Howard Barnstone was a modern architect in the mid-twentieth century decades. He was also a professor of architecture at the University of Houston from 1948 to 1987. UH adjunct assistant professor in the College of Architecture, Stephen Fox, and his collaborators explore Barnstone’s career and his critically recognized architectural works in their book “Making Houston Modern: The Life and Architecture of Howard Barnstone.”
Fox and his collaborators felt that Barnstone’s career, not just as an architect and educator, but also as a historian and critic, deserved more recognition and examination. This was the inspiration behind the book.
“By force of his personality, talent, candor, and wit, Barnstone produced extremely elegant buildings, inspired generations of students, upset defenders of the status quo, and amused Houstonians with his quirky, funny, sometimes unsettling actions and pronouncements,” Fox said.
According to Fox, Barnstone was ahead of his time. The architecture of Houston has changed since Barnstone’s time. Now, the architecture in Houston is more conservative and not very original or risky.
Fox said that Barnstone “courted controversy,” and that what he did would scare away Houston clients today rather than attract them.
Fox describes Barnstone as one of the “driving forces” behind modern architecture in Houston. The book spotlights a time in Houston’s history where architecture, art, theater and literature entered a more modern age.
“His story is, in many ways, the story of a generation of Houstonians enthusiastically embracing cultural modernism and discovering new modern selves as they sought to reconfigure Houston as a city that disavowed reactionary parochialism, racial prejudice, cultural insecurity, and (by embracing air-conditioning) even oppressive heat and humidity,” Fox said.
Image: Getty Images/iStock/skodonnell
