NEW WEB SITE FOR LOCAL DECO/ MODERNE ARCHITECTURE

Greater Houston Preservation Alliance has developed a new Web site which features 127 modernistic buildings from around the Houston area. The project grew out of GHPA’s campaign to preserve three of the city’s most significant Art Deco buildings: River Oaks Shopping (1937), River Oaks Theater (1939) and Alabama Theater (1939). The site’s main pages are arranged by decade and feature images of commercial, industrial, institutional, residential and theater buildings in the order of their construction, to show how modernistic design evolved over the years. Clicking on a specific building brings up information about the structure. Clicking on the building’s address calls up a map pinpointing the structure’s location, a feature GHPA hopes will encourage site users to explore the city. GHPA volunteer Jim Parsons and GHPA staffer David Bush spent several months photographing and researching dozens of buildings in Houston and surrounding communiti es. A book based on this work, “Houston Deco”, is scheduled to be published by Bright Sky Press this fall.