RDA Executive Director Linda Sylvan documents her time in Dallas with fellow tourgoers during RDA’s Hometown Tour.
RDA’s Dallas Tour Group
When the organizers of the Dallas Art Fair approached RDA Tour Director Lynn Kelly and me last year to discuss an RDA tour of Dallas in April 2011, we couldn’t refuse their invitation. The Art Fair staff promised a weekend full of art and architecture, and they came through, giving the group of thirty-three entry into houses designed by Philp Johnson, Richard Meier, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, Antoine Predock, O’Neil Ford, and Dan Shipley, among others. The Mansion at Turtle Creek was our home away from home during our stay April 7-10, 2011.
What does one do first when arriving in Dallas? Go to Neiman Marcus, of course! Architect Mark Dilworth, the recently retired managing partner of Omniplan, the architecture firm responsible for NorthPark Center, joined the group for lunch at the Neiman Marcus Café. Before giving us a tour of the center and the public art installed throughout, Dilworth, a Rice School of Architecture grad, spoke about the history of the design of the center (1965, Harrell & Hamilton, with Eero Saarinen & Associates designing the Neiman Marcus store) and talked about its owner and patron, Raymond Nasher, and his daughter and son-in-law, Nancy Nasher and David Haemisseger, who continue to manage the retail center, which includes curating its amazing collection of contemporary art and its no-less beautiful plantings. According to architectural historian Stephen Fox, NorthPark Center is known for its dignity and refinement and “feels more like an art museum or public place than a shopping mall.” For Houstonians it was a breath of fresh air compared to the noisy and crowded Galleria.
Nasher Sculpture Center's orange balloon installation
From Neiman’s the group dashed over to the nearby Temple Emanu El (1956, Howard R. Meyer and Max Sandfield with William W. Wurster), Dallas’s oldest Jewish congregation. Congregation member Kathy Aferiat led us on a tour that included the breath-taking prayer hall, with its still intact installations by artists Gyorgy Kepes and Anni Albers.
Next the group toured two projects designed by Philip Johnson. The H.C. Beck, Jr. House (1964) displayed what Johnson called his New Formalism. The house is monumental in scale and outrageous in detail. The expansive grounds feature large sculptures, and the house contained an amazing art collection, including works by John Chamberlain, Ed Ruscha, and Olafur Eliasson. The house has been meticulously restored by Dallas architects Bodron + Fruit and Boston landscape architects Reed-Hilderbrand installed a calming pastoral landscape.
The second Johnson project was the Interfaith Peace Chapel of the Cathedral of Hope (2010, Philip Johnson-Alan Ritchie and Cunningham Architects), which describes itself as the world’s largest Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered congregation. Dallas architect Gary Cunningham met us at the site and explained that after Johnson’s death his firm was hired to oversee the construction according to Johnson’s design, an example of “blob” style architecture with which Johnson experimented during his last years in practice. Still to be built is the “cathedral” that Johnson designed in 1995.
Interfaith Peace Chapel of the Cathedral of Hope by Philip Johnson
Tired from all that touring, we concluded our first day at the courtyard-centered town house of Ed Baum, professor of architecture and former dean at the University of Texas at Arlington, for wine and spring rolls. His compact house in the Oak Lawn sector, just north of downtown Dallas, is a marvel of spatial compression and clarity.
Day two in Dallas began with a driving tour of Highland Park, Dallas’ most elite residential neighborhood. Our first stop was a visit to Turtle Creek House by Antoine Predock, designed for Deedie Rose and her husband Rusty. Deedie Rose is the driving force behind the Dallas design boom. According to Stephen Fox, she is to visionary architectural patronage in Dallas what Dominique and John de Menil and Gerald D. Hines once were in Houston. Rose’s daughter, famed New York fashion designer Lela Rose, says that she is inspired by art; the magnificent but very personal art collection inside the house surely influenced their talented daughter. Deedie Rose invited us to roam through the house and grounds, which included the ex-municipal waterworks plant next door that Gary Cunnigham turned into guest quarters and exhibition and meeting space for the Roses.
Turtle Creek House
Another Highland Park house, this time designed by Merrill, Pastor & Colgan of Vero Beach, Florida, and Atlanta, was next. In contrast to Turtle Creek House, this serene house paid homage to the early twentieth-century country houses of the English architect E. L. Lutyens, whose designs inspired the homeowners.
After a full morning of touring, we went for lunch to the hot downtown restaurant Stephen Pyles. Dallas also can be a small town as we found out when PaperCity’s Catherine Anspon dropped by along with Houston artists McKay Otto and Selven Jarmon to greet fellow Houstonians.
Following lunch the group visited a mid-century Texas modern house designed for a Texas Instruments executive and his family that is one of the best-known works of San Antonio architect O’Neil Ford. It is a case study of Ford’s distinctive regional modern architecture. Set in a ravine bordering a creek in the Preston Hollow section of north Dallas, the house makes a compelling setting for the current owners’ art collection.
Diane Cheatham of Urban Edge Developers met the group and accompanied us to her newest community project, Urban Reserve, located on a 12-acre site along White Rock Creek. This is an ecologically designed subdivision of modest houses by Dallas architects Max Levy, Robert Meckfessel, Dan Shipley, and others outside of Dallas. The group toured the house designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of New York, which will be Diane Cheatham’s home once completed.
The day ended with a stop at the third annual Dallas Art Fair. The Art Fair showcased more than 70 galleries this year, representing artists working in all kinds of media, and was held at the Fashion Industry Gallery, a mid-century modern building in the heart of downtown Dallas. Afterwards RDA members joined a VIP group for an exhibition opening at the Nasher Sculpture Center (2003, Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Beck with Interloop A/D).
On the morning of our third day, we went to the south Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff, passing by the bridge over the Trinity River designed by Santiago Calatrava on which construction has begun. Fox commented that it looks like an exuberant rendition of a McDonald’s golden arch. Dallas architect Dan Shipley met us at the house he designed for ceramic artist Marla Ziegler. One of the crowd’s favorites, the house was designed to display Ms. Ziegler’s art collection as well as respond imaginatively to its sloping site.
Ziegler House
As much as the crowd could imagine easily living in the Ziegler House, the next house on the tour, designed by New York architect Richard Meier, is home to an art collection rather than a family. Howard Rachofsky and his wife Cindy, who made a brief appearance during our visit, now use the house for an ever-changing exhibition of his contemporary art collection. The house, collections, and grounds were over the top.
Rachofsky House
After lunch Fox led a walking tour of the Dallas Arts District, which includes the Wyly Theater (2009, OMA/Koolhaas, REX, and Kendall/Heaton Assoc.), the Winspear Opera House (2009, Foster + Partners and Kendall/Heaton Associates), and the Booker T. Washington School for the Arts (2008, Allied Works). Tom Cox then gave us a detailed guided tour of the Meyerson Symphony Center (1989, Pei Cobb Freed). As Dallasites never tire of mentioning (especially to Houstonians) the Dallas Arts District boasts four buildings designed by Pritzker Prize laureates. Our afternoon of touring concluded with an architectural bus tour of downtown Dallas, dipping south into the Cedars, a historic working class neighborhood where Dan Shipley has just moved his studio.
Meyerson Symphony Center
That evening RDA members were invited by our Art Fair hosts for cocktails at the Goss-Michael Foundation, which promotes contemporary British art in the U.S. That night featured a premiere exhibition and personal appearance by artist Jim Lambie and amazing people watching.
Sunday was sports day and began with a morning tour of the public art collection at the new 80,000-seat Dallas Cowboys Stadium (2009, HKS Sports and Entertainment Group) in Arlington. It is the largest domed stadium in the world; it has the largest column-free interiors in the world; and it has the world’s largest retractable roof.
Our guide explained that when conceiving Cowboys Stadium, team owner Jerry Jones and his wife Gene wanted to create a place that would appeal not only to fans of sports and entertainment but also to those of architecture, art, design, engineering, and technology. The collection consists of nineteen commissioned and original works of art by established and emerging contemporary artists. An advisory council of cultural leaders from the North Texas area was formed to assist with the selection of artists. Seeing art on such a large scale in a sports stadium was an amazing experience and a testament to a culture of appreciation for art and architecture that Dallas has generated.
Dallas Cowboys Stadium
On the way out of town, the group stopped at the mid-century, Spanish-style Belmont Hotel for brunch and its views to the downtown Dallas skyline. We were awed by the amazing collection art and architecture we visited in Dallas, and the generous hospitality of our neighbors to the north.
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