“Texas Two Step: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Addition(s) to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.”
Published in Arris 31 (2020)
My essay about Mies van der Rohe’s two additions to the MFAH was published in Arris, volume 31, the annual journal of the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH). Additionally an Ezra Stoller photograph of the first museum addition was selected for the journal cover.
The essay analyzes this scarcely published project that nonetheless represents Mies’s only addition(s) to an existing building after he emigrated to the United States. This was also his first realized art museum – a building type he was long interested in – and, most interestingly, the two-phased project resulted in the partial demolition of his original 1958 Cullinan Hall addition (show in the Stoller photo) to accommodate the 1974 expansion. Though considered a relatively minor work in Mies’s oeuvre, I contend this should be viewed one of the most important projects designed by the architect, as it represents a materialization of the reconceived, postwar museum typology, following precepts Mies outlined in a design for a hypothetical “Museum for a Small City” proposal for Architectural Forum’s 1943 issue dedicated to “New Buildings for 194X.”
Additionally, his additions – especially that of 1958 – established a direct dialogue with the original Beaux Arts-inspired 1924-26 MFAH building wings designed by William Ward Watkin. After fourteen years representing the new face of the MFAH, the facade with front steps and landing system (paralleling those at Crown Hall) was removed for the 1974 addition. This latter phase, in fact, was conceived originally yet fundamentally erased the original Cullinan Hall, donated by Nina Cullinan to memorialize her important MFAH benefactor parents. Additionally, 2020 MSArch graduate Mahruf Kabir, created a series of axonometric analytical diagrams to accompany the essay.
Arris is published annually by the University of North Carolina Press. https://uncpress.org/journals/arris/
