ArchFan

I think that part of this is a result of changes in philanthropy which I think has really been driven by the Gates Foundation.  My impression is that individual philanthropy was more local in nature in the past, but recently there is a lot more emphasis on solving "big" problems.

 

A great example of this is the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.  They're spreading their wealth much more widely around the world than previous Houston givers.

That is my impression, also.

I hear what Houston 19514 is saying and those are all wonderful examples of locally oriented philanthropy.  But ... they are not on the scale of what (for example) the Crows have done in Dallas recently, which strikes me as more similar to the old-school philanthropy that has a big focus promoting one's home town (and I'm sorry, but ego, too).   But, as a Houstonian, I wouldn't look gift horse in the mouth, either!  I admit that getting some big flashy projects here would be nice.  OTOH,  I also admit that I have more admiration for people who do good deeds without having to call a great deal of attention to themselves.

By no means do I want to dismiss the contributions people have made to projects in Houston.  They just don't seem as flashy as what I continue to see in our sister city to the north.  And, maybe that's OK.  The difference just called my attention, so that's why I mentioned it.

I agree, it's a missed opportunity.  Maybe they didn't know Houston well enough to take a chance after the recession?  In any case, it will still be a nice addition to the neighborhood, in my opinion.  

Hopefully, CoH will fix up Westheimer in that area ... plus the sidewalk on the south side.  It is an embarrassment to the city to have international visitors walking through muddy water to get from their hotels to shops and restaurants inside the loop there.

Tacky, but cute in a way.  Fortunately, the GRB doesn't also have (I hope!) the smudged paint along the edges of its doors.  

is 50 a resonable guess? Or is there more / less?

 

How many were up in the 1980's?

I work in a high-rise in the vicinity of Uptown Park and I could see at least 28 cranes from there.  I didn't count some that I know are there, because they were obscured by other buildings.  Also, I could not see the ones at the Exxon Mobil site.

I was surprised at how many were out west, which I could barely make out with bare eyes.  A lot out toward the energy corridor, plus more to the south of that, some of them along Sam Houston, I think.

We had exceptionally clear air yesterday, so the refineries to the east stood out quite well, also.  They are interesting from a distance, at least :-) 

Good point, and some of those shoes are hard to fill, but at some point as you become a real city you stop relying on benevolent oligarchs to "keep the house painted" and instead accomplish those things through an active and involved citizenry. Long gone are the days when a city like e.g. Boston looked to Mr. Coolidge or Ms. Garner to make sure the Public Garden was kept looking nice.

Quite true!  OTOH, it's hard to predict whether, going forward, we will have enough engaged citizenry to do as much as in the past, in part due to the influence of "oligarchs".  Without such guys, we wouldn't have Hermann Park, the TMC, Rice University, Memorial Park, River Oaks.  Perhaps the Astrodome is another example (but, a sad story there).  Or the Julia Ideson Building downtown (Carnegie). 

With regard to Dallas, I'll have to leave it to someone else to provide details of the benefits of past and present philanthropy.  However, I do see that in recent history, Trammell Crow has contributed a lot to a couple of recent museums, as well as the very nice garden on White Rock Lake.  Also, the (perhaps controversial) Calatrava Bridge that one of the Hunts contributed to.  Perhaps one could add the over-the-top stadium the Cowboys play in.

I not aware of any recent projects in Houston that are on the scale of those, although Nau and McNair have helped out on some nice projects ... and of course, there have been quite a few projects at TMC that were partially funded by philanthropists.

The Houston self - loathing on this forum never ceases to amaze. Contemporaneous statements from people who handled the HQ site search for Exxon (and it was Exxon at the time, not ExxonMobil) made it very clear Houston was never considered and neither was any other city that had a significant Exxon operation. Just like with the more recent Boeing HQ relocation, they required the HQ to be separated from their operations and other offices.

I'm sorry you interpret my comment as an example of Houston self-loathing.  In making my comment, I think the emotional context was that I thought (and think) my hometown of Houston would benefit in the future if we put a little more collective effort into keeping our house painted and our lawn mowed and watered (so to speak).  I think we have lost a bit of that mentality over my lifetime.  Sometimes I think that may be due in part to no longer having  as many powerful civic leaders as we used to (e.g., Jesse Jones, George Brown, et al.).  Conversely, I think Dallas has benefited, at least in some ways, by having continued to have those kind of people active in the community -- people who are proud of their city and have financial means and vision to nudge it towards (perhaps) a better future.

The move of Exxon HQ to the Dallas area occurred well before the merger with Mobil, so Mobil executive input had nothing to do with the decision.

Thank you.  I did have the dates and details mixed up and I appreciate the correction!  

That happened long ago enough that I suspect my comment was motivated in large part by the (continuing) disappointment people in Houston had when the HQ moved out of NYC, but not to here.  

I still have reasons to be cynical about how decisions are made at the top level of some companies.  But, that is a bit off-topic, so I'll stop here.

I remember reading somewhere or another (perhaps on a Woodlands area thread) that when Exxon was moving its top echelon out of New York, they intentionally did not consider Houston or other places with large existing operations because they wanted to have some distance.

I read that, too, but it struck me as a convenient excuse.  I think the top guys just preferred to live in Dallas.   Partly because many of them were Mobil-heritage North Texans in the first place.  Perhaps some one more versed in XOM history could comment?

This is a great topic and I'm posting mainly to help generate some traffic on this thread.

It makes me think of the "starchitect" concept.  I don't work in the field of architecture, so the evolution of architectural concepts and the "show-biz" aspects are not a part of my daily life.  So, like a good soldier, I went to Wikipedia.  :-)  The webpage there is pretty interesting ... some new concepts and/or factoids for me.  I hope someone here will comment, especially if they disagree with the analysis there.

On their list of current starchitects, I think I see only 4 who have works in Houston:  Moneo, Piano, Stern, and Pelli.  The latter has several works here, which I more-or-less like, but I never really thought of him in this mode.  It also lists Pei as a "former" starchitect and I can think of at least 3 building here he designed.  In addition, the list of "canonic architects" includes 2 that I recognize as having works in Houston:  Johnson and van der Rohe.

I'm guessing that a lot of Houstonians would like a flashy starchitect building, the likes of which we haven't received since the early 80s.  Gehry and Calatrava, to me, have had enough publicity to make them desirable to the general public.  But ... they have been around for awhile.  Can anyone suggest someone new that would be on the current leading edge?

The renderings remind me of CityCenter in Las Vegas.  A bit too flashy for my taste, but nevertheless would be a nice addition to any US city.  I'm a Houston booster, but I am also glad to see Dallas prosper and get nice developments.  For Houstonians it helps make our sister cities nearby more fun to visit.

Both buildings look splendid, but I'm actually curious about what the site plan looks like. Position the office tower so far in back I'm guess that its also facing the opposite street? Just curious to see a more bird's eye view of this whole thing

If you want to see a recent aerial view, go to google maps, look for the intersection of Post Oak Blvd and Guilford Ct.  Then click on "satellite view".  The image looks fairly recent.  The site of the proposed office building is the vacant lot with ~16 or so cars parked on it.  It has a small amount of frontage on Guilford, but otherwise it is hemmed on the west by the Dominion high-rise apartments and some recent 5-story-or-so apartments.

For those who are interested in what's going on in the area, the Google satellite view pics look to be quite recent, less than a year old, I'd guess.  You can see buildings under construction like the Hanover apartment tower in BLVD Place, the new BHP Billiton Tower, the Titan, River Oaks District.  Pretty cool to see them from above.  The lot where Belfiore is going up still shows as a vacant lot, but that site just got started late last year or early this year, I think.

Compare the thicknesses in these two renderings:  one thinner than the current building, one thicker.  What's up with that?  The inconsistency seems rather sloppy.  Is the firm doing the designs using interns who aren't talking to each other for these renderings?

Yeah ... I could be wrong, but my fuzzy recollection is that the top edge of the building was decorated with what looked like a strip of small oxidized copper panels.  As a kid, I though it had a sophisticated look.

Here are two images that I took today with Ipad sorry for quality.

I'm sorry but I looked and couldn't find the thread for the coffee bldg. at Allens Landing but this is from today. I didn't realize they were going to strip it completely to the floors.

 

The second is a somewhat discouraging looking Welcome to Houston entry right on the bayou coming in from I-10.

To me this is one ugly uninviting welcome matt. I think the city needs to have a competition and create a new more inviting welcome . Since this is right in front of the bayou which runs below. [attachment=4926:stripped coffee bldg..I think there should be some kind of very tall water feature i.e. a fountain or something that is a little more creative than a concrete window wall. It is just down right ugly.

 

stripped coffee bldg..JPGstripped coffee bldg..JPGwelcome Houston.JPG

Yeah, I would agree that the "Welcome to Houston" sign hasn't aged well.  Time for a new idea.

The photo above is amazing (no need to replicate it again).  So many surface lots and they are virtually full!!

Another interesting item in it is the 30-story Holiday Inn, south of the Humble Bldg, looking all new and spiffy.  I wasn't a big fan of it even when it was new, but at least it wasn't a civic embarrassment.

In the lower right, we can see the Catholic church, the World Trade Center, and our beloved Greyhound Bus Station (before it moved south of Pierce Elevated).  I've never been in the "new" Trailways station, but the old Greyhound station was a bit on the gross side.  We were all happy when it moved.  Now ... I guess we want it to move again ...

and the Alley is the Brutal-est!   I also agree with H-town about the Family Law Center: more modern than brutalist; almost deconstructionist. It looks like something the Soviets or fascist in Italy would have built in the 1930's. Yeah, I'm an Architect.

Oh, yes, how could I forget the Alley!   It seems different from other Brutalist buildings I'm aware of:  the castle motif seems almost whimsical.  But ... with so much windowless concrete, the whimsy also comes off as kinda grim.  

I actually kinda like the FLC, at least in comparison to most of the more recent stuff around it. 

It's been almost 20 years since I've seen it, but there's a somewhat monumental building in southern Rome, in the vicinity of Via Laurentina, which struck me as rather modern -- but I was told it was built during Mussolini's reign.  I can't quite picture it, but I think it is several stories tall, round, windowless, but covered with arched indentations.  

I remember there was an oval-shaped one-story building on the NE corner of the block just south of Foley's.  Downtown folks can verify this, but I think the major structure on that block was the old Humble Oil HQ.  I remember the oval building housing a ticketing office for Braniff Airlines, but was occupied by some kind of retail (I think) after Braniff went belly-up.

Interesting comments.  Subdude, your comment reminded me of something I hadn't thought about for years.  That of seeing myriad concrete rectangles being made ready to plug into place in complexes like Greenway Plaza.  I also like Luminare's comment about the crisp lines and geometry ... I appreciate that in the core Greenway Plaza buildings.  However, for some reason, I've never liked the earlier Hines building (nee "Control Data") on 610 as much, even though it seems quite similar.  I think that was an SOM design ... don't know about the GP buildings.  

I had a summer job in the GP underground in maybe 1970.  At that time, it seemed to be the ultimate in modernity, even though it felt rather sterile even at that time.

I remember that in the 70s, there were a number of "markets" that drew a lot of business travelers to Dallas, which in turn lead to the development of some large hotels nearby.  These were (are) places for manufacturers and wholesalers to market their wares to retailers.  IIRC, Trammell Crow's company was the original developer and was very successful with the concept.  I dunno if they developed any of the big hotels, but that seems like it would have been a good business strategy.   

The big one I remember was the Apparel Mart, but there was also a Furniture Mart, and eventually the World Trade Center there.  I think the latter was the one with the large atrium that was used to film the original Logan's Run movie.

** I think ** Crow's company developed the design center on Woodway here as kind of a branch of the Dallas operation.  

In any case, I've always thought there was a connection between those markets and why more high-capacity hotels were built in Dallas from the 70s on.

If there are any architects here (or other people who know more than I do about it), can anyone point out other examples of Brutalist architecture in Houston?  I can think of the City Hall Annex and at least one building on the UH Central Campus.  From a survey-of-architecture class I took years ago, I think of the Boston City Hall as a prime example.  The instructor referred to it as "teeth-baring architecture", which I see in the Annex (which looks to me like a cheapo rip-off of the Boston City Hall).  

Oh, I admit I don't know of any hard evidence that Trammell Crow's company made such a commitment and reneged.  My reason for mentioning that is that a lot of people (here and elsewhere) got their hopes up that we'd have another BLVD Place type development and were disappointed that we didn't get it in that location.

My guess is (and I admit I don't know) that when Costco made them an offer, the market here was already going south.  I can't blame people for not being willing to lose money just to please "new urbanists".

And also ... the Costco does serve a useful purpose, as demonstrated by the volume of people who shop there.   I'm just one of those people who would like to see redevelopment inside the loop move away from being a reiteration of developments that make sense in far-flung suburbs.  I think that if Houston is to succeed in competing with other cities, that goal would be better served by having developments that are attractive to a younger demographic that is drawn to walkable amenities.

So, I think Ric Campo and Houston First are doing a good job for Houston in getting the Marriott Marquis built. The lack of close-in hotel rooms has really hurt us in drawing major conventions to GRB.

I'm a Houston booster, but I must confess I'm skeptical that the graphic is really comparing metro Houston with metro DFW.

I tried googling to get some factoids, but didn't come up with any interesting numbers right away.  But, while we're in this measuring-ourselves competition, I did stumble on to a Wikipedia page that lists the 184 largest hotels in the world. 

Dallas has 4 (Sheraton Dallas: 1840, Hilton Anatole: 1608, Hyatt Regency: 1120, Omni:  1001)   and Houston has 1 (Hilton Americas: 1200).  The Hyatt Regency in downtown Houston currently has 947 rooms, but I seem to recall it originally had 1001.

IMHO, when the HISD administration building was built at that site, it was considered by some to be a building of some note.  I guess the Brutalist style was still quite in vogue at that time.  I seem to recall there were problems with roof leaks and the cost of air-conditioning so much vacant space in the interior atrium, though.

As I recall, when HISD sold the property (and the adjacent school), the Chron reported that there were assurances by the purchaser (Trammell Crow's outfit) that they would replace the building with something that would not be a step down in quality.  Personally, I think that if so, TC reneged on the deal.

For the trivia buffs:  the HISD administration building was used in the movie "The Thief Who Came to Dinner" as the supposed "Houston Museum of Science & Industry" or some such thing. 

That is good news, I think.  I'm guessing that Skyhouse's performance will have a big impact on whether other projects go forward.