PaperCity Magazine

PaperCity Houston March 2024

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MONUMENT TO THE LAST HORSE, Marfa (1991); OLD PETE (1965) and THE WORLD'S LARGEST MULESHOE (1994), Muleshoe: The Donald Judd-founded Chinati Foundation in Marfa is located on the former site of Fort D.A. Russell, a cavalry post converted to a WWII army airbase and German POW Camp before being abandoned. An enormous, cartoonish horseshoe twists and freezes mid-air over the spot where the last cavalry horse, Louie, was laid to rest. International artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen created this work for Chinati as one part homage to Louie and one part wry nod to the site's military origins. Marfa's O NE BROOKHOLLOW P L A Z A ( P E G A S U S VILLAS), Dallas (1970): Noted architect Paul Rudolph, a disciple of Brutalism, designed this experimental building as an office tower for Brookhollow Corporation. Developed by Ralph B. Rogers, founder of Texas Industries and savior of PBS, it represented the first all-precast concrete building in the Southwest and one of the first uses of reflective, mirrored glass for solar protection. Vacant during the '90s, in 2005 it was renovated into apartments for seniors, saving the structure but substituting grayish- blue glazing for the original, pink- colored windows, disrupting the signature all-over color harmony of the original. " R AID THE ICEBOX 1 WITH ANDY WARHOL," Houston (1969): In the summer of 1969, Warhol made six visits to the storerooms of the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) Museum in Providence, where he selected an idiosyncratic assortment of objects for one of the world's first artist-curated exhibitions, "Raid the Icebox 1 with Andy Warhol." The show was conceived by Houston's Dominique and John de Menil, who wanted to bring the dusty and forgotten out into the open, as seen through a fresh contemporary perspective. The resulting offbeat jumble of shoe cabinets, objects, and paintings stacked against walls reflected Warhol's complete lack of regard for the authenticity or quality of his choices. Rice University's Institute for the Arts in Houston was the first venue for this game-changing exhibition, which continues to encourage museums to question traditional narratives and respect the voice of contemporary artists. P ENNZOIL PLACE, Houston (1975): Pennzoil Place literally broke out of the box, expressing Houston's chance-taking wildcatter character and becoming a symbol for the city. Developer Gerald Hines and architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee actualized Pennzoil Company chairman Hugh Liedtke's desire for "not just another building," and one where Pennzoil would require only half. Johnson's ingenious solution placed twin towers sliced at 45-degree angles very close together — 10 feet apart at one point — to create a trapezoidal plan. Liedtke wanted a soaring roof, not the usual flat top, and Johnson reportedly placed angled corner sections of the presentation model on the roof to complete the distinctive diagonal shape. The dark glass and aluminum towers are a colossal kaleidoscopic sculpture for the city, changing in every freeway view. With its richness in form, Pennzoil Place is one of the few Texas buildings that has impacted architecture worldwide. Longview Museum of Fine Arts, tentatively set to open its first phase mid-2024. Longview native B.W. Crain Jr. of the notable mid-century Houston architectural firm Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson (which helped design the Astrodome) sheathed the front of the original Art Moderne bank building with an exterior façade of white Alabama marble paired with gray granite panes. A distinctive brise-soleil of concrete brick at the rear conceals the parking garage. The expansive lobby features a teller-counter mosaic by late Houston artist Herbert Mears and the suspended abstract sculpture The Great Lone Star by American sculptor Richard Lippold, who also created soaring commissions for Houston's Jones Hall lobby and NYC's Lincoln Center. unusual equestrian ode contrasts with Old Pete, a life-size fiberglass monument to the mule and its unsung place in American history by sculptor Kevin Wolf, as well as Kermit Price's Eagle Scout project: The World's Largest Muleshoe, a 22-foot-high structure made of I-beam steel. Both are in Muleshoe, a West Texas town emblematic of the pioneer spirit that's home to The National Mule Memorial. THE CHINATI FOUNDATION. © 2024 CLAES OLDENBURG AND COOSJE VAN BRUGGEN. PHOTO BY FLORIAN HOLZHERR. LANDMARKS OF TEXAS ARCHITECTURE BY LAWRENCE W. SPECK (UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS © 1986). PHOTO BY RICHARD PAYNE. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's Monument to the Last Horse, 1991, at The Chinati Foundation 25 TEXAS DESIGN ICONS Pennzoil Place (Continued) (Continued from page 76) 78

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