Favorite Buildings

The National Council of the Arts regularly designates national landmarks. The council has designated one person as a landmark–O’Neill Ford, the architect responsible for the Little Chapel in the Woods. Those who study these things know Ford as “The Godfather of Modern Texas Architecture.” His gift was twofold: harmonizing modern design with traditional materials and craftsmanship, and seamlessly placing that design in nature. Little Chapel in the Woods showcases both of those strengths.

Sunlight and stained glass have never played together so beautifully. The Chapel is historic, too. Constructed by the National Youth Administration during the Depression, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated the building in 1939. Her presence was fitting as the building sits on the Texas Woman’s University campus and honors the theme of “women ministering to human needs.” 

Those who know us know how difficult it was for two Baylor Bears to list this particular landmark. It has been bathed in victory orange at our expense too many times. Fair is fair, however, and the Tower is a potent symbol of the state’s flagship school.

Opened in 1937 after  decades of planning, the Tower centers UT’s “40 Acres.” Building materials arrived from around the world, but care was exercised to ensure plenty of Texas and local stone found its way into the structure. As distinctive as the building is, the lighting sets it apart. On a clear evening, the building, esplanade, statuary, and lights combine to evoke grandeur. Hopefully, it inspires those cramming for their exams late at night.

Any history of the Tower is incomplete without the mention of the 1966 Tower shooting, when Charles Whitman killed 15 people and injured 31 by opening fire from the building’s observation deck. A forerunner of today’s mass shootings in particular and campus turmoil in general, that day was one of the darkest in Texas history. It is a testament to the other purposes the building serves that one can look at the Tower and not think of that day.

The Alamo is more famous, but La’ Bahia has seen much more history. The current structure is in Goliad and has been since 1749. The outpost traces back to an earlier fort near Victoria, central to the efforts of the French and Spanish to control the area. With the Spanish in control, the objective turned to the colonization of the Native American population, which was ignoble and unsuccessful. After the fort moved north to Goliad, it played an important role in Mexico’s efforts to separate itself from Spain and the first efforts of Anglo settlers to assert independence.

In the years before the actual Texas Revolution, La’ Bahia was the launch and recovery point from which Mexico monitored growing Anglo/Texian unrest. That changed on October 9, 1835, when a force led by George Collingsworth and Ben Milam captured the garrison, effectively isolating the portion of the Mexican Army then in San Antonio.   In December of 1835, the leaders and soldiers at Goliad (Wellington and Milam had moved on by then) authored and signed “The Goliad Declaration of Independence.” Students who paid attention in seventh grade will remember that there was disagreement over whether Texas ought to be its own country or it ought to support the efforts of federalist Mexicans to gain greater autonomy for states in the Mexican Union. This Declaration pushed separation over cooperation. 

By the time Santa Anna moved to rectify this situation, Colonel James Fannin commanded the forces at Goliad and nearby. After a series of misjudgments and miscommunications, Fannin’s force was largely captured during a retreat and returned to La’ Bahia. On March 27, 1836  (Palm Sunday), the Mexican Army massacred Fannin and almost 400 of his men in “the Goliad Massacre.” At San Jacinto, the cries of the Texas Army were just as much “Remember Goliad: as they were “Remember the Alamo.”

Today, the fort is serene and often mistaken for a church based on the prominence of the tower and cross. While the tower does hold a chapel, it was not meant for the public.

Instead, it was where the soldiers worshipped. Still, it is one of the oldest churches in the United States. 

Starting in 1963, the fort was recovered after years of neglect. The restoration project is a small miracle, resulting in what many consider the world’s finest example of a Spanish fort from its colonial era. What grabbed us, however, is the peacefulness that now inhabits a place renowned for barbaric cruelty. In the spring, gentle blue skies and colorful wildflowers soften the walls, at least visually. Though the builders never intended it this way, the building now emphasizes the chapel’s hope more than its cannons’ force.

The open plains of West Texas can be bleak, particularly when no mesas or other interesting geography is in sight. The sun can be merciless. For a structure to be interesting or memorable, the architect must make it so. Mother Earth and Mother Nature give no aid.

The Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences in Lubbock conquers the challenge of open space and then some. The facility is new, opening in 2021. It is big, at over 220,000 square feet. Most of all, it is visually stunning.

Clean lines and glass predominate. Often, the glass reflects enough of the sky with enough clarity so that the front of the building becomes a mural of the western sky. The structure’s proportions seem just correct, as the height of the main structure is balanced by the length of the ground floor. The facade has enough gentle curvature that it is more welcoming than severe.

More than anything else, however, the building is a statement that arts and culture mean as much in Lubbock as they do in Dallas, Houston, or Austin. That should be obvious if one understands the history of West Texas music and musicians. The region repeatedly produced artists who reshaped the world’s understanding of popular music. Bob Wills, Roy Orbison, and the building’s namesake, Buddy Holly, were not just popular. They were revolutionary. They live on today. It is just a shame they never got to play this magnificent stage that reflects their spirit.

Texas is a hayseed state that happens to have a lot of oil. The oil gives the hayseeds an exaggerated sense of importance. But we all know at heart, they are hayseeds. That line of thinking may be harsh, but it was not too far from a consensus in the 1940s and 1950s. 

If one building represents Texas’s maturation in the national consciousness from a place to be patronized to a place to be admired, it has to be “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” the Houston Astrodome. The first completely enclosed, air-conditioned stadium in the world, the building revolutionized sports and entertainment.  While we have not conquered the weather, the Astrodome allowed the idea that the weather need not stop our games or our concerts. 

The round design looked space-age, and the name sounded space-age. Houston was a space city, home of America’s greatest heroes of the 1960s, NASA’s astronauts. With something like that in place, it was hard to think of Texas as a backwater. The Astrodome’s look, name, and function put Texas in general, and Houston specifically, in another, more favorable context.

To this day, no American stadium surpasses the Astrodome for the breadth of history that occurred there. Mickey Mantle hit the first indoor home run; the biggest college basketball game of all time was played; women’s equality found its footing; musical legends of every stripe, from Judy Garland to Elvis to Sinatra to Selena to Madonna, graced the stage; and a president was nominated, all at the Astrodome. Architecture can be transformative, and this building served that purpose. 

We would have never made this sleeper pick absent our visit to Laredo. The Cathedral, built in 1866 to a Gothic design by a French architect, is beautiful—but no more beautiful than San Fernando in San Antonio, St. Mary’s in Galveston, or Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dallas. What grabbed our attention was the relationship between the cathedral and the expansive plaza it commands.

We happened to be in Laredo on Good Friday, when the church held its Way of the Cross ceremony. Much of the city attended. Afterwards, people floated to the park and just … congregated. 

It seems so simple. We do better when we enjoy the presence of our neighbors. If we do not know them, we get to know them. Whether you are rich or poor, powerful or meek, matters less when we enjoy the same surroundings. For whatever reason, on that Friday afternoon, in a poor town, the subject of fear-mongering based on its border status, many people seemed happy and relaxed.  

We accomplish something by marrying buildings that draw people together with spaces that allow them to interact. The Spanish-style plaza is unsurpassed at doing this. We found its Texas apex in Laredo.

There are innumerable categories of architecture. If you ask non-architects to name five of them, “Art Deco” may be the most repeated answer. In the 1920s, the style became popular in the United States just as we assumed our role as a world power. Flappers and hipsters dressed in the style and inhabited the swank clubs. More than anything else, Art Deco is fun and noticeable.

When state leaders selected Fair Park in Dallas to host the 1936 Independence Centennial, we were still fighting the Depression. Dallas, however, rose to the challenge by renovating and expanding Fair Park with a consistent and overwhelming Art Deco theme. Dallas is rarely subtle.Fair Park had been around for fifty years by then, but the Centennial was transformative. And it remained transformative. From an architecture perspective, The Art Deco Society of New York notes Fair Park’s importance as “perhaps the most complete collection of modernistic exposition art and architecture in the world.” We have visited Fair Park scores of times, but took an opportunity to visit on a Sunday afternoon when nothing was going on. The buildings are still breathtaking and so much different than the rest of Dallas. They transport you in time and mood.

“Simple beauty” is easy to say and difficult to accomplish. “Old world craftsmanship” is more slogan than a reality. Being lifted up through humbleness is anathema to Americans, and especially Texans. Those of us who live in cities or dream of escaping to them rarely notice how powerful simple, humble craftsmanship can be. 

We try to remind ourselves of that when travelling the state. The best reminder comes from the country church. The best example is “St. Olaf’s Kirke,” or the Old Rock Church in Cranfills Gap. This isn’t a building; it is a life lesson. Set on a windswept hill with a quiet cemetery at its side, St. Olaf’s eloquently testifies that hope and humility can get us through.

The author has particular affection for the building because Norwegians, perhaps distant branches of my family tree, built it. Elsewhere in the state, Germans, Mexicans, Alsatians, and every other immigrant group did the same thing. The same for settlers from Kentucky or Tennessee.  This place is just the best example of the idea.

Next year, the church will be 240 years old, and it remains in immaculate condition. If needed, heat comes only from a stove. There is no air conditioning. The organ is pre-1900, and the floors and pews are original. Church members hauled the rocks up the hill and laid them. Nobody knows who drew the plans; it’s a good bet that they were not registered architects. 

Somehow, without the benefit of technology, funding, or specialized education, the Norwegian community of Cranfills Gap created true beauty. Their descendants have lovingly preserved it through 10 generations. If St. Olaf’s Kirke does not communicate a deep, beautiful faith, we do not know one that does.

It is not fashionable today to laud our government, we suppose for good reason. Politics has always been closer to theater than statesmanship. It is just that today, “theater” means reality television rather than Shakespeare. Reality television and government are ugly, messy, never-ending, and serve no purpose other than diversion from real life. 

But wow, what a stage we have for our theater. By 1888, we had forgotten how desperately we needed to be in the Union so we could pay our debts. In a show of hubris, we built the largest Capitol building in the country, 14 feet higher than the U.S. Capitol. On its completion, the State Capitol was the world’s seventh-largest building. Of course, we still did not have the cash to do it, so in true Texas fashion, we flipped land to the developer and contractors as payment.   

To their credit, those contractors did not skimp. The building’s most distinctive feature is the materials used in it. With the right light, the local red granite’s soft glow is comforting and solid. Inside, marble, deep woods with brass fixtures, and old leather furniture speak to stability or at least the illusion of it. The 22-acre, oak-covered front lawn with impressive statues dotted across the landscape provides a fitting entrance. 

The dome at the center is four stories high and 60 feet wide. The two wings house our bicameral and sometimes warring factions of the legislative branch. There are nooks and crannies, tunnels, and traditions aplenty.  For completeness, we mention that the building is in the Renaissance Revival style.  That detail, however, is almost beside the point. It is a grand building for a grand state. If you want to know more about the Capitol, we have it here. And to prove that we are not entirely cynical, you might enjoy a prior take on what the building can mean when we really need it to mean something.

It was inevitable. Very few buildings are instantly recognizable almost anywhere in the world. The Alamo is in that handful. You probably already know, but we are duty-bound to point out that “The Alamo” is just a part of the mission that existed and was fought over in 1836. It is the chapel, probably built by the Spanish around 1755. 

After the battle, preservation was not a priority; the US Army’s Quartermaster Corps used the site for ordinary business. In doing so, it converted the church into a warehouse. What you may not know is that it was only then, decades after the famous battle, that the distinctive rounded crest appeared over the door as part of a roof repair.  

This speaks to the power of architecture. The Alamo would still be famous, but would it have been instantly recognizable and symbolic if it had remained a simple square building with a flat roof line?  We doubt it. Today, when we see the Alamo, our mind immediately goes to a valor that is hard to describe in words. But we do not need the words; the building does it for us. The shape, the materials, the elevations-they all speak to something in us. 

In Texas, we like to think the Alamo “is the shape of us.” That isn’t true. We are not Travis or Crockett and are unlikely to be heroes. But if buildings inspire us to better things, the architects have done their jobs. Millions of people visit the Alamo for some reason. We think and hope it is for inspiration.