Gray: Design caters to Houston summer
tor — the kind of sartorial touch you might expect of another Bohlin client, Bill Gates.
Huh, you think. That’s Steve Jobs’ architect?
The answer is, emphatically, yes. Bohlin designed the elegant Pixar Studios for Jobs, and the house that Jobs never got around to building. Bohlin’s firm, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, has designed the sleek, much-praised Apple Stores, including the one with the ethereal glass-cube entrance on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue; the one with the glass-cylinder entrance in Shanghai; and the one with the curved glass roof in Houston’s Highland Village. Like the iPhones they sell, the stores are both modern and sensually satisfying. They make you realize how pitifully little thought goes into most retail buildings.
With the Apple Stores’ blazing success, 76-yearold Bohlin, long an architect’s architect, has become an outright star, able to pick and choose projects that interest him. So the Hermann Park Conservancy was thrilled, says executive director Doreen Stoller, that their project caught his eye. The entry pavilion for the park’s upcoming Centennial Gardens (recently named the Cherie Flores Garden Pavilion) won’t be a giant building, and its budget is modest by Apple Store standards.
But it’s a very big deal for Hermann Park and for Houston. Bohlin’s firm is now finishing its design work for the entry pavilion; construction of the 15-acre garden is set to begin in September; and the whole thing is due to open in November 2014, in time to celebrate the park’s 100th anniversary.
I recently talked with Bohlin by phone.
Q: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson is a big firm now. Why did you take this little project?
A: We are delighted by the variety of projects we work with. We’re never daunted by tight budgets. We’ve always done modest buildings — tiny houses, small public structures. We’re not going to give that up. That’s how architects should see the world.
We found the Hermann Park project intriguing. We liked the idea of making a gateway into the new garden. We liked the people we’re working with. We like working in different climates; we’ve worked on Apple Stores all over the world. And I love the natural world.
We thought we could do something extraordinarily moving as well as provide a sensible solution — one that would touch people in an emo-
tional way.
Q: What makes a good gateway?
A: Gateways reveal places. You’re in one place, outside in the parking lot, then you go through the gateway to this lovely green world, the world of water and garden. It’s a powerful transition, going from the parking side to the Su ns
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or you move. They compress you; they open for you. They make you notice how light changes during the day. These are pleasures.
Q: I’m not used to modern architects who talk about “delight” or use words like “pleasures.”
A: (At Bohlin Cywinski Jackson) we believe in a humane, soft modernism, one that does touch the senses and the feelings, one that thinks about how one might touch things, or to see a bit how something is made.
There are an awful lot of lessons in the past. It’s superficial to do architecture that doesn’t touch people. For instance, people experience architecture through all their senses — touching, smelling, walking through. Architecture should involve all one’s senses.
We want to do that with the pavilion. As you approach, you can imagine the garden. You’ll know that you’re going to touch plants and walk from place to place. Some people will want to climb up that cone of water at the end of the garden, at the axis of the entry. I think all the senses, that anticipation, will come into play.
Q: What’s it like to design for Houston?
A: Your sun is not only hard on people, it’s hard on materials. We don’t use a lot of the exposed wood. It would dry out and crack. And because of the sun, the building is glass only on one side. It’s shaded and ventilated, as well as having air conditioning.
Water has a great effect in your climate. In the pavilion, you don’t just see it, but you also smell and hear it. As you move from the heat, from the autos and the parking, into the world of garden, plants and water, you enter a kind of oasis.
You don’t need a lot of water moving to get that effect. At Cranbrook, we had one fountain that was really small. But the sound projected for hundreds of feet. We hope to do more work in Houston. We very much enjoy the people at the park. They’re a great client, a nice group of people. You don’t always find that.
Q: What makes a good client?
A: The best clients have a dream, but they’re not totally controlling. You can find a set of answers with them: my version of their dream. We aim to be supportive but not to do so blindly. With the park, everyone was very eager to find the right thing.
As you get to know people, you realize that no two are alike. You may think they’re similar, but all are different. What a treat. Yesterday, I met with a client I’d worked with before. He’s not an easy person, but his sensibilities are so nicely developed, and he wishes the house to be brilliant. Other clients are quite laid back. We have to work to understand them, to figure out what they want.
I see our lives as architects as being like someone who divines for water. Your antennae are out, waving, getting at people and places. You have to relate to the places, to reveal their special nature. That’s the great pleasure of being an architect — of shaping things that are just right. It makes it possible to put up with the frustrations we all have.
lisa.gray@chron.com