I’ll get in line with Margaret, Gregg, and Milan to remember what I liked best about living in Houston.  While I can’t wax as poetic as they, here’s what I most look forward to revisiting there:

* Ecclesiastical architecture: the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine Fresco chapel; Philip Johnson’s chapel of St. Basil at St Thomas University; the Live Oak Friends Meeting House.  That last spot rates as the site of one of my life’s top ten aesthetic experiences—nature, space, form and meditation come together beautifully, as do indoors and outdoors, earth and sky.

* Museum architecture: the Mies building at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Rafael Moneo building next door, and the Renzo Piano works on the Menil campus.

* Domestic architecture:  white clapboard shotgun houses, tin houses in the West End, outrageous “lofts” with gargoyles and names like "The Renoir"; the gardens that flourish most of the year.

* Spec’s Liquor Warehouse – practically a museum of wine and food, and not far from downtown.  Get recommendations on it all from the helpful master sommelier, named Bear, or enjoy the lunch offerings from the deli in back. 

* The Central time zone: late night television is on not so late, you can place telephone calls to California when the East Coast is asleep, and it’s only a couple of hours flying time, to any of the other edges of the country.  

* The downtown skyline, especially toward dusk, and especially from the air, if you fly into Houston’s Hobby Airport.  The menagerie of glass towers, against one another in the orange light of sunset can also be taken in from Gallery 221 of the MFAH’s Beck Building.

* Divino on West Alabama, with its wine list, fried calamari appetizer, delicate and civilized seating  arrangements—all across the street from a chocolate shop.

* Inside-Out, an on-site installation by the local artist Matthew Sondheimer, in the Electronic Resource Room of the MFAH’s Hirsch Library.  The beautiful lines of the “drawing” ask us to think about screens of all kinds, and the porousness of reading, research, and writing. 

* Paintings by local artist Terrell James—some of which we’ll get to see hanging in our hotel, I’m told.  Gorgeous canvases emerge from Terrell’s sensitivity and careful thought.  What makes a landscape, a memory, Terrell asks, and shows us, in pigments, texture, and technique. 

* The gallery that shows Terrell’s work in Houston: the Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, for the art, the building, the garden, the neighborhood, and for Devin and Hiram.  Join the Society Circle for the reception there on Friday evening. 

* The Inman Gallery 3901 Main Street—a friendly, approachable, yet serious about art, run by Kerry Inman, a former geologist. 

* The classical music scene, supported by two universities that rank high for instrumental and vocal performance departments.  Between the music schools at Rice University and the University of Houston, you can hear a concert every night of the week, for much of the year, for little or nothing in cost.  Through the Bach Society, you can hear performances by strong American and German ensembles, and a Bach chorale every Sunday morning, at Christ the King Lutheran Church.  Not to mention the array of venues downtown. 

* The Houston ship channel et environs.  Again, this is where forty percent of the country’s petroleum and chemical products come from, and it looks it.  The industrial landscape, seen from the I-695 bridge is majestic and haunting. 

* North and South Boulevards, near Rice University and the MFAH.  The allées of trees parading in front of houses by John Staub is almost unbelievably picturesque.  

* Brazos bookstore, near Rice Village, for its thoughtful selection of books, the informed and passionate help you can get, and the readings and exhibitions they schedule.

* The Montrose Branch of the public library: converted from a church, it’s the local branch of the public library for the Museum District.  Stop in to see the textile sculptural reminder of the organ pipes, then elide  next door for lunch at the Kraftsman Bakery.

* Texas has a pretty good state flag.  It’s up there with Maryland’s. 

Often quite apart from the gigantic political and geographic entity that is Texas, Houston is more like village, an island, an oasis within the state.  Its voting patterns, effusion of culture, liveliness, and the diversity of people from all over the world remind me more of  Cambridge or Berkeley than much of the Sun Belt.  I would encourage anyone to come take a look.  Houston’s going to be the setting of a memorable ARLIS conference!

See you there.

 - John

Fourth in a series of personal reflections on Houston by some folks who’ve been there.