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The Menil Collection At 1533 Sul Ross St.


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They have been taking out all of the appliances, windows, doors, a.c.'s, and anything recyclable.

Demo should be starting shortly. 

On another note,  Barnett Newman's, Broken Obelisk, has returned to its home in the Rothko Chapel pool, after spending the last 

several months at Lippincott foundry where it was originally built. They had to repair several areas due to water damage. Its comforting seeing this great work back where it belongs. They also reported that this is the first phase of a project to improve lighting landscaping building a retreat all in time for the 50th anniversary. 

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Im going to miss watching all this go on over my fence but cant wait to move into our new 1950's home in Riverside Terrace.

I watched 3 Osprey working the bend in Braes Bayou early this morning. They are amazing fishermen. I'll continue to monitor the progress on this new drawing center but won't be here to see them put the finishing touches to it.

I did notice something interesting on my side of the building last week.

They had installed a grid of boxes that apparently were for installing the skin. 

This last few days I watched them take all of them off of the building so either they weren't the right parts or they were installed in the wrong spots, but they had a crew taking them off.

Like my father in law always said," Measure twice, cut once." Those are sage words to remember when working on projects of any size.

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In my conversations with the Menil they have put that phase of the project on hold for a while. They had planned on a mixed use development with Hines but that fell through last year and so they felt they at least needed to clear the grounds around the new drawing center and make the area a temporary park space to eventually be developed. This was a casualty of the oil bust and the overdevelopment of new residential in the montrose and midtown area.

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2 hours ago, bobruss said:

In my conversations with the Menil they have put that phase of the project on hold for a while. They had planned on a mixed use development with Hines but that fell through last year and so they felt they at least needed to clear the grounds around the new drawing center and make the area a temporary park space to eventually be developed. This was a casualty of the oil bust and the overdevelopment of new residential in the montrose and midtown area.

 

It is too bad, because i am sure the menil +hines combo has some great potential.

 

The upside is that when things rebound, hopefully projects like this will be quicker to come into fruition. 

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Exactly. This will clean up the area around the new drawing center, give the Menil a window on Richmond, and give the Rothko park a break. Maybe some of 

the people will spread out to the new one.  It needs some tender loving care and I'm really frustrated about the big tree near my house that's not going to be here much longer. It is in distress and all of the people jumping, climbing and pulling on it have just about worn all of the bark off the trunk and when its gone its going to leave a big whole in the park. Ive been watching that tree since 1971 when we first lived across the street. 

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Down the road they do have plans for a mixed use project with  at least a midrise on half of the property and leaving the other half for park land.

I don't know if you noticed the allee of trees that has been planted on the eastern side of the park. I'm sure its going to be beautiful once its all done.

Michael Van Valkenburg, who has worked on Turtle Creek in Dallas, and Waller creek in Houston and is know for his subtle approach, was hired to landscape the whole campus.

 

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Also I have heard rumblings that the house next to the one we just moved out of on Branard that faces the old park is going to be turned into a visiting scholar and artist home. This is right behind the new Drawing center. I cant wait till the drawing center opens.

The exhibition at the Menil is an incredible show and I highly recommend it.

It features the works that will form the base of the collection for the new drawing center.

The work is from the Louisa Sarofim, Janie C. Lee, and David Whitney collections bequeathed to the Menil and are a truly remarkable body of works.

.

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On 12/30/2017 at 6:27 PM, houstontexasjack said:

I found a link to Michael Van Valkenburgh’s landscape plan for the site. Looks as though the highrise would border Richmond and shelter a park between it and the Drawing Institute:

 

http://www.mvvainc.com/m/projects/7/112

 

 

Love the models that they did for it. You can tell they were very invested in this project.

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The Menil Museum has closed for the next year for a total  resurfacing of the floors in the Menil.

The interior non structural walls will also be removed during this project. The Menil had their closing party last night.

Edited by bobruss
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