Houston’s Hidden Gems
These little-known Houston buildings illustrate the city’s dynamic history and character.
By Peter Simek
A vintage welcome brochure from the Shamrock Hotel, the nation’s largest hotel when it opened in 1949.
A vintage welcome brochure from the Shamrock Hotel, the nation’s largest hotel when it opened in 1949.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Once disdained for being synonymous with the city’s poor, Houston’s Third Ward is receiving fresh appreciation, thanks to artist Rick Lowe.
Once disdained for being synonymous with the city’s poor, Houston’s Third Ward is receiving fresh appreciation, thanks to artist Rick Lowe.
Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, photo by Katya Horner and courtesy of Buffalo Bayou Partnership
Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, photo by Katya Horner and courtesy of Buffalo Bayou Partnership
One can trace the history and character of a city through its buildings. Although Houston was founded in the 19th century, it rose to prominence during the 20th century when it became the hub of Texas’ shipping and oil industry. We asked Stephen Fox, lecturer at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design at the University of Houston, to select a few buildings he believes best reflect the dynamic story of this city once dubbed “the golden buckle of the sunbelt.”
Shamrock Hotel
Perhaps fitting for a forward-looking city, one of the buildings Fox highlighted is no longer standing. When it opened in 1949, the 18-story Wyatt C. Hedrick-designed Shamrock was the largest hotel in the United States. “It seemed to be the kind of embodiment of this exuberance at the time,” Fox says. “It was both conservative but also had a slightly outrageous sense of architectural style.”
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
By the 1960s and 1970s, Houston’s civic patrons and boosters began looking outwards for inspiration and recognition. For the city’s new art museum, completed in 1974, they tapped one of the most renowned architects at the time, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. A pioneer of a modern architectural style defined by steel and plate glass, his elegant museum would foreshadow the emergence of Houston’s mirrored skyline. “Mies inspired a whole generation of Houston architects,” Fox says.
Project Row Houses
The tiny “shotgun” row houses in Houston’s Third Ward exemplify the kind of workforce housing that defined the city’s poor, segregated neighborhoods. But in the 1990s, artist Rick Lowe sought to transform a block of these homes to showcase the role they played in fostering strength and community. “Rather than disdain this working-class culture, Rick Lowe understood the power of those very modest and humble buildings to become a sort of icon that has emerged as a model of popularly based cultural institutions in American cities,” Fox says.
Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern
Once an industrial building situated in a neglected cavern, the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern has been preserved and transformed into a site for art installations. The transformation makes the cistern unique in that it shows, through architecture, the evolution of a city and its relationship to both public space and the natural world. “It was a building complex not constructed for public access and is technically obsolete, but it lends itself to incredibly exciting new opportunities & interpretations,” Fox says.
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