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Donald Barthelme

March 25, 2005, 8:57PM

Houston's mercurial modernist

-----------------------------

Mid-20th-century style, Houstonian Barthelme put in the spotlight Tour, exhibit howcase Modern architecture

By MICHELLE CROWE

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

The names Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright

drop easily from the lips of architecture buffs. A fourth name, Donald Barthelme,

might bring to mind one of the fathers of Postmodern fiction before it does his father, the architect.

The elder Barthelme was an important Modernist in Texas from the late

1930s to the early 1950s. He's listed alongside the giants in John Peter's

widely read 1958 book Masters of Modern Architecture, although much of his

work isn't well-documented.

Barthelme's last "pure" Houston project is a residence featured on next

week's Rice Design Alliance home tour. Some have called it the most

expensive tear-down in town, since the low-slung 1941 Bousquet-Wrightman house is on a River Oaks lot valued at about $1.6 million. When drawings and plans were discovered in the house's attic last year, preservationist Ben Koush spearheaded an effort to compile comprehensive Barthelme archives, also collecting stored documents from the architect's family. (The archives are now held by the University of Houston College of Architecture, and an exhibit on the Bousquet-Wrightman House is on display

in the college's gallery.)

Barthelme (1907-1996) was born in Galveston, attended Rice University

and received a bachelor's degree in architecture at the University of

Pennsylvania. He returned to Houston in the 1930s, working two years

with John Staub, architect of many prominent local homes, before

establishing his own office in 1939.

It was a school, not a home, that catapulted Barthelme to prominence,

says Koush, a co-founder of the group Houston Mod. Barthelme's design for

West Columbia Elementary School in Brazoria County was featured in an

exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art and also appeared in Time magazine in 1953.

Architectural historian Gerald Moorhead says it exemplifies Barthelme's

appreciation for materials and climatic response. "The school was done

with a meager budget, using industrial materials including exposed steel and

metal-framed windows. Natural ventilation was used along with broad

overhangs to protect from the sun." Moorhead categorizes Barthelme's

work as "not so much a style but an attitude." Koush says the school today is in poor condition, with an uncertain future.

Barthelme's Adams Petroleum Center was swallowed up by the Texas

Medical Center and torn down around 1996. His St. Rose of Lima Church Barthelme

wrote himself more permanently into history with his design for the

Hall of State at Dallas' Fair Park. The last names of 59 prominent Texans are

carved into the building's frieze, and . the first eight surnames spell out

Barthelme, minus the final "e": (Edward) Burleson, (Branch T.) Archer,

(Thomas Jefferson) Rusk, (William Barret) Travis, (James Steven) Hogg,

(Richard) Ellis, (Mirabeau B.) Lamar and (Ben) Milam.

The Bousquet-Wrightman House features an open, informal plan designed

more for comfort than formality. Zoned areas of use can be closed off -- an

ingenious solution to the region's heat and humidity before air conditioning. The structure, like most residences of the Modern school, was

meant to be a part of the surroundings, not dominate them.

Another Houston Barthelme home -- the architect's own on Wynden Drive

near Post Oak Lane -- was torn down about four years ago and replaced with

four Mediterranean townhouses. It was quite a curiosity in the 1950s. Sunday

drivers would cruise by to see the structure, which Donald Barthelme Jr.

compared to Mies' Tugendhat House. (Both structures employed concrete

and glass to striking effect.)

Barthelme's Robert K. Hutchings Home in Galveston was on the Galveston

Historical Foundation's home tour last year, but it bears little

resemblance to the Bousquet-Wrightman House. It was built in 1934, when Barthelme worked for French-born architect Paul P. Cret. Its diagonally set door, curved entry and sharply sloped roof show Cret's Beaux Arts stamp. Barthelme's strong personality may be partly to blame for his slim portfolio. Koush says Barthelme was "forced out of the business because he was so difficult that contractors wouldn't work with him." His influence was possibly greater in the classroom: Barthelme also taught at Rice and the University of Houston. UH architecture alum Yolita Schmidt, who wrote a paper on Barthelme in the late 1980s, says he seemed to really like teaching, "and he liked instilling a sense of morals and ethics in the students."

Barthelme -- by turns brilliant and mercurial, according to many --

also "lives" in books by his sons. The family's complicated dynamics figure

into fiction by Donald Jr., the late novelist and co-founder of the

University of Houston Creative Writing Program, as well as in the 1999 memoir Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, in which Frederick and Steven

Barthelme (professors at the University of Southern Mississippi) chronicle the

squandering of their six-figure inheritance.

The Bousquet-Wrightman House is one of eight on the RDA tour, all built

between 1940 and 1970 and chosen to highlight the development of Modern

architecture locally. RDA, with input from Houston Mod, paid attention

to the use of building materials such as concrete and steel and aimed for

a broad representation of sizes and locations. "The houses are small in scale but stripped to the essence of what a house should be," Koush says. "Modern architecture is subtle. There are no fancy columns and moldings, so it takes a little while to appreciate. That's why these homes get demolished."

michelle.crowe@chron.com

What: Donald Barthelme: Bousquet-Wightman House, an exhibit of

drawings,

renderings and photos

When: 8 a.m.-7:45 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 8 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Fridays and

10 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Saturdays; through April 22

Where: University of Houston College of Architecture (entrance 18 off

Elgin), first-floor Archives Gallery

Information: 832-87

Brought to you by the HoustonChronicle.com

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March 25, 2005, 8:57PM

Houston's mercurial modernist

-----------------------------

Mid-20th-century style, Houstonian Barthelme put in the spotlight Tour, exhibit howcase Modern architecture

By MICHELLE CROWE

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

The names Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright

drop easily from the lips of architecture buffs. A fourth name, Donald Barthelme,

might bring to mind one of the fathers of Postmodern fiction before it does his father, the architect.

The elder Barthelme was an important Modernist in Texas from the late

1930s to the early 1950s. He's listed alongside the giants in John Peter's

widely read 1958 book Masters of Modern Architecture, although much of his

work isn't well-documented.

Barthelme's last "pure" Houston project is a residence featured on next

week's Rice Design Alliance home tour. Some have called it the most

expensive tear-down in town, since the low-slung 1941 Bousquet-Wrightman house is on a River Oaks lot valued at about $1.6 million. When drawings and plans were discovered in the house's attic last year, preservationist Ben Koush spearheaded an effort to compileĀ  comprehensive Barthelme archives, also collecting stored documents from theĀ  architect's family. (The archives are now held by the University of Houston College of Architecture, and an exhibit on the Bousquet-Wrightman House is on display

in the college's gallery.)

Barthelme (1907-1996) was born in Galveston, attended Rice University

and received a bachelor's degree in architecture at the University of

Pennsylvania. He returned to Houston in the 1930s, working two years

with John Staub, architect of many prominent local homes, before

establishing his own office in 1939.

It was a school, not a home, that catapulted Barthelme to prominence,

says Koush, a co-founder of the group Houston Mod. Barthelme's design for

West Columbia Elementary School in Brazoria County was featured in an

exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art and also appeared in Time magazine in 1953.

Architectural historian Gerald Moorhead says it exemplifies Barthelme's

appreciation for materials and climatic response. "The school was done

with a meager budget, using industrial materials including exposed steel and

metal-framed windows. Natural ventilation was used along with broad

overhangs to protect from the sun." Moorhead categorizes Barthelme's

work as "not so much a style but an attitude." Koush says the school today is in poor condition, with an uncertain future.

Barthelme's Adams Petroleum Center was swallowed up by the Texas

Medical Center and torn down around 1996. His St. Rose of Lima Church Barthelme

wrote himself more permanently into history with his design for the

Hall of State at Dallas' Fair Park. The last names of 59 prominent Texans are

carved into the building's frieze, and . the first eight surnames spell out

Barthelme, minus the final "e": (Edward) Burleson, (Branch T.) Archer,

(Thomas Jefferson) Rusk, (William Barret) Travis, (James Steven) Hogg,

(Richard) Ellis, (Mirabeau B.) Lamar and (Ben) Milam.

The Bousquet-Wrightman House features an open, informal plan designed

more for comfort than formality. Zoned areas of use can be closed off -- an

ingenious solution to the region's heat and humidity before air conditioning. The structure, like most residences of the Modern school, was

meant to be a part of the surroundings, not dominate them.

Another Houston Barthelme home -- the architect's own on Wynden Drive

near Post Oak Lane -- was torn down about four years ago and replaced with

four Mediterranean townhouses. It was quite a curiosity in the 1950s. Sunday

drivers would cruise by to see the structure, which Donald Barthelme Jr.

compared to Mies' Tugendhat House. (Both structures employed concrete

and glass to striking effect.)

Barthelme's Robert K. Hutchings Home in Galveston was on the Galveston

Historical Foundation's home tour last year, but it bears little

resemblance to the Bousquet-Wrightman House. It was built in 1934, when Barthelme worked for French-born architect Paul P. Cret. Its diagonally set door, curved entry and sharply sloped roof show Cret's Beaux Arts stamp. Barthelme's strong personality may be partly to blame for his slim portfolio. Koush says Barthelme was "forced out of the business because he was so difficult that contractors wouldn't work with him." His influence was possibly greater in the classroom: Barthelme also taught at Rice and the University of Houston. UH architecture alum Yolita Schmidt, who wrote a paper on Barthelme in the late 1980s, says he seemed to really like teaching, "and he liked instilling a sense of morals and ethics in the students."

Barthelme -- by turns brilliant and mercurial, according to many --

also "lives" in books by his sons. The family's complicated dynamics figure

into fiction by Donald Jr., the late novelist and co-founder of the

University of Houston Creative Writing Program, as well as in the 1999 memoir Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, in which Frederick and Steven

Barthelme (professors at the University of Southern Mississippi) chronicle the

squandering of their six-figure inheritance.

The Bousquet-Wrightman House is one of eight on the RDA tour, all built

between 1940 and 1970 and chosen to highlight the development of Modern

architecture locally. RDA, with input from Houston Mod, paid attention

to the use of building materials such as concrete and steel and aimed for

a broad representation of sizes and locations. "The houses are small in scale but stripped to the essence of what a house should be," Koush says. "Modern architecture is subtle. There are no fancy columns and moldings, so it takes a little while to appreciate. That's why these homes get demolished."

michelle.crowe@chron.com

What: Donald Barthelme: Bousquet-Wightman House, an exhibit of

drawings,

renderings and photos

When: 8 a.m.-7:45 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 8 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Fridays and

10 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Saturdays; through April 22

Where: University of Houston College of Architecture (entrance 18 off

Elgin), first-floor Archives Gallery

Information: 832-87

Brought to you by the HoustonChronicle.com

Link

Barthelme's grandson is a Houston-area custom home builder, doing some of the best work in the area -- They do a lot in The Woodlands, Royal Oaks, etc. They also have several townhouse developments either under construction or available in the Museum District area.

See his company here: http://www.rohewright.com/

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  • 3 years later...

As far as Brazos and other bookstores we are all sold out. However, we may have a few copies left at our events. Or, those may be sold out as well (Spaceage will probably know). Only 250 were made and I think it was not until all were sold that it was a breakeven venture (of course we're non-profit).

We have discussed at Board meetings doing a second printing, but nothing is in the works as of yet.

Perhaps we should make a pdf version for research purposes. I'll ask about that.

For browsing, I know it's at Rice and probably UH, maybe at the Downtown library.

Jason

anyone on the mod board know if there are any remaining copies of a modernism suitable for everyday use?

several months of calls to brazos have yielded nothing but continued promises to order a copy.

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The MFA-Houston book store had copies of the catalog Donald Bartheleme: A modernism suitable for everyday use, 1939 - 1945 last week. I think they are $20.00 there. Their bookstore is very well stocked with a wide variety of art and architecture books. It is located in the newer brownish boxy building, not the wonderful Mod building by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The bookstore is just inside the ground floor entrance on Binz/Bissonnet Street.

I found a signed book titled Harvin C. Moore Houston Architect yesterday. It's a 60 page catalog that tells about Moore, lists his work in the archives at HMRC and features illustrations of some of the works. He designed in traditional and moderne styles. He received his BS in architecture from Rice Institute in 1930. Harvin Moore was perhaps the first local architect to become active in historic preservation and co-founded the Harris County Heritage Society. He retired in 1979. His son Barry Moore took over the firm.

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At the Gwen Wright lecture (at the MFA) the MFA Bookstore manager and I were really pushing the "buy one now because when they're gone, they're gone" aspect. I guess they have the few remaining copies.

Houston Mod is keen on a reprinting, possibly with an epilogue or something lamenting the destruction of the main house described in the book so I was possibly out of line suggesting the pdf idea.

Speaking of Barthelme, in the new Cite there's a mention of a story in which Barthelme was hired at UH in 1962 and then Jenkins and the rest of the professors didn't want to work for him. Can anyone tell the whole story of that?

Jason

The MFA-Houston book store had copies of the catalog Donald Bartheleme: A modernism suitable for everyday use, 1939 - 1945 last week. I think they are $20.00 there. Their bookstore is very well stocked with a wide variety of art and architecture books. It is located in the newer brownish boxy building, not the wonderful Mod building by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The bookstore is just inside the ground floor entrance on Binz/Bissonnet Street.
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  • 6 months later...
  • The title was changed to Hiding Man A Biography Of Donald Barthelme
  • The title was changed to Donald Barthelme

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