mojeaux131

After reading this forum for at least two years, I figured I'd start posting. RedScare, I totally agree with you. I've thought a lot about whether it would be possible for a native Houston "style" to manifest. It's easier for other places to do this because they can draw upon elements and motifs of indigenous/traditional/historical architecture, but we lack such a foundation here. The next best option I think is to develop a sort of style that reflects our identity as a "modern" city, i.e. innovative, and especially one that takes into account and works with our climate. If I were mayor I would develop an initiative to mandate that all new public edifices would have to be built on the LEED scale.

this is the kind of crap that pisses me off about outsiders having opinions about houston and texas when they obviously have never been here. anyone with an eighth of a brain should be able to look past the cowboy stereotype. this guy is probably the same kind of idiot who would assume that everyone in this great city is involved with either ranching or the oil business, because those must be the ONLY two industries we have here, right? i mean, all those movies can't be wrong, everyone in texas must be a braindead hick. i can't believe this guy writes for a major magazine. he's spreading his stupidity and ignorance like a virus against anyone stupid enough to believe his worthless opinion.

YES. exactly. everything you have said is true. the optimistic houston lover in me doesn't want it to be true, but it is. if you haven't gone to houstondowntown.com, go there and write exactly what you wrote here. i have already contributed to the survey a few times. we need to yell at the idiots in charge of the city until they come up with something like chicago's awesome millenium park. living cheaply in a city doesn't mean jack squat if the city looks like total ass. word, jtmbin, word.

this building is shaping up pretty well. i'm excited about its completion (correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think it's done yet? what do y'all think? i'm sorry, i keep having trouble posting images--i find an image on a site, but what exactly is the url for the image itself? can anyone help this poor, lost building dork?

i think some sort of tall tower would be great, a way to mirror the efforts of dallas or san antonio, both of which have spires of some sort in their downtowns. but since Houston is larger and better than either dallass or s.a., the tower should be cooler and taller. i bet calatrava could make it kickass, since he has an engineering background. and yes, it should mos def reflect a space or future theme.

although i do like the two buildings, i agree with jtmbin's statement concerning the lack of design competitions. in my opinion, many of the best known and most beautiful buildings in the world are brought forth via design competitions. if a smaller city like Milwaukee can get Calatrava to design a freakin' museum extension, why can't big ol' Houston pull in some sweet international talent?

estoy de acuerdo. in the first rendering it totally matched the other building. in the new one, it looks like some absurd casino. i like the old rendering much better. and they better not cheap out on the top, like they did with 5 houston center or whatever it's called.