Book Talk – “Making Houston Modern: Howard Barnstone’s Life and Architecture”

*This event is occurring as a live webinar. Registrants will be emailed a link to access the program.*

Making Houston Modern: A Conversation with Barrie Scardino Bradley, Stephen Fox, Michelangelo Sabatino, Francois de Menil, and Adam Yarinsky

Making Houston Modern: Howard Barnstone’s Life and Architecture (2020) examines the work of a prolific, complex, and controversial twentieth-century Houston architect. Barnstone’s wit, sensibility, superior intelligence, and lively imagination enabled him to attract clients and produce buildings that engaged in a complex dialectical relationship with raucous Houston. This recently published book reveals the extent to which three architects—Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, and Howard Barnstone—all left an indelible mark on modern architecture in Houston. 

Barrie Scardino Bradley made Barnstone’s acquaintance after she moved to Houston in 1979. Stephen Fox first worked with Barnstone from 1976 to 1979 on the preparation of Barnstone’s book on the architecture of John Staub. Michelangelo Sabatino became aware of Barnstone’s work after he moved to Houston in 2006 to teach at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture before moving to IIT College of Architecture in Chicago. Together, these three historians have come together to co-write and co-edit Making Houston Modern. 

Together with Fox, Scardino Bradley, and Sabatino, Francois de Menil will share some personal memories about Barnstone. Adam Yarinsky of Architecture Research Office, who completed the first phase of the Rothko Chapel campus renovation, will talk about this project. The program will be moderated by Hilary Lewis, Chief Curator and Creative Director at the Glass House. 

Copies of Making Houston Modern: Howard Barnstone’s Life and Architecture are available from the University of Texas Press. 

Speakers:
Hilary Lewis, Chief Curator and Creative Director at the Glass House
Barrie Scardino Bradley, Independent Architectural Writer and Editor
Stephen Fox, Lecturer, Rice School of Architecture and Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture of the University of Houston
Michelangelo Sabatino, Director of the PhD Program in Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology
Francois de Menil, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal, FdM:Arch
Adam Yarinsky, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal, Architecture Research Office