Houston Museum District: Map Showing Principal Public Fpacc-S

Home , Hermann Park, Houston Museum District

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Thr Houston Museum District: map showing principal public fpacc-s.

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PE-TKR C. PAI'AIM.MITRIOLI

HOUSTON In the1 past five years, the area n o r t h of Hermann Park f r o m Jackson Street to Montrose Boulevard has been rite site ul a succession ol institutional initiatives MUSEUM that account for its designation as a "district."' The coincidence of indepen- dent decisions has resulted in the relative proximity of a dozen or so similar institutions. In a city devoid of Zoning this does not precisely constitute de facto z o n i n g , but it certainly has resulted in a clearly identifiable /.one. T h e I.awndale A r t and Performance Center at 4l J12 South M a i n Street and the campus of ihe M e n i l Collection, west of M o n t r o s e four blocks, bordered by West A l a b a m a on the north and R i c h m o n d Avenue on the s o u t h , are sufficiently close to be associated w ith tins district. The perception of litis area as the M u s e um District is intensified by the brief tune span in w h i c h this g r o w t h has occurred; d u r i n g the past three years, and the next three years c o m i n g , six new •wildings, including the Heck Building of Museum District looking south along Montrose Boulevard. the M u s e u m of Fine A r t s , i l o u s t o n , w i l l have been completed. 1 Glassell School, MFAH Lime and Hugh Ray Cullen Sculpture Garden, I. Hoguchi, 2 Administration and Junior School Building, MFAH designer, Fuller & Sadao, architects, 1966. Brown Pavilion, 3 Jung Institute MFAH, ludwig Mies von de Rohe, architect, 1974, 4 Contemporary Arts Museum in background. 5 Museum ol Fine Arts, Hauslan 6 Audrey Jones Beck Building, MFAH 7 Richard and Annette Bloch Ploia 8 Fannin Sec vice Building, MFAH 9 Houston Museum ol Natural Science 10 Garden Center, Hermann Park 11 Museum ol Health and Medical Science 12 Children's Museum of Houston 13 Houston Holocaust Museum 14 Clayton Genealogical library 15 Cullen Sculpture Garden, MFAH

The Museum of Fine Arts is, in fact, Pavilion. The parking lot at the Bisson- the historical reason for the area's poten- net-South Mam corner belongs to first tial and a primary agent of its future Presbyterian Church but is used by coherence. Yet there are some disturbing Museum of Fine Arts patrons. The expan- decisions that may well undercut the se e, block-long curving facade ot the success of this fragile district, illustrating Brown Pavilion, whose form echoes the the lack of a bigger picture, of a vision curve of the street, implicitly borders an that extends beyond the needs of separate urban space, only hall of which is actual- institutions. Yesterday's back door could tings, a campus has essentially developed of the l.illie and I high Roy Cullen ly part of the Museum ol Fine Arts be tomorrow's address. History shows due to the exigencies of available proper- Sculpture Garden (1986), This loose chain precinct. The real museum parking lot is that assumptions easily can get inverted ties near the original facility. The Alfred ol facilities almig Montrose has resulted the so-called north parking lot, some four without a larger plan or broader, inclu- C. Gtassell, Jr., School of Art (1978) was in a curious urban condition. The Cullen blocks up South Main. A prominent sign sive intentions. the first obvious satellite to the campus, Garden, designed by Isamu Noguchi, has directly facing the entrance to the muse- The Museum of Fine Arts (William in part a means of gaining more internal irs primary entrance at mid-block on um on Bissonnet, posted by the church, Ward Watkin, architect, ll>24, 1926) space by pulling the museum school pro- Bissonnet between Montrose and South confirms the good-neighbor relationship originally formed part of a 1920s ensem- gram out of the original building. Mam, across the street from the central but makes the real ownership of the terri- ble that grouped it with the (then) Hotel Curiously, the school's entrance and its front door of the museum's Brown tory perfectly clear. Warwick, Shadyside subdivision, the oval The most recently completed facility sunken garden at the oblique intersection for the campus is the museum's Admin- of Montrose Boulevard and South Main, istration and Junior School Building and the axis from Montrose into Her- (1994), which is "out in left field," so mann Park. Its "front door" was archi- to speak, across Montrose on the block tecturally delineated by the treatment of bounded by Berthea and Bartlett. its south facade. As architectural histori- Designed by Carlos Jimenez (with an Stephen Fox illustrated in "The Kcndall/Heaton Associates), it is a taut Museum of fine Arts. I loustoii: An composition that shows it can conceptu- Architectural History, 1924-1986,"! as ally belong to a larger context through late as 1948, expansion plans reiterated controlled adjustments in its form. The this grouping, including a study by con- site Jimenez was given provided a situa- sultants Hare ik Hare ot Kansas City tion demanding clever corroboration with for additional museum facilities in a cul- [he other Museum of Pine Arts buildings tural center sired on the Cullinan estate in reappropnate a presence within ihe property within Shadyside, which borders group. The education and administrative West en Ira nee, Administration ond Junior School Building, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Carlos Jimenez Architectural Design Studio, directly on the site of the museum's origi- architect; Kendall-Heolon Associates, Inc., ossociote architects, 1994. components are operationally separate. nal front yard. This all changed with a but both had to be housed m the new L- provocative master-plan proposal from shaped building. Ihe school was orga- Kenneth Iran/hcun in 1952. Franzheim nized in a two-story wing facing Bartlett proposed recognizing llissonnet Avenue's Street, making north light available to the new presence in the city (resulting from a studios. The administrative offices occupy realignment through to Bin/., east of the three-story block fronting on Mon- South Main I by giving the museum a trose, where a barrel-vaulted, rounded new front door, as well as, more tellingly, metal roof gives added scale to the princi- by locating a one-way drive-through between Montrose and South Main, effecting service and public access internally, particularly to an auditorium. The Mies van der Rohe master plan ot 1954 and eventual realization in Cullinan Hall 11 958) and expansion in the Brown T T Pavilion 11974) pragmatically completed • . V I r transferral of the front door to the • Bissonnet side of the building; 1001

Bissonnet became the museum's address. Monlrose Boulevard entrance, Administration and Junior School Foyer, Administration and Junior Schoonooil puiioingBuilding, MFAH m r * n . Building, MFAH. ft If expansion of museum facilities had been an issue in the mid-1950s when associated on-site parking lace north, there were 4,000 objects in the collection, toward Bartlett Street, away from the l i —i the collection's tripling to 12,000 works museum itself. Funding initiatives F in 1970 and then more than doubling involved in establishing the permanent FU -CLT 3 again to 27,000 works by 1992 height- home lor the museum school also set the ened the difficulty of a managed expan- stage for the resale of the corner properly sion. Excluding Bayou Bend and Rienzi, at Montrose and Bissonnet to the City of which house important portions of the Houston Parks and Recreation i Z I D X I I L I L P • museum's collection in residential set- Department to advance the development First-lloor plan. Administration and Junior School Building, MFAH. 10 Cite 3 4 Spring 1 9 9 6 C i t e 34 S p i n g 19 9 6

Audrey Jonej Beck Building, MFAH, Rofoel Moneo, architect: Kendall-Henlon Associates, associate architects, I 9 9 4 - 9 4 . Perspective view ol model looting southeast from Ihc rorner of l i n i ond South Main strrets

kept separate through this internal divi- (ilassell School, and its seemingly casually sion. The two building blocks arc inter- angled wall, something like 37 degrees, locked on the third level, where the is rigorously constructed to align with graphics and publications offices sit the Montrose entrance to the (allien atop one end of the school block. Sculpture darden, and, by geometrical The site design is notable for having extension, with the center line of the gar- clearly zoned parking bands that channel den's entrance across from the Museum circulation to the reentrant corner of the of bine Arts entrance on Bissonnct. L form. Such a corner entry is one of the Materially, the composition of anodized most difficult formal problems in design, aluminum, limestone, standing-seam A. West (Main. Slreel) devotion. but by the iconological "weighting" of metal, and occasional sections of glass the primary block, the main entrance is block refers to elements in the other cam- properly placed perpendicular to and pus buildings. The result is an elegantly directly into the corner. Both street entry proportioned, precisely detailed building and parking entry are directly aligned that is visually interesting yet simple and within the main lobby; they are separated clear m design, embracing complexity by the vertical circulation core, a free- without being complicated, \\\\\ standing curved staircase wrapping It is with the projected Audrey |ones around the elevator, which is displaced Beck Building and its associated Hannin off center to assert the symbolic "pres- Service Building thai the substantial needs sure" and importance of the Montrose of the Museum of Fine Arts will be met. B. North (Bini Street) elevation. entrance. This entry is monumentalized as Currently still in design by Spanish a three-story space. Entry to the school is architect Rafael Moneo (again with a parallel "slot" thai incorporates a prop- Kendall/Heaton Associates of Houston), er school bus dropoff and lay-by lane the Beck Building reveals some funda- with a setback porch and overhanging mental repositioning of the museum's canopy. A second fire exit from the address, one more time. school is articulated as an exterior metal The IKS.OOU-square-foot facility staircase whose shadows enliven the will double the gallery capacity of the south facade, A mini-plaza softens the Museum of bine Arts and provide space parking lot's relationship to the building. for traveling exhibitions. The existing The building front is set back from museum building will be renovated to Montrose, effectively preserving a row of house works from the permanent collec- C. Emt (Fannin Street) elevation. established live oak trees, and is more or tion spanning 1410 to the present, includ- less in line with the building setbacks of ing its Texas collection of 500 pieces by the Jung Center and Contemporary Arts living artists. Thus freed from the need to Museum to the south, clearly tying the house everything, the Mies building can . m m group together. Mtm be restored to its original spatial inten- 1 The Montrose entry of the Jimenez tions. The Brown Auditorium will remain building is monumentalized by its exter- as the museum lecture space, and the nal representation as a pure three-story museum store will be expanded, as will element, set in from the exterior face of the I lirsch Library. The director's office -' j^^r • i the block with an obliquely canted wall and administrative areas will remain in 1 behind which are service rooms). It is the the original building. Oceanic art will be D. Sooth (Esving Slreel I elevation. precise placement of the entrance that placed in the former cafe area opening knits Jimenez's design to context: facing onto the Alice Pratt Brown Garden. The east, the entrance is virtually centered Beck Building, in turn, will feature the perpendicular to the entrance face of the permanent collection. It will also house Cite 3 4 S p r i n g 1 9 9 6 C i 1 c 3 4 S p r i n g 1 9 9

Fannin Service Building in the next block "underground gallery passage" (dare we viewing distance back would be between Fannin and San Jacinto. The say tunnel?) connects, under South Main, inadequate. Moreover, the proposed report stressed the importance of extend- to the lower level of the Brown Pavilion, connection into the Brown Pavilion ing without replicating the one big move more or less directly into the lower-level is a less than graceful intersection r of the Mies design, the prominent facade gallers MI from ol the Brown Auditorium, of geometries. along Bissonnet. An appendix expanded Moreover, this subterranean spine Binz has been gratuitously recog- the argument against the tunnel, citing extends completely through the Beck nized by a suspended canopy along the problems of city utilities, the need Building, under Fannin Street, and into the north face of the Beck Building, for vertical elevator connections at each the Fannin Service Building, which is in where one may enter rhe lobby end, and the cost of basement space in part a public facility for 600 to 700 cars. through a set of double doors. Its Houston given the local groundwater Such infrastructure suggests that the south facade, directly facing the conditions. "Underground pedestrian museum chose to provide physical com- raised lobby ol the Wyndham tunnels will be extremely difficult to fort and convenience for its patrons, and Warwick Hotel, comprises two tire make lively," it further observed. that the north lot has been something ol a exits and a loading dock; this hlank- Of course, Venturi, Scott Brown & bogus proposition. However, this proces- ness will be brightly illuminated by permanent collection. It will also house Associates were not given the job . . . sional is essentially a linear, two-block sunlight because of its orientation curatorial offices, scholarly research func- As a kind of archipelago of facilities underground trek to the existing museum, and wilt certainly glare into the tions, and technical areas, as well as the separated by city streets, the Museum of with little lateral horizontal visual relief Warwick's lobby. The east (Fannin new museum cafe, a catering kitchen, and Fine Arts campus has serious functional (half the journey is paralleled by a second Street) side is exactly that: a side. museum service areas. When its spacious constraints. The Moneo proposal reflects service tunnel from the Fannin Service Moneo has set the building mass galleries open, Houston will more readily clearly the museum board's view of how Building to the Beck Building), and no and bulk to approximately emul.iu become a venue for traveling exhibitions, these must be resolved, but it seriously vertical extension to punctuate if not that of the existing museum build- 7 particularly those of the "blockbuster ' ignores, or at least devalues, the larger modulate the journey, let alone provide ing; lis limestone cladding matches variety. scale of the urban experience. Moneo's any visual connection to, or sense of, the the original Warkin building and The Mies design was never really sym- design, in a kind of good nP hoy inversion world above. the stone base of the Mies pavilion. metrical: a "slot" between the original of the cosmopolitan urban ism his archi- Since this entire "gallery" is under- In this way, a new urban spatial Watkin building and the Mies expansions tecture has represented, gives precedence ground, it is curious that its shape had to dialogue is established across South on Montrose allows for a loading dock, a to humidity, heat, and drive-in ease in lieu be a straight line. Why not a curve, to Main, but any urban experience lew upper levt I administrators' parking of reinforcing the potential of the alleviate some of its apparent length, or a is limited to the corner street cross- spots, and the staff entrance. On the other Hissonnet-Binz corridor. series of spaces modulated as rooms en ing, or effectively eliminated b> hand, the South Main entrance is the The Beck Building's west elevation, suite} As it is designed, the onK objects the provision of the underground after-hours entry (and in some of our along South Main, will be the principal that might he displayed in the gallery gallery passage. minds the RDA entry, because for some facade, with the institution's name incised passage would he small ones. While a The skeleton in the closet is the two decades of joint evening programs we in huge letters, although the museum's large 1960s canvas might possibly make Fannin Service Building, about have used this door). What was probably published address will not change. sense in the plan dimension, in fact, the which little is known at this writing. an aesthetic move on Mies's part — to Recently an array of the ubiquitous per- resolve the insertion of paired stairs pendicular museum banners has been MFAH, Brawn Pavilion and BIMII Building conflnttion, between the older building and his addi- proposed along with the 24-foot sculp- basement plans. tions by articulating the separation with a tural columnar portico for cars and a physical "notch" — has provided a key to sheltered two-lane, covered drive-in-drop- functional and gestural moves by Moneo. off. Four pairs of doors admit into the MoncoN design must he seen in light main lobby, while a secondary grouping ^GD - - of the I9H8-90 master plan by Venturi, of two pairs of doors connects off to the J Scott Brown & Associates, a critical- side to a secondary corner entry from t needs-assessment program as well as a Bin/. Internally, public circulation centers study of physical form alternatives. The on a three-story vertical atrium that paral- report recognized that, "given the S- lels the Bin/, front, bookended by a three- shaped configuration of the Museum's section public stair and a pair of long properties and the strong axial relation of escalators leading past a mezzanine level the Museum to property it does not own, (where public access is primarily for making a coherent campus . . . becomes scholars "by appointment") to the main MFAH, enisling structure, one HI the . • . most intriguing chal- gallery group on the second floor. It is 8e

It will be on the order ot a four-story mass, set hack from the street, and containing, in addition to 600 to 700 cars, a museum service center. It will use Bin/ for public car access, and Ewing ,is a service street. Since its & alignment is offset from that of Monro's building, it will not continue the sense of an urban frontage along Binz, either spatially or functional- ly. In fact, Moneo has had little to do with the building, curiously so given his long- standing interest in urban design. There is no sugges- tion that a landscape theme will enhance whatever pedestrian experience there could have been, and everything to suggest that this is Contemporary Arts Mutram, looking north from Monlrose Boulevord. Grainor Birkorls t Associates, orchilects Omit! Toptey Associates, associate architects, 1971 an oh-by-thc-way design to be visually enhanced by the foundation- sion, such as Meg Webster's provocative ered to anchor the planting school of landscape architecture. environmental piece three years ago. The eastern boundary ot Such is not the case with the new ( \M proposal, developed in collab- the Museum I )istnct. Contemporary Arts Museum's modest oration with Philadelphia landscape archi- The Children's program of rehabilitation, expansion, and tect Laurie Olin, whose firm the Olin Museum formally set exterior space enhancement. Architect Partnership Ltd., formerly Hanna/Olin, a precedent when its William T. Stern, who is himself a collec- authored the visionary 1995 master plan architects, Venturi, tor of works by artists such as Sol Lcwitt, for I lermann Park, injects a public space Scotr Brown & at the corner of Montrose and Bissonnet. Associates and lias opted tor understated minimalist ' erasures to simplify the rabbit warren of Stern and Olin's plan appropriates the Jackson Si Ryan, lower-level spaces added over the years to CAM lawn, injects a staggered row of Architects, oriented Ciunnar Uirkcrts's design. William T. Mexican sycamores along .1 reconfigured the building to Stern Si Associates devised a core of criti- east-facing sidewalk, anil unifies the reinforce Binz as k cal service spaces, including a long-need- ground plane with a band of granite grav- an approach. ed elevator. Otherwise the lower level wi! el containing concrete benches, in turn While the provide a large space for mixed uses, shaded by the trees. A circular fountain Children's Museum including a projection room, and a gallery IV feet in diameter will add a measure ol has been the subject of psychological cooling. The composition, a lengthy review- in Upper level ond garden plan lor renovation ol the Contemporary Arl> Museum, 1995 - 1996: William f . i i that enlarges the museum's downstairs & Associates, architect; Olin Partnership ltd,, landscape unfilled. kind of Modernist collage, is completed Cite,* its site plan was exhibition space by nc.uk s() percent. A by several revised elements. A serpentine, largely ignored. cottage at S 20 I Ha yard 1 ane, rehabilitat- guitar-form parapet, high enough to serve Venturi made a great ed by Stern, will provide offices and stall as seating, bisects the lawn, which slopes point of the tact that parking. The main gallery of the parallel- ever so slightly downward from the side- today's buildings often ogram museum remains essentially the walk at its northeastern edge. Since the require parking lots of same, with a new elevator concealed entry to the C A M is, in effect, halfway a size equal to, or within what had been part ot a triangular down the block, this plan will energize the sometimes greater piece completing a solid-void mini-paral- corner, extending the museum's front than, that of their own lelogram in the entry vestibule. The " ^ door almost to the street. Such a commit- footprint. In his Cite 3 Kkxfi Contemporary Arts Museum (CAM) ment on the part of the Contemporary rcsiew, Drexel Turner dM^lB has always had something ot an address Arts Museum enhances the external life of observes that the aberration: its Montrose Boulevard * n. m tin streel .'.^ a means to amplif) its own museum's west eleva- address was a slip-down-the-sidc street institutional presence. tion, a low-tech metal- (Bissonnet) front door marked only by a shed arcade populated vertical slot between two metal wall Assuming that the vitality of this mod- by the now-famous planes. Stern has addressed this problem est corner park may be seen as a contribu- "caryakids" and con- In proposing ,i triangular prismatic tion to Houston's cityscape, the question necting the shop Contemporary Arts Museum renovation - perspective view al the comer ol Montrose and Bissonnet. arises. What about the perception of the canopy projection into the exterior space building on the south Bissonnet-Bin/, corridor as a public- over the entrance. to the more figurative artery? This corridor is reinforced it the The CAM's front yard has been .it best building on the north, a residual space, activated only on occa- Children's Museum of I louston is consid 13

creates a shielded edge to the interior courtyard. Turner's discussion of this arrangement was principally in terms of Amaz making the museum visually accessible "by the opportune placement of its parking lot, which intercepts the principal flow of traffic proceeding east from Main Street along Bin/ Avenue."' In fact, the Children's Museum parking lot is a Kids' Gallery, children's Museum of Houston. Venluri, Scott subtle urban landscape designed as an Brown 1 Associates, archilecls, Jackson I Ryan Associates, integral part of the building parti. associate architects, ! 992. Parking geometry is very specific, the basic unit being the car and its turning radius, and works best as a clear, simple, repetitive diagram. The Children's Museum lot saved a half-dozen trees of substantial proportion whose existing locations randomly modulate the repetitive grid of car slots. Kntry is from Austin Street, and exit-entry from the Fwing Avenue side. This diverts car activity off Ill Binz Avenue, reinforcing its potential as a pedestrian approach, and nil l.a Branch I Street, which is the seam between the parking and the building blocks. Austin would probably be the main approach; in litis way, handicapped slots are directly Entrance to the Amazing Body Pavilion, Museum of Health and Medical Science. available, as close to the building entry as possible. The majority of bands of park- connect the district's western point of language ot a pseudo-t lassie.11 architec- ing are oriented north-south, like those of origin at the C A M . With its placement, ture speaks of a visual hierarchy that the Museum of Fine Arts* Administration orientation, massing, and most assuredly reinforces this reading; trout door on La and Junior School Building. This suggests lis color scheme, the Children's Museum Branch through a temple front that is Grand Holt, Museum of Health and Medical Science, Marilyn P. that a patron would park and walk to the would be an appealing goal. woefully underachieving in contrast with McCarnes, Archilecls, and Billy D. Tippit, Archilecls, joinl north edge of the site at Bin?.. While a nenlure, 1996, The idea of street activity is extended that of the Children's Museum next door; single layer of car slots edges the site on even through the interior of the Children's side door, but actual entrance, on three of its sides, there are no slots on the Museum, whose central, streetlike arcade, Crawford; and back door, garage entry, north edge, which facilitates direct access the Kids' Callery, has been appropriated but building address, on Hermann Drive. to the pedestrian pla/a, expanding the by activity and project areas, to the side Externally, the building is a jogged cluster Binz sidewalk nearly fourfold. This also of which "street" vendors such as a dairy ot two pavilions abutting a central spine; effectively keeps a row of parked cars bar and a museum shop have been added. internally, the building's 28,001) square away from a vista looking east along Binz Although it is a direct neighbor of feet ot public education areas are kepr at to the museum's temple-front entrance. the Children's Museum on the adjacent grade, but administrative offices and the LAL The double striping of La Branch at the city block, the Museum ot Health and I larris County Medical Society offices are Museum of Health and Medico. Science, main entrance crossing underscores the importance of Medical Science (a joint venture of on the upper floor, joined through the LaBranth Streel (west) devotion. this link. Marilyn P. McCarnes, Architects, and central grand hall by a pair of glass vaulted tube-bridges between the two pavil- What is important is that this connec- Billy I). Tippit, Architects) vitiates any ions. The south pavilion contains the tion, the south side of Binz, establishes further urban design potential. When labyrmthlikc \ma/ing Bodv Pavilion as the visual position of the Children's the Children's Museum established l.a well as a clear exercise in kiddie crowd Museum as an anchor to one part of Branch as a principal street, it extended control: gift shop, children's rest rooms, a the Museum District. However, the pro- the connection south to the Houston snack exchange (no preservatives, low-fat, posed Beck Building and Fannin Service Carden Outer, which lies on its axis as no cholesterol, low sodium/sugar?), .\^\ a Building of the Museum of Fine Arts do the termination ot the vista, ["here arc. separate lobby for herding the li'l darlins Museum of Health and Medical Science, Hermann Drive little to sustain this public domain by however, three entries to the Museum ot [soulh) elevation, facing Hermann Park, back inn i buses, I In \mazing Bod\ failing to enhance the potential of an Health and Medical Science. The honorif- Pavilion features an incredible entrance occupiable urban streetscape. Even ic entry is clearly on La Branch, with a element: an open-mouthed child's head environmental realities fail to convince gestural entry plaza grafted onto the side- that is a viewing window into the dental- because this pedestrian route would have walk; parking and school bus dropoff arc- and -mouth section. This glossy, colorful been along north-facing elevations, where on the east side of the building, facing giant is made even more outstanding by the buildings would comfortably shade Crawford Street; and, curiously, the offi- contrast with the architectural sobriety ot the sidewalk. If the intervening city cial address is I ^1 s Hermann Drive, the the grand hall, which separates the two blocks were enhanced and sidewalks south side ot the building, which is essen- sides ot the- building. The north side con- developed, the vista to the main entrance tially a blank facade with car access into tains support functions as well as the Museum of Health and Medical Science, Crawford of the Children's Museum would visually the basement parking area. Hie formal Street {east) elevation. 14

Wall of Tears

Memorial Room

Auditorium

Sculpture Garden

Support Functions

Main Exhibit accessible, and interesting component exhibitions, and the library resource of the district. center (which will house materials from The Holocaust Museum, which 1 lolocaust survivors within the Houston Circulation Arcade opened in March 1996, was initiated community). The new building, whose Main Entry wedge form is displaced on the site, con- Drop-Oft locally within Houston's Jewish commu- I nity, and then expanded in program when tains an orientation auditorium, a perma- I Ralph Appelbaum Associates of New nent exhibition on the Holocaust, the York, designers of the exhibition in memorial room, and an exterior garden. The Mucasey firm produced all docu- I Houston Holocaust Museum, ei plotted a i o n o m t r k drawing. the National Holocaust Museum in ments for construction and interior finish; Appelbaum Associates controlled the exhibition design; Murphy Meats sepa- rately designed the memorial room in collaboration with the Moss-Vrcetands. The construction documents bear a dedi- cation to the memory of Mucasey's wife's grandparents, who were victims of the Holocaust. Imagery indeed dominates form in the I lolocaust Museum. The wedge-form roof seems to be a roadway to nowhere but is iti fact a recollection of roads paved by the Nazis with Jewish gravestones; the displacement of forms reflects the displacement ot European Jewish life; six vertical piers with wires between them recall both the Six Million (a second series down the interior hall leading to the resource center repeats the metaphor I and the death-camp fences; the conical form of the auditorium recalls the crema- toria; the circulation arcade, which tapers to a point, suggests the trestle of a death train. The interior detailing is deliberately harsh: steel lintels and brick details, a six- inch steel channel baseboard with exposed bolts.

The memorial room is a separate kind of architecture. The thickness of its walls Houston Holocaust Museum, Education Crater, ond Memorial, Ralph Appleboum Astatiales, designer with Mark S. Mutasey, arthilect, 1996 emphasizes its isolation limn tin- exhibi- tains support functions as well as the Washington, I X C . were brought in. tion area; in fact, it appears as an object Transparent Anatomical Mannequin What had been a renovation to an exist- inserted within the space. Natural light Theatre and the Michael H. DeBakey ing one-story building by Houston dominates the interior volume, formed by Science I ahnratnn and I earning l enter. architect Mark S. Mucasey, became a Murphy Mears. The focus of the room is The Grand Hall, which one envisions as substantial addition to the same building. on the Wall of Tears, the memorial piece primarily useful lor receptions of the Additionally, a national competition for by the Moss-Vreelands. An intense space, medical society, is so inherently empty a separate memorial room was won by it is also a place of hope. that it is clearly not a space in which to artists Patricia and Robert Moss-Vreeland Potentially, Caroline Street, an linger: keep those little guys out of sight! of Philadelphia in collaboration with esplanadcd boulevard built up with Another new component of this clus- Murphy Mears Architects of I louston. medical and residential buildings, could ter is the Houston Holocaust Museum, The Mucasey scheme had its entrance on be enhanced as a connector between Education ("enter, and Memorial. North Prospect Avenue, a reasonable connection Hermann Park and the Holocaust and two blocks west ot the other muse- to the siting of the existing building; for- Museum, and vice versa. The Clayton ums, at the corner of Calumet and tunately, the insertion of and connection Library could expand public awareness Caroline, the Holocaust Museum is for- with a more distinctive exhibition hall by introducing an exhibition presenting a tuitously sited across from the Houston made it logical lor the entry to be at the didactic explanation of its collections and Public Library's Clayton Library Center conjunction of the two pieces, fronting on their use; the Houston Public Library is for Genealogical Research at 5300 Caroline Street, which makes better sense always interested in increasing patronage (. ,tinline, a complex that includes the Houston Holocaust Museum, Memorial Room wilh Wall of Tears, in urban design terms. The final design of its branches and ought to budget pro- Murphey Mears Architects; ceramic installation, Polrkia ond renovated William L. Clayton House, comprised reworking of the existing motion and marketing in this area. Robert Moss-Vreeland. designed in 1916 by architect Birdsall P. building into an administrative center, Caroline Street has become an impor- Briscoe. While the Clayton Library is not support functions, multipurpose class- tant entry point for the expanded a museum, u is a publicly owned, rooms, a substantial gallery for changing Houston Museum of Natural Science. 15 Cite 34 S p i i n

Cadiirll Butterfly Center.

Transformed within the park from a addition, the study advocates a program si red into an access road, Caroline serves of public art, as well as a schedule of public parking and the museum's cast specially designed everyday items such as entrance court, regarded as the major manholes, parking meters, trash cans, entrance. Recent additions to the museum and so forth. There is talk of a shuttle bus include extensions to the exhibition halls among the museums, extending north up on two levels; a traveling exhibition hall South Mam to include the l.awndale on the third level (with a functioning Center and up Montrose to include the Foucault pendulum through all three Menil Collection campus. levels); collection storage and support My own analogy for the most appro- spaces; a new entrance plaza and foyer; priate strategy came through my old pair and the most dramatic expansion of all, H«fi,-fillfi|R< of Bugle Boy jeans. Not intended to give the Cockrell Butterfly Center (Hoover a precise contour to a form that has Architects, 1995). become, shall we say, somewhat less If the location of building entrances defined in time, the cut is what Bugle Boy is a response to and recognition of exter- calls "Loose Fit." This casual model may nal urban forces, then the design of the be the best analogy for the I louston situa- I louston Museum of Natural Science may tion: enough has already been done ad be seen nor as a deliberate urban strategy, hoc to mitigate any rigorous cohesion but rather as a reactive condition. The that might have resulted from a strategy new Cockrell has the largest and most arising from consensus, if the institutions visible entry, but it is as far away from : had actually anticipated the opportunities linkages to the larger Museum District as their separate actions would generate. one could imagine. To be fair, the munici- The perceived relationship between the pal water tank, reconstructed in 1991, museum groups requires substantial phys- that occupies a prime corner of the adja- ical intervention to make it all clear — cent site was a barrier that designs for which seems unnecessary. Yes, reinforce both the parking structure and the muse- the principal corridors, particularly with a um expansion had to work around, tree-planting program, and clarify them literally. Yet wayfinding at the site is as as arteries; develop a system of consistent dislocating as it is disjointed, while the signage; and pro\ ide some street ameni entry hall itself evokes a kind of shop- Houiloti Museum ol Natural Science, jaulh entrance hull, Haaver I Furr and 3D/lnternatianol, architects, 1989. ties tor pausing and resting. Maybe some ping-mall experience. Destination informs people will actually walk between the the decision of where to enter I butterfly- form stands in marked contrast to the water tank could be an element in a con- clusters, but the proposal should work center, I M A X theater, science exhibition other beads on a string — the I M A X scious continuation of this theme, for those in cars as well as the few brave halls, planetarium), but a new museum- theater and the planetarium, both inher- although camouflage appears to have souls on foot. Perhaps it's enough to goer, unsure of which entry leads where, ently solid, closed forms. The Cockrell been the main response to its presence. know what the options are, and where will be at a loss. While the parking struc- pavilion works architecturally, as a shim- The towerlike butterfly center is the visu- they are, to achieve a sense of a district. ture is a popular facility, one is confront- mering solid during the day and as a al anchor that completes this progression In fact, in program, content, and intent ed in its small at-grade lobby with signs glimmering beacon at night. from art to science. the museums appeal to diverse audiences. on doors reading " N O ENTRY" and There is an alternative pedestrian Is there a district in all this? The likelihood of combining visits is arrows pointing outside in order to get route, for the adventuresome, from the Laurie Olin was engaged to address probably remote. As for street activities, inside. (In the exterior, no real signage t ontemporan Arts Museum and the the issue in the Houston Museum District cultural geographer J. B. Jackson once program gets you around to the east entry Museum ol line Arts to the Museum of Study Draft Summary Document, submit observed, "Street life in America is a from Hermann Park on the south or from Natural Science. This is one marked by ted in April I 995. Where the study is sign of poverty."'1 Oh, there may be the Museum of line Arts cm the west. To water features and round markers: the clear is in its recognition of the obvious occasions when the do/en city blocks find the "main entrance" on the east, you Mecom Fountain, at the intersection of clusters, the recommendation ol incre- must bypass the butterfly center (if you involved could sustain a festival-type South Main and Montrose; the rounded mental improvements such as "a gradual haven't already tried to get in through the atmosphere, but I loustonians don't need repair and relocation of sidewalks along service door at the western corner of its south facade of the Wyndham Warwick a heavily tailored infrastructure to per- with additional street tree planting, . . . pavilion). The only intervening and invit- I lotel, ringed by a line of fountains; the ceive a sense of identity lor the area — ing set of steps, up to the old planetarium, Bloeh Cancer Survivors Plaza with its installation of a comprehensive system of just a loose fit. The pity is, some of the is roped nit: only .i low barrier •>! t bain wrought-iron frou-frou domed gazebo signage, . . . new street furniture . - .[to] seams, as currently laid out, might ulti- fence directs you around. and small fountain, for better or worse a provide a range of basic facilities along mately be a bit crooked. • stopover destination on the path to the tin streets to sustain ;i visitor." 1 he Hie Cockrell butterfly Center is a science museum; and the circularized report goes on to suggest that "the area great addition to the vocabulary of park colonnade ol the original Miller Outdoor streets . . . should become vital places full structures and to the experience of nature. Theater (William Ward Watkin, architect, of life and activity in their own right." Being able to move up through its glass I '>! i), now resituated around a lighted I In- i- i xpandc il m i ' ' i concept for ,i 1 Stephen Fox, "Museum "t I "»<• rVrtJ, t Illusion: An ArJiiuvlur.il Hisinrv. I L'24-l**.Xh." interior is one of the more satisfying spa fountain with an abundant water-spray. Primary Street, featuring a canopy struc- Mustimi "/ hue Arts Bulletin, April 195*2, p. -I' 1 tial experiences within the museum, and This streetscape with residual landforms ture "that would provide shade and 2 Drcxel Turner, "I ink < laesar'i Palace The Children'* Muwumol Houston," Cite, Spring' the tropical world of live butterflies flut- (parklets) results from the engineering of weather protection for market vendors Summer I W , pp. 29-35. tering by is simply wonderful. The trans- roadways sorting out traffic on Fannin |and| could contain utilities such as ! Ibid. 4 Qrnii'mlioii with .uiihirr, 1.1 t icncga, New parent, tapered, and segmented conical and San Jacinto. The aforementioned electricity, and possibly drainage." In Mexico, 1976,