Customer Reviews

Houston Deco: Modernistic Architecture of the Texas Coast

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The National Trust Guide to Art Deco in America (ISBN 0471143863) lists eight buildings in Houston, all are obviously in this book with another ninety or so but look through the photos and it becomes clear that many of them are living on borrowed time unless the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance can save them.

The authors (they took the photos, too) have done a great job in capturing the essence of probably every Deco/Moderne building in Houston. There are a few interiors but mostly they are exteriors and some close-ups of detail. Divided into commercial, theaters, institutional, residential and industrial sections. Each section has at least one gem, I loved the interior of the Alabama Theater which is now a bookshop but unfortunately it looks like it will be demolished soon. Page thirteen has a fascinating period postcard of an aerial view of the River Oaks Community Center designed in 1937, the buildings still stands but for how long?

The printing and design of the book are fine and the back includes a building index, a short bibliography and nicely an alphabetical index of architects. If you live in the city the book will be an excellent reminder of some good working architecture of past decades. For others, like me, it's a useful visual reference to a European design cleverly modified to an American style.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Honestly, I have never thought of houston as having great art deco architecture..NYC, Miami, Chicago of course, but not Houston, and after reading this book, im still not sure. Houston really never went all the way with Deco, I mean the City Hall is a decent example, and so is Jesse Jones' Gulf Building, by far Houston's best example of Art Deco, which unfortunity had its great interiors altered, but really compare it to the Art Deco masterpiece, Buffalo City Hall, or NYC's Rockefeller Center, they dont evern remotely compare, having said that, this is a very good book, it's well researched, with vivid visuals, it's just a shame Houston is not more worthy a subject for a study on great art deco architecture. Houston is a bastion of Modern architecture, it has an embarassment of treasures in that reguard, but unfortunity in this architectural category is woefully bereft, all the more remarkable that this is such a good book.