Slideshow: GHPA Downtown’s Evolving Skyline
GHPA kicked off a new walking tour on March 14th. Downtown’s Evolving Skyline explores the changes in Houston’s downtown skyline over the past century. Since, this was their first offering of the tour, length of time and locations were still being fine tuned (see CenterPoint Energy Plaza below). For someone who grew up in Houston and watched most of the newer additions crowd out the old, it was fun to hear about the politics and economics required to plan, build and maintain these structures.
One of the first stops was the red brick Kiam Building built in 1893. It was designed by architect H.C. Holland as the home for Edward Kiam’s clothing store. Among its interesting features are an ornate crown and deeply recessed bay with plate-glass display windows.
The Post Dispatch Building/Magnolia Hotel, the “Old Gulf”/JP Morgan Chase building, and Pennzoil Place were stops on the tour as was the Tenneco/El Paso Energy building which was also a favorite as a kid.
The one building I don’t recall being talked about and surely has seen the most transformation in recent times is what is now known as the CenterPoint Energy Plaza aka “The Tower of Power”. It went from being just a plain old glass box to a defining architectural landmark in the late 90’s with the additional floors and a six story cap with a circular opening that catches the eye both by day and at night when it’s lit up like a beacon. (The image below is from a previous outing downtown)
Once again the tour was informative and well done. The docent for my group was knowledgeable and engaging, Thanks for doing such a great job.
What I learned. As much as I’ve complained about converging lines when using the wide angle lens, there really isn’t any substitute for it when trying to get images of buildings in frame. I said in my last architecture related post that I was going to try out the 24-70mm lens and I did. It just couldn’t get most of the buildings in frame and I didn’t notice an appreciable reduction in the convergence issues. In all, and it shows in the set, I took far fewer images out of frustration. I need to learn how to deal with converging parallel lines in Photoshop and stop complaining