Listed below are only a selection of works from the Architecture and Planning Library. Consider undertaking a search in the library catalog by architect, city, or building to find more specific resources.
Abner CookAbner Cook: master builder on the Texas frontier by 
Architecture in Texas by
Written in an accessible style, Henry's work places Texas architecture in the wider context of American architectural history by tracing the development of building in the state from late Victorian styles, and the rise of neoclassicism, to the advent of the International Style.... His work provides a welter of new facts, both about the era's buildings and the architects who designed them, and he has catalogued and described most of the important landmarks of the period. -- Southwestern Historical Quarterly ., .a significant contribution to the study of Texas architecture.... -- Drury Blakeley Alexander, author of Texas Homes of the Nineteenth Century Texas architecture of the twentieth century encompasses a wide range of building styles, from an internationally inspired modernism to the Spanish Colonial Revival that recalls Texas' earliest European heritage. This book is the first comprehensive survey of Texas architecture of the first half of the twentieth century. More than just a catalog of buildings and styles, the book is a social history of Texas architecture. Jay C. Henry discusses and illustrates buildings from around the state, drawing a majority of his examples from the ten to twelve largest cities and from the work of major architects and firms, including C. H. Page and Brother, Trost and Trost, Lang and Witchell, Sanguinet and Staats, Atlee B. and Robert M. Ayres, David Williams, and O'Neil Ford. The majority of buildings he considers are public ones, but a separate chapter traces the evolution of private housing from late-Victorian styles through the regional and international modernism of the 1930s. Nearly 400 black-and-white photographs complement thetext. Written to be accessible to general readers interested in architecture, as well as to architectural professionals, this work shows how Texas both participated in and differed from prevailing American architectural traditions.
Buildings of Texas by
The architectural history of Texas spans more than 300 years of European settlement and 10,000 years of habitation by native peoples. The incredibly diverse natural landscape and equally varied built environment has produced an architectural heritage of national and international stature. This book, the first of two volumes devoted to the Lone Star State, covers the central, southern, and Gulf Coast regions (the earliest areas of Spanish and Anglo settlement and the majority of the counties that won independence from Mexico in 1836) and includes four major cities--Austin, Corpus Christi, Houston, and San Antonio. The authors consider the contributions made by various cultures--Native American, Spanish, Mexican, Anglo, African American, German, Czech, Polish, and Italian--to the state's rich architectural heritage. More than 1,000 building entries canvass the most important and representative examples of Spanish missions, log cabins, German stone houses, Victorian courthouses, Moderne stores, contemporary ranch houses, modern skyscrapers, postmodern retail strips, and incursions by internationally renowned architects. With the burgeoning interest in heritage tourism, this in-depth guide--enlivened by 351 illustrations and 50 maps--will satisfy the curiosity of both local and out-of-state visitors, bringing new energy to the state's promising preservation movement.
Buildings of Texas by
From Dallas-Fort Worth to El Paso, Goodnight to Marfa to Langtry, and scores of places in between, the second of two towering volumes assembled by Gerald Moorhead and a team of dedicated authors offers readers a definitive guide to the architecture of the Lone Star State. Canvassing Spanish and Mexican buildings in the south and southwest and the influence of Anglo- and African American styles in the east and north, the latest book in the Buildings of the United States series serves both as an accessible architectural and cultural history and a practical guide. More than 1,000 building entries survey the most important and representative examples of forts, courthouses, houses, churches, commercial buildings, and works by internationally renowned artists and architects, from the Kimbell Art Museum's Louis Kahn Building to Donald Judd's art installations at La Mansana de Chinati/The Block. Brief essays highlight such topics as the history and construction of federal forts, the growth and spread of Harvey House restaurants, and the birth of Conrad Hilton's hotel empire. Enlivened by 350 illustrations and 45 maps, Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West affords local and out-of-state visitors, as well as more distant readers, a compelling journey filled with countless discoveries.
The Courthouses of Central Texas by
The county courthouse has long held a central place on the Texas landscape--literally, as the center of the town in which it is located, and figuratively, as the symbol of governmental authority. As a county's most important public building, the courthouse makes an architectural statement about a community's prosperity and aspirations--or the lack of them. Thus, a study of county courthouses tells a compelling story about how society's relationships with public buildings and government have radically changed over the course of time, as well as how architectural tastes have evolved through the decades. A first of its kind, The Courthouses of Central Texas offers an in-depth, comparative architectural survey of fifty county courthouses, which serve as a representative sample of larger trends at play throughout the rest of the state. Each courthouse is represented by a description, with information about date(s) of construction and architects, along with a historical photograph, a site plan of its orientation and courthouse square, and two- and sometimes three-dimensional drawings of its facade with modifications over time. Side-by-side drawings and plans also facilitate comparisons between courthouses. These consistently scaled and formatted architectural drawings, which Brantley Hightower spent years creating, allow for direct comparisons in ways never before possible. He also explains the courthouses' formal development by placing them in their historical and social context, which illuminates the power and importance of these structures in the history of Texas, as well as their enduring relevance today.
Dallas Architecture, Nineteen Thirty-Six to Nineteen Eighty-Six by 
Early Texas Architecture by
Gordon Echols traces the development of various styles form the most rudimentary and little-known rural dwellings to the sophisticated Greek Revival governor's mansion in Austin and the Victorian buildings that were made possible by new wealth earned in trading cotton, cattle and petroleum.
Great Houses of Texas by
In Great Houses of Texas, author Lisa Germany takes the reader on a tour of twenty-five Texas houses--some are lavish and monumental, others more diminutive and intimate, but taken together they relay the story of residential architecture in the Lone Star State. Dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day and scattered across the state from the East Texas town of Jefferson to El Paso, from the cosmopolitan cities of Houston and Dallas to the grasslands of South Texas, many of these houses are marked by their response to the Texas landscape. It is this landscape--combined with the larger-than-life personalities who were drawn to it, the brutal hardships of the frontier, and the architects--that is the unifying theme at work in Great Houses of Texas. When world-renowned architects like Philip Johnson, Maurice Fatio, Steven Holl, and Paul Rudolph add their voices to Texas’s own homegrown talents, such as O’Neil Ford, Ted Flato, David Lake, and Chester Nagel, the state becomes the locus of an extraordinary residential architecture. Photographer Grant Mudford has captured it all in his exciting images, commissioned especially for this book.
James Riely Gordon by
One of Texas’s most talented architects in the late nineteenth century, James Riely Gordon may have been the nation’s most prolific designer of county courthouses. Though Gordon’s Texas courthouses made his reputation, they represent only half of a career in which we see reflected many issues and events shaping American architecture. Most notable were the effort among architects to organize their craft as a profession, the controversial Office of the Supervising Architect of the United States Treasury, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and the City Beautiful Movement. Situating Gordon’s career, Meister focuses on the public architecture, the pursuit of which took Gordon from San Antonio to Dallas and on to Chicago and New York City as he secured commissions in nine states. Competition was fierce, and Gordon often had to defend his reputation against scandalous charges leveled by jealous architects and unscrupulous politicians. In his interdisciplinary approach, Meister examines political, cultural, and economic forces for their impact on the finished buildings as well as on Gordon’s career and exposes the political and legal wrangling so often attendant to the construction of buildings that serve as the nexus for their communities.
On Becoming an Architect by
A vivid memory and sharp focus on sensory detail--particularly sights, sounds, emotions--enable Frank Welch to narrate the extraordinary story of his life with great richness and insight. From his boyhood in Sherman, Texas, through his education at Texas A&M in the 1950s and his first professional ventures, Welch’s story is a remarkable memoir of how he became one of the Southwest’s most important architects. Mentored by Harry Ransom, Welch and his fellow architecture students, traveling in two-door sedans with "Property of Texas A&M College” stenciled on the door panels, made pilgrimages around the country to tour important architectural sites and meet many of the nation’s most prominent architects. Among them were Frank Lloyd Wright, whom the group met in Arizona at Taleisin West. In Chicago, Welch and his classmates met Mies van der Rohe. And on the Pacific coast, Charles Eames gave the group breakfast at his home on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Welch’s postgraduate years in Europe and his professional career in Texas are beautifully rendered in a volume richly illustrated with sketches, photographs, and floor plans of some of the most intriguing architectural gems in the Southwest.
Texas; a Guide to the Lone Star State by 
Texas furniture : the cabinetmakers and their work, 1840-1880. Volume 1 by
The art of furniture making flourished in Texas during the mid-nineteenth century. To document this rich heritage of locally made furniture, Miss Ima Hogg, the well-known philanthropist and collector of American decorative arts, enlisted Lonn Taylor and David B. Warren to research early Texas Furniture and its makers. They spent more than a decade working with museums and private collectors throughout the state to examine and photograph representative examples. They also combed census records, newspapers, and archives for information about cabinetmakers. These efforts resulted in the 1975 publication of Texas Furniture, which quickly became the authoritative reference on this subject. Now updated with an expanded Index of Texas Cabinetmakers that includes information that has come to light since the original publication and corrects errors, Texas Furniture presents a catalog of more than two hundred pieces of furniture, each superbly photographed and accompanied by detailed descriptions of the piece's maker, date, materials, measurements, history, and owner, as well as an analysis by the authors. The book also includes chapters on the material culture of nineteenth-century Texas and on the tools and techniques of nineteenth-century Texas cabinetmakers, with a special emphasis on the German immigrant cabinetmakers of the Hill Country and Central Texas. The index of Texas cabinetmakers contains biographical information on approximately nine hundred men who made furniture in Texas, and appendices list information on the state's largest cabinet shops taken from the United States census records.
Texas furniture the cabinetmakers and their work, 1840-1880. Volume 2 by A standard keyword search in the Library Catalog brings up theses, professional reports and dissertations, along with all other pertinent items.
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