present. This thread provides a link, renewing the tions actively involved in historic preservation. The sense of place and independence that is the legacy of reasons arc not difficult to understand. Although the t*~ All Strung Out Public art types were more the frontier to the present, and it can continue to do so. Embassy staff professes to be interested in rescuing than a little taken aback when, on 27 April, endangered buildings that would disappear were it not Russo Properties, Inc., announced that it At a dinner following the symposium, it was an- for the project, in reality it has assembled what % would erect on the plaza of its Lyric Centre nounced that Michael McCullar, formerly associate referred to as a "laundry list" of other types of struc- Office Building in downtown Houston a 36- editor of Texas Architect, will write a biography of tures that it would like to move and reconstruct at the foot-high work of sculpture by veteran Hous- Raiford Stripling to be published by the Texas A&M Embassy. These include buildings that are donated to ton painter David Adickes. Called "Virtu- University Press. The book is tentatively scheduled the Embassy, those that the Embassy staff would par- oso," the piece depicts an upstanding cello for publication in mid-1985. ticularly like to have, examples of generic types, and being bowed by one disembodied hand and structures that are dedicated State Landmarks. A fingered by another, with a disembodied Sally S. Victor computer print-out reveals some of these to be the head, mustachioed and curlicued, at the tip KJT Dance Hall in Fayette County, the Red River of the stem, very much like a bronze figurine Fire House in Red River, and buildings from San by Paul Fairley called "Abstract Cello," The Texas Embassy - Ygnacio, a community near Laredo that only recently which is two feet high. recovered from assaults by the Texas Tech Ranching "Virtuoso" will be constructed of steel sur- Heritage Center. faced with polished white "cultured" marble. What Price History? It will be integrally lit and (natch) play re- A second problem inherent in the project is that some corded cello music during lunch. A significant assault on historic structures in Texas, of what the Embassy staff proposes to do is illegal. The art community's collective eyebrows currently underway, has been gaining momentum Article 6145 of Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes ex- were raised, but no unkind remarks have steadily. It is a project called the Texas Embassy and pressly prohibits the moving of structures protected been forthcoming, at least not publicly. In it is advertised as a massive, statewide effort at his- by the Antiquities Code of Texas, among which are the company of downtown's corporate art toric preservation. county courthouses and, possibly, buildings around elite—monumental public sculpture by Miro, courthouse squares. Despite this fact, Koock has con- Oldenburg, Hepworth, and Dubuffet are the The Texas Embassy is spearheaded by former televi- vinced the State Bar Association to endorse the mov- most conspicuous —"Virtuoso" is, well, not sion personality Guich Koock of Fredericksburg. Its ing and restoration of the Blanco County Courthouse, -^ a very sophisticated addition. In purpose, detailed in a promotional brochure Texas although to date the association has refused to under- (,, search of public art that was Embassy Preserves Texas, 1'83'6-1936, is to create a write the project. humorous, accessible, and non- "Living Museum" that will be a "permanent historical \ esoteric, Russo Properties' art preservation area" for endangered Texas structures. The recent thrust of preservation activity in Texas, as mavens have settled for the What is envisioned is a Lone Star version of Colonial in the rest of the country, has been to restore and re- merely corny and derivative. Williamsburg, Greenfield Village, or Old Sturbridge use buildings in place. This practice stems from the "Virtuoso" was unveiled Village, populated with 100 historically and architec- recognition that a specific relationship exists between 1 in October. turally significant Texas buildings constructed between buildings and the places where they were designed 1836 and 1936. These will be trucked-in from towns and constructed. The Texas Embassy fails to recog- throughout the stale and arranged around the 1886 nize that relationship and has ignored the impact that Blanco County Courthouse, which Koock hopes to the removal of landmark buildings will have on rural transport from Blanco to a 1,000-acre site (of unde- Texas communities. Raising money and consciousness termined location) somewhere between Blanco and to protect the state's vulnerable historic resources is a Johnson City in the Hill Country.