a face full of Johnson

I went on a trip to Galveston and then Corpus (water, water, water) and realized I hadn't packed a tie to don during my speech. Approaching town, I thought "Hey, I'll stop in at the art museum and pick up a tie and lunch there!" Unfortunately, they had no ties ("We used to carry them!"), but whilst they looked I flipped through a small book about the architect Philip Johnson and came upon a photo of a building we recently saw (and photographed) in Denver. It's actually a parking garage. I'm kinda fascinated by parking garage aesthetics. How do you design a good looking garage? Johnson nailed it.

No ties in downtown Corpus Christi, either. Had to drive 20 minutes to the burbs.

how to tell you have an unhealthy fixation on architecture #242

When your friend on Facebook posts a photo, and you hmmmm to yourself "Hmmmm.... Interesting brickwork..."

Frank Lloyd Wright's Gale House for sale

One of my favorite Wrights, the Gale House, up near Chicago, is on the market. Of all Wright's houses in Oak Park, this one struck me as the most radical for its time, 1909.

The best bit about these houses coming up on the market are the photos: virtual house tours! For a cool $1.1 million, she could be yours. Enjoy!

Listing.

Thanks to PrairieMod for the heads up.

dancing with architecture: Denver

We took a few days off and hung out in Denver to catch up with family, get an award, and see some sites. Similar to Central Texas, Central Colorado has been getting pelted with storm after storm, but the skies opened blue for most of the time we were there. We rented an apartment in a small 1920s-1930s era house centrally located for several death marches. It was urban living at its finest with restaurants, cafes, and bars just a block away. 

We rented one of the small units in this little house.

We were effected by one rainstorm that hit just as we crossed paths with the state capitol, so we ducked into the cap and joined a tour. The Colorado capital has the same architect as Texas': Elijah Myers. Therefore, it has some similarities, although it's a smaller, less regal version.

Composition roof on the cap of the cap!

After that, we ventured downtown to the convention center.

Someone lost their cookies...

We dedicated the next day to the art complex downtown.

The art museum annex designed buy Daniel Libeskind, finished in 2006.

The main are museum designed by Gio Ponti in 1971.

The Denver public library designed by Michael Graves, 1995

Inside the Libeskind

We just knew there would be a Judd somewhere...

After leaving the art complex, we hoofed it over to the botanic garden to see horse sculptures.

It appears the anti-lesbians are plastering the town...

Saw several buildings with this purposefully haphazard brickwork. You can't see it from the photo, but the surface undulates.

At the botanic gardens:

We had a morning before catching a plane back to Austin, so we wandered about Sante Fe Street, host of a number of art galleries. Lots of fantastic street murals and graffiti in the area as well!

Denver is building a light rail station at the airport that will drop passengers off downtown. I love-love-love the main concourse building at the airport, but the new light rail terminal is rude, as if King Kong laid a giant steamer right in front of the concourse. It completely overwhelms the artful terminal. The entire complex now looks like Mothra...

Here are some photos from a proviso trip to Denver that I never got around to posting: