Food for the Soul: a Houston Walking Tour

Museum District in Houston

Today was a truly stunning day to be outside in Houston (first sunny AND warm day for the year at its best!) I took the opportunity to spend it while taking a walking tour of one of the oldest parts of Houston - the Museum District. 

This particular 2-hour tour was hosted by the AIA Houston chapter which offered an architectural and historic context to each of the sights we visited (they also offer tours of Downtown, Montrose and the Heights and with the very affordable price tag of $10, these tours are even more worth your while!).

My Highlights

The tour started in the serene Cullen Sculpture Garden which showcases masterworks of 20th- and 21st-century sculpture by artists including Louise Bourgeois, Dan Graham, Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, and David Smith. This garden itself is a masterpiece created by sculptor Isamu Noguchi (the same artist who created the original and now famous paper lantern light fixtures!).

From there, we continued our walk through the Museum of Fine Arts. Its main building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, is a fine example of juxtaposition of  William Ward Watkin's Neoclassical style (from the 1920s) and Mies van der Rohe's International Style (Bauhaus) from the late 1950s. 

Another favorite part of the tour was our stop at the Asia Society Texas Center. Designed by Japan-born, Harvard-educated Yoshio Taniguchi, it combines contemporary international design with an understated elegance and serenity one associates with Asia. It is one of the newest members of the Museum District (it was completed in 2011) and it is a stunning homage to attention to detail and clean design. 

A special thank you to AIA and our tour guide, Jason, for an unforgettable Saturday morning!

Posted on January 11, 2014 and filed under Travel Diaries.