OllieOllieOxenfree!

Get thee to the Katzen!

American University's art museum at the new Katzen Center has settled in to a brilliant little groove.  Current shows include:

• the last sculptures of Jules Olitski
• tapestries created by contemporary artists in consortium with a Belgian tapestry maker, mixing computer technology and art
• prints from local collections
• new art from Northern Ireland

I went for the tapestries, assuming the Irish stuff would be a complete blow-off.  Instead, that is one of the best shows up in D.C. this year.  There's an amazing interactive piece that "reads" attendees in the gallery and changes the projection and audio to suit.  In an empty gallery it was sort of grey symbols and "bloops"; as I entered the piece the projection picked up the red and black I was wearing, and the energized colors started moving in sync with me.  It's like dancing with art; bloody brilliant.  If you can't get there during the day the piece is recorded to be projected on the Katzen's exterior after dark.  That animates Washington's normally staid Ward Circle.

End of May they're opening a show of Argentine designers Disegno Shakespeare, whose work I was able to use in Buenos Aires last year.  Go.

Twelve-story skyscraper, anyone?

I often need to research individual buildings for walking tours.  This can be a surprising challenge.  The big cities (Chicago, New York, London, Los Angeles) offer an embarrasment of coffee table book pornography, and a few brilliant overviews.  For the next tier one can usually find at least one decent historic record in print.  Often, though, I'm not looking up the Chrysler Building, but need to get the construction date on an annoyingly prominent but bland telephone company headquarters.  Small cities rarely have information outside the local building department, and the people who manage real estate know surprisingly little about architects and construction dates.  Current construction is even worse; it can be almost impossible to track down a project's architect once the tenants move in and construction banners come down.

What's an architectural historian to do?  Emporis, http://www.emporis.com/en/, has created a database of buildings around the world.  They've done a great job pulling together data from suburbs, small cities, and places generally overlooked.  They list buildings by city, and allow searching across architect/height/geographic region, with decent photos so you can be sure the entry you're looking at is the same condo tower that caught your attention last week in Dubuque.  Even better, they're capturing entries of buildings under construction now around the world, getting data from construction companies and as-built drawings to capture the status of works in progress. 

This is terrific resource, one I'll be using when planning future vacations. 

Want something more bricks-and-mortar visitor-friendly?  Try the Skyscraper Museum, http://www.skyscraper.org/.  After years as an online venue, in 2004 they moved into a nifty NYC location.  Check out their Skidmore Owings Merrill facility in Battery Park City next time you're in the City.

I've adopted Houston as a hometown-by-marriage.  I had extremely low expectations the first time I visited, and to my surprise saw those dashed with the surprises around each freeway exit.  It's all automotive, unzoned, and commercial; a pedestrian nightmare.  Those same forces make it dynamic, creative, and delicious.  The local American Institute of Architects handbook says that since everything is going to go, everything goes; Houstonians take pride in taking design risks secure in the knowledge that errors can be erased with the next hurricane recovery or neighborhood redevelopment.. 

The Contemporary Art Museum, CAM (http://www.camh.org/), is your best place to start.  This will get you into the Museum District, and give you an excuse to head out to Montrose and the collection of museums that is the Menil.  Take a non-rush-hour cruise around the inner loop, I-610, and see how America's 1950's automotive love affair was supposed to play out.  Pull off into the Heights for the James Turrell skyspace that is the Friends Meeting House (http://www.friendshouston.org/). . 

Hungry?  The commercial ethos of the city has allowed the growth of hundreds of ethnic restaurants with amazing quality, price, and portion size - there's a good reason Houstonians are America's fattest folks.  A lot of the best are scattered in strip malls around the city, but you can't go wrong with one of the ubiquitous offerings of the Pappas family (http://www.pappadeaux.com/pappasfamily.htm).  For the extra frugal, get a Fritos pie and Chicago dog at James Coney Island (http://www.jamesconeyisland.com/): better than what you'll get in either Brooklyn or on Randolph Street. . 

Rice University's Rice Design Alliance (http://rda.rice.edu/) is the local keeper of the design flame.  They've taken it upon themselves to explain Houston to themselves and to us beyond the bayous.  Their quarterly magazine, Cite, is the best ongoing analysis of the design and evolution of any American city.  To help you catch up, the editors put out a collection of Cite articles, The Ephemeral City, in 2003: I got it as a Christmas present, and have been devouring it ever since. . 

Houston's beauty doesn't come from the landscape (swamps), or a grand city plan (Daniel Burnham did not visit).  Instead, it grows from the desires of millions of Houstonians' to make money by making great places to live.  Followed across the country this would be a disaster, but as a municipal design lab, it's produced some unexpected greatness. 

Houston: A Designed Object?

I've adopted Houston as a hometown-by-marriage.  I had extremely low expectations the first time I visited, and to my surprise saw those dashed with the surprises around each freeway exit.  It's all automotive, unzoned, and commercial; a pedestrian nightmare.  Those same forces make it dynamic, creative, and delicious.  The local American Institute of Architects handbook says that since everything is going to go, everything goes; Houstonians take pride in taking design risks secure in the knowledge that errors can be erased with the next hurricane recovery or neighborhood redevelopment.. 

The Contemporary Art Museum, CAM (http://www.camh.org/), is your best place to start.  This will get you into the Museum District, and give you an excuse to head out to Montrose and the collection of museums that is the Menil.  Take a non-rush-hour cruise around the inner loop, I-610, and see how America's 1950's automotive love affair was supposed to play out.  Pull off into the Heights for the James Turrell skyspace that is the Friends Meeting House (http://www.friendshouston.org/). . 

Hungry?  The commercial ethos of the city has allowed the growth of hundreds of ethnic restaurants with amazing quality, price, and portion size - there's a good reason Houstonians are America's fattest folks.  A lot of the best are scattered in strip malls around the city, but you can't go wrong with one of the ubiquitous offerings of the Pappas family (http://www.pappadeaux.com/pappasfamily.htm).  For the extra frugal, get a Fritos pie and Chicago dog at James Coney Island (http://www.jamesconeyisland.com/): better than what you'll get in either Brooklyn or on Randolph Street. . 

Rice University's Rice Design Alliance (http://rda.rice.edu/) is the local keeper of the design flame.  They've taken it upon themselves to explain Houston to themselves and to us beyond the bayous.  Their quarterly magazine, Cite, is the best ongoing analysis of the design and evolution of any American city.  To help you catch up, the editors put out a collection of Cite articles, The Ephemeral City, in 2003: I got it as a Christmas present, and have been devouring it ever since. . 

Houston's beauty doesn't come from the landscape (swamps), or a grand city plan (Daniel Burnham did not visit).  Instead, it grows from the desires of millions of Houstonians' to make money by making great places to live.  Followed across the country this would be a disaster, but as a municipal design lab, it's produced some unexpected greatness.