A few weeks back, I wrote a couple of blog entries about the new Museum Tower killing the Nasher Sculpture Center.
The news is spreading. Also, as the city prepares to open their much-ballyhooed park that has been built over the Woodall Rogers freeway – it has been “discovered” that the glare from the tower raises the temperature in the park significantly. Now, everyone is getting pissed off – though not as much as me.
There are some updates:
– D Magazine has done an extensive and interesting article about the tower and the politics behind it. Read this… it is fascinating stuff – even if you don’t give a damn about Dallas:
D Magazine – The Towering Inferno
How Museum Tower threatens the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Woodall Rodgers roofdeck park, two of the most prized assets of the city’s vaunted Arts District.
In the newest news, Dallas Lawyer Tom Luce has been appointed to mediate the dispute.
Dallas Lawyer Will Mediate Nasher vrs. Museum Tower Dispute
Finally, the chairman of the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Trustees has a video saying that they have everything under control. He says they have been unfairly blamed for the problem. – He makes a good speech, but the building is still there – cooking everything within reach of its reflected laser beams. He says he’ll fix it – I’ll believe it when I see it.
It bugs me that he talks about all these architects, consultants, and experts they have hired. How about Renzo Piano, the architect of the Nasher. He has made his opinion very clear and he isn’t happy. It sounds to me like the Dallas Police and Fire Pension fund has hired a bunch of hacks and are trying to convince us they know more that the Pritzker Prize winner.
Nowhere in all of this do I hear anything about the fact the tower ruined James Turrell‘s Tending (Blue).
This whole thing makes me so angry… I better stop and move on now.
H.P. Lovecraft Answers Your Relationship Questions
During the week I sometimes see something cool surfing around and make a note to put a link to it up on my friday blog entry. But a day later the thing has gone viral, everybody knows about it, and I have to take it off.
Here’s one of those – you’ve probably seen it, but if you haven’t, you should.
Never Seen Before Photos of New York City
Grand Central Station
You can see the online gallery here: NYC Department of Records
( the link if flooded right now… hope it comes back soon, these photos are stunning).
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Jackie Collins – on my decision to self-publish
Bill Chance 
Well, George seems to have things under control! You could build it in the UK because it wouldn’t be a problem as we don’t get that much sun!
Great read Bill. What money and greed can do to destroy beauty and nature.
Thanks for sharing all that info about Museum Tower. Fountainhead-itis strikes again.
It is a massive failing in the architecture profession, when architects design buildings that are bad neighbors. There is a professionwide heedlessness that grows out of architectural discourse and habits of seeing buildings as works of art. We look at buildings as isolated works of art but really they are so much more. No building is ever built in a vacuum. Architects and developers must pay more attention to the impact their buildings have on the surrounding community. If the glare problem remains unmitigated, it will destroy the park and museums that make the surrounding land valuable. Museum Tower will just be another tower in a wasteland of uninhabitable property. The developers should fix the problem, not only to be good neighbors, but to save the value of their own development.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
What really makes me angry is that I don’t believe that this was a “surprise” – I feel strongly that the developers of the Museum Tower knew exactly what would happen when the building was completed.
The timing is too suspicious. Originally, there was a “covenant” between Raymond Nasher and the city that any development on that site would be limited in height and reflectivity. There was a building designed by an associate of Renzo Piano that met his approval. Nasher would not have built his museum there without this covenant. The tower was never built, however – I suppose the profit margin was not large enough.
Within months of Raymond Nasher’s death the covenant was declared invalid, a California based architect doubled the height of the building and added mirrored glass, and the whole project was sold to the Dallas Police and Fire Pension fund (who knew the city wouldn’t stand in their way). Someone should investigate why the Nasher management did not raise a red flag at this point and stood quietly by until the building was too far along to stop.
None of this could happen while Raymond Nasher was still alive.
That makes things even worse. Interesting point about the Nasher management. It is a sad, sad state of affairs.