25 must-see buildings in Texas

The San Antonio Missions National Historical Park (architects unknown): Everybody knows the Alamo, but there are four other 18th-century Spanish missions in San Antonio: Mission Concepcion (1731), Mission San Jose (1720), Mission San Juan Capistrano (1716) and Mission Espada (1731).

More than just historical monuments, these missions are still run by the Catholic Archdiocese and continue to provide Mass and other services for the faithful.

Fair Park, Dallas (George Dahl, architect): Built in 1936 for the Texas Centennial Exposition, and now home to the Texas State Fair, this 277-acre recreational and educational park is directly south of downtown Dallas.

Many of the original Art Deco buildings have been restored and are still in use.

The Bishop’s Palace, Galveston (Nicholas J. Clayton, architect): Completed in 1893 for prominent Galveston lawyer and politician James Gresham, and later sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese as a residence for Bishop Christopher E. Byrne, the Bishop’s Palace is a masterpiece of Gulf Coast Victorian architecture. The heavy, stone structure survived the Great Hurricane of 1900 while sheltering several hundred survivors.

Little Chapel in the Woods, Denton (O’Neal Ford and Arch B. Swank, Jr., architects): This little wedding chapel on the campus of Texas Woman’s University is a prime example of Texas regional modernism by the master of the genre.

Completed in 1939, the project combines modernism’s straightforward geometry with local, natural materials — brick and fieldstone — that soften and humanize the overall effect.

It was funded by student, faculty and alumnae donations and constructed mostly by unskilled student labor — some of which was provided by the New Deal’s National Youth Administration.

Pennzoil Place, Houston (Johnson/Burgee Architects): Completed in 1975, developed by legendary Houston developer Gerald D. Hines and designed by Jonson/Burgee Architects, Pennzoil Place’s twinned, trapezoidal towers and sculptural form broke the rigor of the Miesian box and opened the doors for Postmodernism. The building led to Johnson winning the AIA Gold Medal in 1978 and the first-ever Pritzker Prize in Architecture in 1979. Ada Louise Huxtable proclaimed it the “building of the decade.”

NorthPark Center, Dallas (Harrell and Hamilton Architects (now Omniplan)): Dallas is Texas’ flashiest city, and NorthPark is its swankiest shopping center. Developed by Raymond Nasher and completed in 1965, it was the largest shopping mall in the country when it opened and continues to be one of the most successful, taking in more than $1 billion in sales annually. The mall also is home to major works of art by the likes of James Rosenquist, Anthony Gormley, Mark de Suvero and more.

Suzanne Deal Booth Centennial Pavilion, Houston (Thomas Phifer and Partners, with artist James Turrell): This pavilion, located adjacent to the Shepherd School of Music on the Rice University campus, features James Turrell’s “Twilight Epiphany” sky space. The pyramidal structure is composed of grass, concrete, stone and steel, and continues the artist’s exploration of natural and artificial light as played through and across this sculpted lens. Experience this space at sunrise and sunset to enjoy both natural and designed light sequences.

Marienkirche, Fredericksburg (architects unknown): In the middle of the 19th century, thousands of German immigrants poured into Central Texas, many of them skilled craftsmen, intellectuals and political dissidents. These resourceful pioneers went to work adapting their traditions to the geography and climate of a still-wild land. Marienkirche, completed in 1863 of local materials — limestone and cypress — is a Gothic cathedral re-imagined in a frontier condition.

Dallas City Hall (I.M. Pei & Partners with Harper & Kemp): In a bid to reinvent Dallas’ image after the events of November 1963, then-mayor Erik Jonsson and a committee of prominent citizens commissioned I.M. Pei to design a new city hall and municipal center. Completed in 1978, the building was envisioned as an expression of civic pride, confidence and ambition; it features a modernist, inverted pyramid design that is as fresh and compelling today as it was when it was first completed. Sloping at a 34-degree angle, Dallas City Hall has seven above-grade floors, each 9.5 feet wider than the one below.

Fort Worth Water Gardens (Philip Johnson with John Burgee): Despite a number of tragedies that have occurred there since its opening in 1974, the Fort Worth Water Gardens, updated for safety, continues to captivate visitors. The park has been billed as both a serene, refreshing oasis at the southern edge of downtown, and as an architectural space where vertiginous tectonics are infused with the drama of water. The Gardens’ biggest draw is the Active Pool, which allows people to descend a series of steps as water, cascading 38 meters to the structure’s center, rushes around them. The project also features a quiet, blue meditation pool, and an aerating pool with fountains.

LBJ Presidential Library, Austin (Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Brooks, Barr, Graeber, and White): Designed in 1966 and completed in 1971, the 10-story monumental mass of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, perched as it is on a generous, elevated plaza, is a modern Parthenon and Austin’s most heroic architectural expression.

Gordon Bunshaft said the inspiration for the design came from the strength he perceived in Johnson, the old Master of the Senate, who was then at the height of his presidential power — hammering his Great Society legislation through Congress while becoming hopelessly mired in the Vietnam War. As a bonus, the museum features an animatronic LBJ!

Tower of the Americas, San Antonio (Ford Powell & Carson): Built as the theme structure for HemisFair ’68, the Tower of the Americas is one of the few enduring landmarks from the international exposition that helped redefine San Antonio as a welcoming multicultural metropolis. Three exterior elevators stand ready to whisk visitors to the top of the 750-foot-tall tower, where they can enjoy an observation deck, lounge and revolving restaurant offering panoramic views of the city.

The Menil Collection Houston (Renzo Piano Building Workshop with Richard Fitzgerald & Associates): Texas’ other greatest museum of the 20th century (next to the Kimbell) opened in 1987. Carefully integrated within a neighborhood of bungalows, many of which are also part of the institution, Piano’s building had a profound influence on museum design in the following decades. The Menil campus includes other must-sees: the Rothko Chapel (Howard Barnstone and Eugene Aubrey, architects, 1971), the Cy Twombly Pavilion (Renzo Piano, 1992), the Byzantine Fresco Chapel (Francois de Menil, 1997) and the soon-to-be-completed Menil Drawing Institute (Johnston Marklee).

Ellis County Courthouse, Waxahachie (J. Riley Gordon, architect): With 254 counties, Texas has more historic county courthouses than any other state in the nation. This fine example in Ellis County, completed in 1896, designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, and constructed of granite and red sandstone, was completely restored by the Texas Historical Commission’s Courthouse Preservation Program in 2002.

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth (Louis I. Kahn): Completed in 1972, the Kimbell is widely considered to be one of the world’s most significant works of modern architecture. Kahn managed to create a building that feels at once ancient and modern, monumental and intimate. The scale, materiality and ethereal quality of light — a mix of indirect daylight washing the concrete vaults and incandescent down lighting — are certainly not to be missed. It is located in Fort Worth’s cultural district, which is also home to the Philip Johnson-designed Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Tadao Ando-designed Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which are both worth the trip on their own.

World Birding Center, Mission (Lake|Flato Architects): Located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, near the border with Mexico, the World Birding Center is of special significance today considering it is dedicated to the observation and appreciation of creatures for whom borders mean nothing.

Completed in 2004, the project is also a prime example of sustainable design and contemporary Texas vernacular.

Lake|Flato referenced both the agricultural infrastructure of the valley as well as the modern-primitive forms of Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.

Circuit of the Americas, Austin (Miró Rivera Architects): The first purpose-built Formula 1 Grand Prix facility to ever be built in the United States is in Austin. Opened in 2010, Circuit of the Americas is more than a racetrack. It also includes an outdoor music venue called the Austin360 Amphitheater, a 251-foot-tall observation tower, and a grand landscaped plaza.

Designed by local firm Miró Rivera Architects, the public spaces and grandstands forgo old-hat Texana references in favor of an international language of speed based on the tubular construction and aerodynamic profiles of F1 cars.

Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (Renzo Piano Building Workshop with The Beck Group): Opened in 2003 right across the street from the Dallas Museum of Art, the Center began the realization of the city’s now thriving Arts District. This museum comprises a 55,000-square-foot building designed by Renzo Piano and a 2-acre garden by Peter Walker of PWP Landscape Architecture. It features rotating exhibitions from Patsy and Raymond Nasher’s collection of modern and contemporary masterpieces, and includes works from the likes of Matisse, Picasso, Rodin, Giacometti and Duchamp-Villon.

The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, Dallas (Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus): An integral part of the Dallas Arts District, this iconic theater opened in 2009 and forms part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. Rather than locating front-of-house and back-of-house functions around the theater, the Wyly features a groundbreaking vertical “stacked” design that places these areas above and below. The fully flexible and reconfigurable theater chamber can be converted into virtually any type of performance space, giving the directors who work there tremendous amount of freedom to realize their vision.

Fountain Place, Dallas (I.M. Pei and Partners with landscape architect Dan Kiley): Since its completion in 1986, the late-modernist Fountain Place in downtown Dallas has been praised for both the geometry of its 60-story tower, which is clad in green glass, and the extraordinary 6-acre urban space at its base. The building’s various slanted sides cause it to have a completely different profile from every direction, and its plaza features 172 dancing fountains — hence, its name.

Temple Emanu-El, Dallas (Howard Meyer and Max Sandfield): Following its completion in 1957, Temple Emanu-El was widely hailed as a brilliant alliance of architecture and art.

The temple, a cylindrical sanctuary with lofty walls and a shallow-domed ceiling, reflects an exquisite use of indigenous materials and contrasting illumination. It features glittery artwork by artists Gyorgy Kepes and Anni Albers, and courtyards and gardens designed by the acclaimed landscape architects Arthur and Marie Berger.

The Alley Theatre, Houston (Ulrich Franzen & Associates with Mackie & Kamrath): The Ulrich Franzen-designed home of Houston’s Alley Theatre has been a love-it-or-hate-it proposition from the start. With its fortress-like concrete exterior, the Brutalist building has been called “one of the finest modern buildings in Houston,” and one of its “least photogenic.” What is undeniable is that the architect’s flexible design responded brilliantly to the needs of the innovative theater company, providing the setting for almost 50 years of social and cultural interaction for the public.

Margarite B. Parker Chapel at Trinity University, San Antonio (Ford Powell & Carson in conjunction with Bartlett Cocke and Associates): Virtually unchanged since its completion in 1966, the Parker Chapel is a pink-brick Romanesque duomo located on the Trinity University campus.

It is considered one of the finest examples of what makes O’Neil Ford’s work so special.

Its honest expression of materials and the craftsmanship of its details makes the chapel feel like a grand space as it provides a serene place for worship and reflection.