Call it “artitecture”: the art that architects create in the design of our public buildings. Here are a dozen artistic corners of buildings, all at least eighty-five years old.
Hotel Texas (Sanguinet and Staats, 1921).
Binyon-O’Keefe Storage (Sanguinet and Staats, 1917).
Flatiron (Sanguinet and Staats, 1907).
Fort Worth Club (Sanguinet and Staats, 1925).
Lone Star Gas (Hedrick, 1929).
Woolworth Building (Clarkson, 1926).
The JEfferson telephone exchange building (1927) in Poly.
The power plant (1913) on North Main.
Farmers and Mechanics National Bank Building (Sanguinet and Staats, 1920).
Burk Burnett Building (Sanguinet and Staats, 1914).
Texas & Pacific freight terminal (Hedrick, 1931).
Central post office (Hedrick, 1933).
Aren’t we lucky, to have so much great art deco left intact- and now, restored and in use, again – when so many cities demolished their own, in the name of ‘progress and improvement’? (I’m looking at you, Dallas- and Houston.)
We are lucky, Nancy. Although we have let too many gems disappear, but we have also saved many. As in any city, our classics are now dwarfed by our skyscrapers. I spent an hour yesterday on the levee looking at the western skyline as I shot time-lapse video of the sunset. Every building tall enough to be seen from that position has a skin of blue glass.