Articles
Architecture, March 1986
“A Diverse Culture, Memorable Places”
Written by Larry Speck
San Antonio, a city created by “act of will.”
Center, No. 2 1986
“Fair Park, Dallas”
Written by Larry Speck
As time approached for Texas to celebrate the centennial of its independence, Dallas proposed to use the expanded site of the 48-year-old Texas State Fair as grounds for the new exposition, but with a completely new set of buildings. Dallasite George Dahl was selected Executive Architect for the ambitious project, with design assistance from the [...]
Center, 1986
“Timeliness and Timelessness”
Written by Larry Speck
I have long been taken by a statement Aldo van Eyck made way back in the late fifties and recorded in Team 10 Primer. He is, a bit before his time, looking back on Modernism and searching for perspective in which to place its innovations, as well as for direction for subsequent developments.
After admiring the [...]
Texas Architect, July/August 1985
“The Inventive ’50s: Ford Had a Better Idea”
Written by Larry Speck
Ideas reach an awkward adolescence, a point at which they are too young to be judged lasting truths but no longer have the freshness of youth. Familiarity breeds contempt, and with the hoopla surrounding any new development in our media age, we seem to get bored with ideas just about the time they are maturing [...]
Texas Architect, July/August 1984
“Home Homage”
Written by Larry Speck
Hats off to anyone who is ambitious enough to attempt a series of exhibitions, a symposium and a publication on the neglected topic of American domestic vernacular architecture. There is, perhaps, no environmental expression so telling of our society, so indicative of our values, our way of life and our aspirations as is the American [...]
Discovery, Summer 1984
“O’Neil Ford”
Written by Larry Speck
Believing architects should be environmental advocates for their culture, Ford set a pattern for Texas architecture.
Texas Architect, November/December 1983
“Impressions”
Written by Larry Speck
Twenty places that have left their mark on the history of Texas architecture.
Architecture, September 1, 1983
“O’Neil Ford’s ‘Caring Campus’”
Written by Larry Speck
His work for Trinity University spanned a quarter century.
Texas Architect, July/August 1983
“Church of Reconciliation”
Written by Larry Speck
The Church of Reconciliation in San Antonio both acknowledges and extends a longstanding tradition of centrally planned churches. From Bramante’s plan for St. Peter’s or Borromini’s Sant’ Ivo to Eero Saarinen’s Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana, or Louis Kahn’s Unitarian Church in Rochester, New York, the centralized plan has been called upon, not only to [...]
Texas Architect, January/February 1983
“TSA Headquarters”
Written by Larry Speck
A Mix of Regional Charm and Corporate Good Taste
Teaching Architecture, Paper presented at Professional Meeting 1982
“A Method for Incorporating Values into Design Instruction”
Written by Larry Speck
During the past four years we have attempted in one section of our advanced architectural design studio to help students explicitly incorporate individual values/philosophies/ principles/prejudices into their own design work. The studio addresses, in a particular way, those subjective, value-laden decisions which are a part of any design process. We accept the notion that design [...]
Texas Architect, September/October 1982
“On Continuity in Architecture”
Written by Larry Speck
‘The Case for Attention to Context in the Design of Cities’
AIA Journal, August 1982
“Evaluation: The Kimbell Museum”
Written by Larry Speck
Its standing, like that of its author, has steadily risen in the course of a decade.
Journal of Architectural Education, Fall 1980
“Mainstream Is Almost All Wrong”
Written by Larry Speck
Nikolaus Pevsner, perhaps inadvertently, showed the vulnerability of mainstream architectural history thinking in his introduction to Eric Mendelsohn: Letters of an Architect, by Oskar Beyer, 1967. He pointed out the “incontrovertible logic” of a totally different history of modern architecture from the one he wrote in 1949. In Pioneers of the Modern Movement Pevsner had [...]
Proceeding of the 68th Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, 1980
“Regional Dialects: A Comparison of the Development of Indigenous Architecture in Texas and Australia”
Written by Larry Speck
The international stereotype of both Texas and Australia conjures images of endless wide-open spaces dotted in one instance with longhorns, jackrabbits, and cowboys and in the other with kangaroos, dingoes and sandgroppers. Both places can easily prove such popular myths in isolated spots, but currently are better epitomized by brash, dynamic cities with sprawling green [...]
Texas Architect, May/June 1979
“Architecture in Australia: A Texas Counterpart”
Written by Larry Speck
When I was a boy in Houston, I was told that a hole dug deep enough straight through the center of the earth from Texas would eventually reach China. It was a lie. The other side of the world is actually Australia-a place which bears some striking and even uncanny environmental similarities to Texas, its [...]
Australia Architecture, May 1979
“History and Design: Where to Next?”
Written by Larry Speck
In the mid-twentieth century there has probably been no more confusing and neglected issue in architectural education than what to do with history. The debate has gone on long enough (and the historians have been adamant enough) that the advisability of some inclusion of historic consciousness in any architect’s thinking seems beyond question. But what [...]
Journal of Architectural Education, November 1975
“Toward an Analysis of Dwelling Claim”
Written by Larry Speck
A group of students and faculty at MIT are currently engaged in research aimed at an improved understanding of the often elusive interaction between characteristics of physical environments and the human activities which they house. Sponsored by the Ernest H Grunsfeld Jr Memorial Fund, the MIT Urban Ecology Program/ Grunsfeld Seminar seeks to identify the [...]