Image of Sally Walsh from Cite 9, Spring 1985
“When I walk through Houston buildings today and find good contemporary design, whether or not I had a hand in it, I find myself taking credit… because on this specific turf it flourished with my help.” -Sally Walsh (Cite 28)
Last Wednesday with only the help of a pdf copy of "All Around Downtown: A Personal Tour" from Citemag.org, the late interior designer Sally Walsh took me back in time.
Walsh worked as Hans Knoll’s assistant before moving to Houston and ultimately served as a partner at S. I. Morris Architects. By retracing her steps, I encountered a portion of our city center left relatively unchanged over the past twenty-five years---bold glass towers, predominantly subterranean traffic, and a mix of executives and the unemployed smoking cigarettes and never meeting my eye. It was Downtown Houston: unapologetic and unreformed.
Ms. Walsh in her tour is overwhelmed by the majesty of the design around her. Every sculpture, parking garage, and elevator cab is, to her, transcendent. She says of the Texas Commerce Tower Plaza, “Without question, this is the most pleasure-giving outdoor space in the center of Houston. It welcomes use by people, for which we should bless the corporate hearts who sponsored its creation.” I saw the reason for such enthusiasm, yet I also couldn’t shake the feeling of isolation from my surroundings at all times---the sense that, though I have lived in Houston nearly my whole life, I was not really welcome wandering around, idly gazing at what it has to offer.
Texas Commerce Parking Garage
Ms. Walsh parked in what used to be the I.M. Pei’s Texas Commerce Tower garage, now renamed JP Morgan Chase Tower Garage. Her favorite elevators are also still in place, though the effect to me was less cool postmodern and more blinding glare. Their antiseptic portals feature numbering colors evocative of the 1984 LA Olympics. Cars entered and exited through pillars akin to the “smokestacks” of the George R. Brown Convention Center.
I crossed the street towards the tower and stepped into the JP Morgan Chase Tower’s famous plaza, home to a Miro, and like Ms. Walsh before attempted to “enjoy the shade under the grove of Bradford pear trees, listen to the quiet fountains, and study the beautiful, sensitive way in which Mr. Pei prepared the sloping site for the structure.” I ended up receiving odd looks and feeling slightly like I was an eavesdropper on the daily gossip of JP Morgan Chase’s more nicotine-inclined. I stepped inside the tower and was promptly told not to take pictures, so I looked around, read the building’s history, which had only been revised to change its name. The Six Flags Over Texas tapestry was, disappointingly, no longer in public view.
JP Morgan Chase Tower’s plaza, home to a Miro
Ms. Walsh’s buoyant photograph in the article, arms outstretched, motivated me to press on. I stepped in to gawk at the also JP Morgan Chase-owned Gulf Building. While leaving I glanced at the panels portraying the history of Houston (my favorite – the unashamed portrait of a mounted Mexican government official giving the hardworking Texan farmer a notice of his new government). I left and took a glance at the Niel Esperson building, and said so long to Art Deco until I reached City Hall. I sat down inside the First City Tower and was told to leave. I tried to explain that I was merely trying to retrace the steps of noted designer Sally Walsh, but the guard did not understand.
Across the street now was Two Houston Center, occupied chiefly by Wells Fargo. It is still true that “rising on the escalators, the feeling of exhilaration and, yes, grandeur, is impossible to describe.” The lobby’s vast enormous open spaces are also worth admiring, and it was the only place downtown where people seemed to be walking past me enjoying where they were. There is also a wonderful model of the entire structure in its spacious lobby, making it feel like a kind of tourist attraction, making me more comfortable as, well, a tourist.
Back on the street---a blues musician, red guitar in hand, walked by alone, going nowhere in particular.
Ms. Walsh then took me to Allied Bank Plaza, whose lower level seating area was unchanged and lonely. A woman sat and read a romance novel. Another came down the steps and starting reading a mystery novel.
Two Houston Center escalator
Allied Bank Plaza
Allen Center Plaza gnomes
View from 60th floor observation deck of JP Morgan Chase Tower
Republic Bank
Then, Allen Center Plaza. It was almost shockingly quiet there. Picnic tables were mostly filled, but no one spoke audibly. There was a random assortment of garden gnomes on the grass. Even Jason’s Deli looked menacing. The most bunkered restaurant in Houston---Don Patron’s---was signified only by a tiny neon sign in darkness. Ms. Walsh said that the space provides a “quiet moment,” but I felt more haunted and vacant in the 95 degree heat. Plazas like this take up much of the ground in this “Skyline” district of downtown, and I found Ms. Walsh’s enthusiasm both charming and bewildering. Though always impressive, They never feel particularly public, or happy. It gave you the same feeling that no doubt drove nearly all Houstonians away from lingering downtown not too long ago. I looked around, noting again what Ms. Walsh found so charming and pleasant about it, and then left spooked by the memory of the lonely grass gnomes.
I pressed on, revisiting the in-progress renovation of the Julia Idleson Building and the Houston Metropolitan Research Center. The Houston Public Library Plaza was active, filled with the book-seekers and the dispossessed. I stared at Geometric Mouse: Scale X and didn’t know what it meant. The library still felt welcoming, and seeing books and people, not to mention being indoors, was refreshing.
From then on a visit to Phillip Johnson’s intimidating Pennzoil Place and the cool mysterious lobby of the former RepublicBank Center, now Wells Fargo Tower. Then went to the top of the JP Morgan Chase Tower, and stood, like Ms. Walsh, “for a few minutes, looking out to the horizon, to savor some facet of the city’s treasures.” It was odd – the heart of my downtown and the very buildings that signify it in my memory represent the most closed-off and alien parts of town. Yet, like everything else in Houston, there was an evocative glass and cement mystique to it anyway. I looked down at the buildings I toured and the people I saw with an eye more attuned to the building’s genius and the people’s distance from that design. And then I hit the interstate home.
Use this Google map of the Sally Walsh tour along with the original article to visit the sites yourself.
View Sally Walsh's Tour of Downtown in a larger map
