An Old Home for New Art in Hyde Park

Here’s a rendering of the renovations that JT ARC Studio has drawn up that show a 1938 house and former Methodist Hospital storage space gussied up into an art gallery. Located just south of W. Gray at 1707 Waugh in Hyde Park, the gallery and event space, to be called 1707 Collective, plans to open this spring. And it appears that work on the 1,674-sq.-ft. multipurpose building, which HCAD records show was finished in 1938 and renovated in 1990, is already underway:

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Gone, these photos show, are the house’s porch and primary entrance.

Images: JT ARC Studio (rendering); Madelyn Fitzpatrick (photos)

17 Comment

  • You might as well rip it down, it will be so altered it will be unrecognizable. The original building is no great beauty, but this alteration is hardly better, if fact it’s actually quite unattractive.

  • I think this is a really creative and engaging example of adaptive reuse. As someone who lived in Hyde Park for many a year, it is WAY better than a full blown tear down and replacement with a faux French three storey McMaison built lot line to lot line…

    IMHO

    But H-town is hard place to get people to accept progressive architectures!

  • I love The Menil and The Asia Society, I appreciate Progressive Architecture, however this is just not the least bit inspired, it looks a lazy design and cheaply clad, I disagree that it’s an improvement over the original building.

  • And I’m sure we will never see you there, CREOLE. :)

    The yellow glass cut-out, no words.
    Amazing job, John!

  • Thank God it is not a condo!!!

  • I think that the exterior of the Hobby is revolting, however that didn’t keep me from getting season tickets to the Broadway Series;)

  • Man, I wish it was a house. I love it and I’d live there.

  • Mixed feelings on this one. Sad to see another American 4-Square pillaged and plundered but at least it’s still there. The design is not to my particular liking. It looks sort of like a suburban box with a few doo-dads added but that means nothing. I do like that Houston is adding another odd and interesting piece to the landscape.

  • It is a lot further along than these photos. I think it looks pretty cool.

  • So that’s what it will become. We thought it was going to be another ofice building. CREOLE: what have you built / remodeled for any Houston neighborhood? Except complain?

  • It’s like saying that Condelezza Rice has no right to be have an opinion on football or be NFL Commissioner because she’s never played football or that you can’t sit on the board of a hospital if you’ve never practiced medicine or you can run a Museum if you’re not an artist. You don’t have to have an Architecture Degree from Cornell and have a Pritzker Prize to have an opinion on architecture.

  • I agree with this project if for no other reason than to show what can be done with existing buildings, and get a discussion going. The next project of this type can build upon lessons learned here. And so on. And judging from the rendering above, I think it can work very nicely, depending upon how the white-washed bricks turn out.

  • I think it looks pretty good so far, and I see it everyday since our bungalow is just down the street.

    FYI, the owner is the same as the owner of the Thairapy salon next door.

    It must have cost a premium to salvage the old brick shell, and it’s so nice to see more proof that there are people in Houston with both good taste and money where their mouth is.

    Patrick

  • He got a cheaper loan for savaging something of the original building. in addition his design all but abliterated the original building. I hardly find it heroic to destroy an old building rendering it unrecognizable then applauded? for saving the original building? Seriously??

  • Does anyone have a strong opinion on painting brick? We have an old complex that’s brick. Normally, if it hasn’t been painted I don’t like to paint it. But this brick is different colors (style of brick I guess) on each of the 3 building and it’s pretty ugly.
    .
    I’ve debated painting it but I’m not sure if I’ll regret it and, as a second concern, I suck at picking colors so I don’t know what I would paint it.
    .
    The buildings are in a highly artistic area… Maybe I can get some of the people around to pick a style.

  • Creole, have you ever been to Berlin? If not, go to Potzdamer Platz and see how the Germans salvaged old 15th century gothic buildings that were bombed out and re-built/adaptive reused with new functions and material esthetics. It can be done!

    Cody, painted brick is always something I am cautious about. As brick is porous it does allow the cavity if the wall to breath and thus prevent rotting of the internal structure. However,if the wall has sufficient weep holes and you use the right specification of paint, it should be a non-issue. Unless of course you don’t like it and have to sandblast it off, cha-ching.$$$