Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/975393
42 ART MAP GLASSELL REMAKES THE G one is the original p o s t m o d e r n , glass-bricked Glassell School of Art built in 1979. In its place stands an L-shaped baroque barge of a building with a grassy incline leading up to the BBVA Compass Roof Garden. This bold vision for an outdoor public space, activated by the new Glassell's architecture and punctuated by an Anish Kapoor acquisition, remakes the Museum District destination into Houston's poster child for a walkable city. Beyond the dramatic staccato of the concrete-and-glass Steven Holl architecture, however, what happens inside has equal significance. We gaze back at the Glassell's beginnings and peer into the future for the institution that birthed the Core Fellows 35 years ago. It will soon welcome more than 8,500 students annually, as the only museum school in America to offer art classes encompassing pre-K through post-graduate. A PRIMER OF THE FIRST 90 YEARS First there was the Museum School, then there was the Glassell. The former went through numerous iterations since its founding in September 1927, three years after the opening of the MFAH. The first classes were taught in the then-unfinished east wing of the William Ward Watkin- designed neoclassical edifice, still extant and among the oldest museum in Texas. After the addition of Cullinan Hall in 1958 and the opening of the Junior School, art lessons relocated to the MFAH basement. In the 1970s, classes moved to 5101 Montrose and 909 Berthea, then to 3815 Garrott Street, a sturdy brick Montrose warehouse where instructors included painters Dick Wray and Dorothy Hood and art historian David Brauer. By the end of the decade, a new school arose, thanks to the largesse of MFAH trustee, collector, and major donor Alfred Glassell Jr. Unveiled January 1979 in a forward-looking post- modernistic building by Eugene Aubrey of S.I. Morris Associates, the new Glassell School of Art gave home to not only classes, but a residency that would put Houston on the international art map. In September 1982, new director Allan Hacklin and associate director Rachel Hecker launched a Core Program for post-grad study that has become a pipeline for international and national artists to settle in Houston. The work produced during the residencies has led to exhibitions in prestigious international surveys, including the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale. Three of the most acclaimed Core Fellows to date reflect the diversity of the program. Paris, Texas, native Trenton Doyle Hancock, a two-time Whitney Biennial talent, currently resides in BY CATHERINE D. ANSPON. PORTRAIT BY JAY TOVAR. The lobby of The Post Oak, opening this month Glassell director Joe Havel with Anish Kapoor's Cloud Column, 1998-2006 View of the Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus from the BBVA Compass Roof Garden of the Glassell School of Art (continued on page 44) ALL RENDERINGS COURTESY STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS