Douglas Newby Insights - Page 26
Practice Makes Perfect
The building of an indoor practice football field on SMU’s Bishop Boulevard purports to make an SMU football team better. The total disregard for campus aesthetics promises to perfect bad. It will be hard for SMU to find someone with a straight face that this indoor practice football field reaches an acceptable standard of campus planning or architecture. I have always thought a football field helped a university. If the games were on campus—even better. Academics and athletics can easily coexist. What can’t seem to coexist at SMU are aesthetics and athletics. Athletics detracting from academics I have considered a fairly tiresome argument. Aesthetics versus athletics is a fresher and more dynamic concern. The design of college stadiums might draw some comment from architecture critics or university faithful, but I cannot recall anywhere when aesthetics were so pummeled by athletics. This university architectural site plan came on a campus that has long been ranked high in the nation for its beauty, SMU is also a university that hs one of the nation’s best art schools. Now, right across from the plaza of the art school is an indoor practice football field that hugs the curb of Bishop Boulevard. Whether it is SMU’s performing arts, studio arts or art history, the Meadows School of the Arts raises the aesthetic sensibility of every student on campus. The visually and emotionally deadening effect of a monstrous indoor football practice field lowers the aesthetic awareness and expectations of every student. I always knew SMU could survive their athletic death penalty as the sanctions would go away and the teams would rebuild. But how can SMU aesthetics survive this athletic assault? I wish the NCAA could issue aesthetic sanctions on SMU and deny them building permits for the next 30 years. The only hope is, just like the oversized homes from the 1980s and 1990s that are being torn down, this building too will be torn down in the not too distant future. *Practice Makes Perfect #AcademicsVersusAthletics #ArchitecturalTravesty #SMU #BishopBoulevard #SMUArts #SMUArtSchool #Design #Dallas #UniversityPark #AthleticsAssaultsAesthetics #Aesthetics.
Architectural Setback
Maybe the worst university campus architectural site decision in America is the new SMU indoor football practice field that has virtually no setback from the street and violates the 100-year-old setbacks of the neighboring dormitories. The indoor football field building is a setback for the university for another reason, it replaces the outdoor aquatic courtyard with a 50-meter swimming pool and separate diving tower pool. The outdoor pool attracted students, professors, alums, childrens’ camps, and Dallas residents from across the city to feel welcome to visit the heart of the SMU campus. The outdoor pool also provided clear site lines of the surrounding student dorms, the Highland Park Methodist Church, Perkins Chapel, the gold dome of the Cox Business School, and the blue sky. Now, across from the Meadows School of the Arts sited in the middle of Bishop Boulevard is a five-story football field indoor practice building. Violating the existing building setback line further punctuates the overwhelming architectural blemish on what had been one of the country’s most beautiful promenades of college campus Georgian buildings. These stately buildings line the boulevard that included a median and an allée of live oaks that made their way up to Dallas Hall. It is almost as if the university took their architectural cue from small university park lots that had 10,000 square foot pseudo mansions inserted on a street of cottages owned by professors. What was the university thinking? SMU is an institution that is supposed to foster thinking. The Meadows School of the Arts across the boulevard fosters aesthetic awareness. An indoor football field practice building placed on the prime spot of the SMU ceremonial boulevard is an intellectual and aesthetic travesty. *Architectural Setback
#SMU #IndoorFootballField #SMUBoulevard #SMUArchitecture #ArchitecturalSetback #CollegeCampus #UniversityPark #Architecture #Design #Travesty #Aesthetics
Next Generation Old East Dallas
Khao Noodle Shop shows evolution of Old East Dallas neighborhood is not gentrification. Many Vietnamese refugees and southeastern Asians landed in Old East Dallas in the 1970s. Vietnamese and Asian restaurants, grocery stores and gardens sprung up around Bryan and Fitzhugh where many of these Asian immigrants found housing in the surrounding deteriorated neighborhood. Over 40 years the neighborhood has improved. Divided up rent houses have returned to single-family homes, historic districts have been created, apartment complexes have gradually improved. The mainstays of Bryan and Fitzhugh like Jimmy’s Italian Food Store and Mai’s restaurant have remained. Urbano and other longtime restaurants also continue to line the streets. What is particularly heartening is Donny Sirisavath’s opening of Khao Noodle Shop serving Laotian food from his mother’s recipes who came to Dallas in the early 1980s. Rather than Asian restaurants being gentrified, they have been added to and upgraded. At Khao, you will see Laotians, East Dallas residents, and hipsters. The outdoor community tables included wine retailer, restaurant owner, wine distributor eating lunch. Sure, over 45 years a neighborhood evolves, but gentrification is misunderstood. A neighborhood can gently evolve over a half century and still have the character, vibe, and many of the same people, just not as much crime, disease, transience, murders, and prostitution as the neighborhood once had.
#Khao #KhaoNoodleShop @dondarkooo #OldEastDallas #Dallas #gentrification #NeighborhoodEvolution #DowntownNeighborhood #DallasNeighborhood #LaotianFood #LaotianRestaurant #NeighborhoodRestaurant
Larry Boerder Endures
Here is a large Larry Boerder architect-designed house that ten years ago replaced an even larger home built in the 1980s in this Preston Hollow neighborhood. Better placed, more proportional to its large lot, and architecture that has a timeless quality to it, creates a home that looks like it can endure and be enjoyed for more than the 20-year lifespan of its predecessor. We often think of the importance of site and design of modern homes. This architect-designed home shows it can be just as important for a traditional home that draws from historic precedent.
#PrestonHollow #EstateArea #Architecture #ClassicArchitecture #HistoricDesign #DallasNeighborhood #Dallas #EstateHome @larryboerder_architects #architect #dallasarchitecture
Secessionist Backdrop
Some of the Jonas Wood paintings in the current solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art have a Secessionist element to them. The DMA brilliantly used wallpaper in some of the museum gallery spaces that was reminiscent of the Neue Galerie Secessionist exhibition a few years ago. I love the way the botanical paintings were displayed on this background. The Dallas Museum of Art put on a great show and displayed a very fine artist!
#Secessionists @NeueGalerieNY #JonasWood #Artist #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #ArtOpening #MuseumOpening #Fashion #ArtAttire #Dallas #Painting #Art #ArtsDistrict #Museum
First Museum Show
The first major art show for an artist is a big deal. The first major solo museum exhibition for an artist is maybe even a bigger deal. It is also a big deal to the museum to be able to have the first major solo exhibition of an artist. The recent opening featuring Jonas Wood at the Dallas Museum of Art was a triumph for both the artist and the museum. It was also a joy for all of those that attended. Jonas Wood had his first major New York show just ten years ago. Now, just days before his 42nd birthday, the DMA is celebrating his work with this mid-career exhibition. This museum opening was my favorite art opening in a long time. It included the genuine excitement of the artist who was enjoying his first museum show, the pride of his extended family all in attendance, the keen interest of gallery owners from New York, Los Angeles and Dallas who were also attending the opening, and collectors of his work from Dallas and across the country that were in attendance, as were couple number one. Those seeing his work in person for the first time were also thrilled. Enthusiasm for the arts, not pretense, was the mood. Kudos to the DMA Director Agustin Arteaga and Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Anna Katherine Brodbeck, who initiated, curated, and organized this exhibition.
#JonasWood #Artist #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #ArtOpening #MuseumOpening #Fashion #Dallas #Painting #Art #ArtsDistrict #Museum #art
Dress for Painting
There is often much conversation on how one should dress for an art opening or how art patrons were dressed for the event. The specific museum, gallery, or featured artist might often subliminally or consciously guide these sartorial decisions. It is fun to see when someone hits the tone of the evening exactly right with their attire. At this exhibition, Beverly gets my enthusiastic nod for so closely tracking Henri Rousseau’s influence on this painting with her beautiful green mid-length open jacket.
#HenriRousseau #JonasWood #Artist #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #ArtOpening #MuseumOpening #Fashion #ArtAttire #Dallas #Painting #Art #ArtsDistrict #Museum #joyspotting
Mother – Theater Designer
Not everyone grows up with their kitchen woodwork painted purple, but not everyone has a mother like artist Jonas Wood’s mother who was an artist and theater designer. We can see the colorful expression that artist Jonas Wood grew up with from this painting of the family home in Weston, Massachusetts, where he was raised. He was the beneficiary of this colorful exuberance as a child. We are the beneficiaries of his exuberant art now. The joy of Jonas Wood’s work seen at the Dallas Museum of Art solo exhibition spilled over to the people that attended his opening at the DMA. His art is strong, expressive, and brings a smile to the viewer.
#PurpleWoodwork #JonasWood #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #Kitchen #MuseumOpening #Dallas #ArtOpening #Art #Artist #Design #Color #ArtsDistrict #TheaterDesigner #Mother #WestonMA #joyspotting
Scholar Studying Up
Read, look, or listen are three approaches to learning about the Jonas Wood exhibition opening at the DMA. A prominent gallery owner and fellow SMU Town & Gown member chose to read the exhibition catalog before he viewed the paintings. A distinguished museum director got up close to the painting maybe to authenticate it or to study brushstrokes. My choice of an introduction to this painting was to listen. The delightful family of Jonas Wood came to the opening where I met his dad in front of the painting of the bathroom of the home Jonas Wood grew up in. The back story was particularly interesting to me. Jonas’ father is an architect who bought this 1903 home in Weston, MA, in 1975 and owned it until 2016. In 1975 I bought my 1905 house that was also dilapidated; however, his was painted battleship gray and was considered the “horror house” of Weston. The agent thought when seeing the young couple (wife in overalls and husband with long hair and beard) that the house was going to go from bad to worse. Mr. Wood assured the agent his wife was an artist and he was an architect and knew what to do with the home. He showed me many details of the painting, from the American Standard bathtub five inches longer than usual, the replica pedestal sink, and ceramic tile installed in 1935, the last year any work had been done on the house. Mr. Wood discussed many of the travesties of the home that he corrected over the next several decades. He mentioned that Jonas’ mother was able to see her son’s first major New York show in 2009 right before she died. The oral history of the home and family gave depth to the paintings in the exhibition. There is an intimacy and bond with the architecture that comes from living in a 100-year-old home. The extravagant details and patterns of architecture in the paintings of Jonas Wood reflect his having an architect and artist as parents and his entire young life observing the patterns, proportions, materials, and quirks of an old house. Listening adds depth that even the most acute studying and the most intense observation cannot offer.
#JonasWood #Art #Artist #Architect #DallasMuseumOfArt @DallasMuseumArt #Dallas #MuseumOpening
Suburban Brownwood
A view out the front door of this Dick Clark architect-designed modern home presents a much different look than that of a flat Dallas neighborhood suburban development. Even with other homes in the vicinity, there is a sense of endless Texas country and a rugged rather than city environment. Here is a site where the advantage of large modern home windows makes sense. #Brownwood #Architect #Architecture #FrontDoorView #SuburbanDevelopment #Country #Hill Country #TexasHillCountry #NorthHillCountry #Design #Contemporary #Modern #ModernHome