YOU WON’T HAVE THE MENIL COLLECTION TO KICK AROUND FOR MOST OF NEXT YEAR Are you one of those architecturally sensitive types who has long suspected that the worn, squishy pine floorboards of Renzo Piano’s Menil Collection building were meant to serve as some sort of metaphor for the tenuous and uncertain nature of Houston’s oft-muddy groundplane? (Plus, they’ve got those underfloor AC registers interrupting it every few yards.) Well, good for you! — but tough luck: Beginning late next February, reports Molly Glentzer, the building will close for 8 months so that those well-worn floors can be refinished. Why should the job take so long? “The staff will continue to operate as usual from the upstairs offices, but some gallery walls will have to be dismantled and the collections shifted through the building during the sanding and finishing process.” Come November 2018, will the experience of walking through the museum be just as exquisitely unstable as it is now? Maybe not: “The leveling mechanisms under the wooden air-conditioning grills in the floor are also being upgraded,” Glentzer warns. Hurry and visit now, while it’s all still worn and creaky! [Houston Chronicle] Video of Sosie Merritt stomping on Menil floors, 2009: Brandon & Kristen Merritt [license]
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Tag: Menil
The remaining segments of the Richmont Square apartments are on their way down — a reader sends a few shots this morning capturing the current state of the disunion. The demo permits for the then-remaining 2 thirds of the storied 1960s apartment complex have been trickling in since December, with a few more issued late last week; the associated flattening work on the Menil-owned property started late last year as well. The view from the Richmond Ave. parking lot and former entryway shows the empty space formerly occupied by the complex’s main entrance:
Clearing Rooms on Richmond Ave.
Dillon Kyle Architects’s new dramatically cantilevered headquarters at 1500 West Alabama at the corner with Mulberry St. is now largely enveloped by the leafy wooden screens mentioned in the firm’s announcement of the building early last year. The company moved into the space in December, around the time work crews wrapped up most of the cherry-picker-assisted installation of the paneling (shown below):
Both Made of Trees
ROTHKO CHAPEL LIGHTING COULD GET REDONE WITH FUNDS FROM ONLINE CLOTHING AUCTION 
Reworking the Rothko Chapel’s lighting scheme is high on the wishlist of things to fund with proceeds from an online auction opening this Monday, David Leslie tells Cara Smith of the HBJ. While no specific plans to modify the space are set yet, the chapel’s executive director hopes changes over the next few years will help with “presenting the chapel in a holistic way that’s inviting, regardless of the day, time or lighting” — though Leslie also reflects that “the mystery of the chapel is that it does change with the light throughout the day, and it’s not static.” The auction is the brainchild of international socialite and chapel board member Lynn Wyatt, who will be putting some of her own high-end couture and art prints on the docket, alongside contributions from a few friends (including Wes Anderson, Elton John, and Tilda Swinton). Other items on the 1971 chapel’s maybe-to-do list: visitors services infrastructure for its 90,000-plus annual pilgrims, conference space, and some pool maintenance. [HBJ] Photo of the Rothko Chapel: Brandi Lynn via Swamplot Flickr pool
THE REST OF RICHMONT SQUARE PREPARES TO GET LEVELED 
Residents of the Richmont Square apartments learned today that they have until May 1 to get out of the way of the bulldozers, writes Erin Mulvaney of the Houston Chronicle. The apartments, which are owned by the Menil Foundation, will be brushed away to make room for upcoming phases of the Menil’s unfolding master plan, announced back in 2009. The back third of the 1960s complex facing Richmond Ave was demolished at the start of 2015Â to free up space for an extension of W. Main St.; the Menil’s new Drawing Institute is currently being penciled in to the north of the remaining apartments. Richmont Square’s leasing office began to offer only month-to-month contracts by early January, though a set date for the eventual teardown had not been made public at the time. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: John Ronald via Flickr
