Architecture in Austin - Guest Writer Series: Kristina Witt

Foundations

Even after Mirabeau B. Lamar and a site selection commission chose Austin (then a small settlement known as Waterloo) to be the seat of Texas government in 1839, a number of factors delayed Austin’s first booming development cycle: debates over Houston’s candidacy as capital, the threat of American Indian raids and tensions with Mexico (Austin was then a frontier town in the Republic of Texas, after all), economic stagnation, isolation, floods, and the American Civil War (ended 1865). So the permanent structures built in this pre-boom era (i.e., the ones that weren’t tents) were predominantly functional log-cabin-type wood construction, and they were vulnerable to the ravages of fire, flood, and, eventually, re-development.

The oldest known building still standing on its original site is the French Legation, at 8th and San Marcos Streets. Built by a French diplomat as a lavish symbol of European culture in 1840, its materials and scale reflect the constraints on architecture imposed by Austin’s frontier isolation: though extravagant for the time, it too was a wood-construction one-and-a-half-story home.

The First Boom

Everything changed with political stability. The railroad came to town in 1871, bringing trade and mobility. A bridge across the Colorado made South Austin suddenly far more accessible in 1883, and the first dam and power plant on the Colorado River were finished by 1895.

It was in these booming years of the late 1800s that stone and brick buildings started to replace the widespread log construction. For example, Austin’s granite capitol went up in this period, ending a series of ill-fated or temporary predecessors. In spite of these boom times, local availability continued to determine the kind of rock used in stone masonry buildings, and that’s why limestone and pink granite dominate stone architecture from this time.

Architectural styles in the boom followed what was going on in the eastern United States. The national capitol in DC set the model for expressing governmental ideals through Greek forms, and the Texas capitol fully embraced this model when it was finished in 1888. Other large buildings, like the Driskill Hotel (1886), drew their styles from the broader American fascination with Roman forms. Residential architecture in Austin followed the trend toward even more varied historical forms, but especially romantic Victorian styles, as on the Littlefield House (1893) and many other still-standing and demolished structures. This more varied selection from history was popular in the North perhaps as an expression of personal freedom and democracy.

Riding the Boom to New Heights (1900-1915)

Austin got its first skyscrapers at the beginning of the 20th century. The invention of steel cables made elevators possible, and they in turn made a new, more vertical architecture possible. Again using the architectural vocabulary established elsewhere in the United States, the Littlefield Building (1910-15) competed with the neighboring Scarbrough Building (1910) to be the tallest building in town. They both used the style set by the early skyscraper projects in Chicago at the turn of the century: a street-level, human-scale decorative façade; vertical unbroken lines between the windows above the second story that emphasize height; and a decorative cornice to top the buildings off at their towering—okay, 7th and 8th story—upper limits. Interestingly, even in 1910, development downtown came at a price: the now-historic Littlefield Building rose from the leveling of Austin’s earliest stone masonry building.

Bust and Rust, but Also Conservation

Growth across the country stalled when the nation’s resources turned to the war effort, and it was in this bust/rust period that Austin acquired one of its most beloved monuments: Barton Springs. Wait, wasn’t this article about architecture and development? Okay, so it’s not architecture, but let’s call it natural architecture: someone who had all the resources to build notable man-made architecture made the choice to not develop the site and instead donate it to the city as a public asset in 1918. So it has taken all kinds of development decisions to develop Austin’s stock of monuments.

’20s (Not Quite Roaring, not Entirely Boring)

Steady growth following WWI added more historically-referential buildings to Austin’s architecture (particularly Renaissance Revival examples), but it also brought bungalow residences to Hyde Park. These simpler residences (compared to those already there) responded to market exigencies but were also a sign of the changing times. The European Arts and Crafts movement was influencing architects across America, who began to de-emphasize historical decoration in favor of simpler design and a focus on materials, joinery, and non-industrial craftsmanship. Our now abundant stock of long, low Ranch Style homes has origins in this movement.

UT Defies the Recession

The emergence of the Arts and Crafts style was the first sign of modernism in Austin. But Austin was slow to embrace the brave new world devoid of historical reference, and in any case, construction stalled when depression gripped the country in the 1930s. The notable exception to the architectural stagnation was the University of Texas, wealthy from oil lands. A new campus plan unrolled during the 1930s, adding the main tower in a classical style. That’s right: our Texan symbol is full of ancient Greek and Roman historical architectural details. In this period new UT buildings also adopted Spanish details—an expression of Texas’ Spanish heritage but also in keeping with the turn-of-the-century romantic trend of playing with different historical styles.

Specters of Modernism began to show themselves in Austin in the 1930s mainly in a few institutional buildings. In general, Modernism embraced the materials and technology of the modern age and abhorred historical reference—no need to flatter the ancient Greeks by imitating their fluted columns when we’ve found the power and unique new vocabulary to create our own monuments. The movement had different branches, with proponents of the International Style rejecting decoration, supporters of Art Deco favoring eclectic decoration, and Streamline Moderne architects coming to apply sleek sculptural lines over a building’s whole form. In Austin, the Travis County Courthouse (1930-36) shows Modernist strokes in that it includes smooth expanses on its exterior surfaces, and it doesn’t exclusively rely on history for its decorative forms. The Texas Memorial Museum (1938), on the other hand, devotes itself entirely to the unembellished, smooth exterior aesthetic.

WWII and Post-War Affluence

WWII consumed resources but revved up the economy, and its end ushered in a new era of prosperity, with a soaring population and increased collegiate enrollment. Prosperity in Austin, as in many places, meant the ascendance of car culture. IH-35, not without controversy, walled off East Austin from the central business district in the 1950s. As areas outside the city center became accessible, the suburbs grew, replicating established architectural styles, and the center declined.

In this time, Austin continued its architectural trajectory of taking cues from national trends, and it slowly adopted Modernism in a number of institutional buildings and a few individual residences. The Streamline Moderne strain of Modernism is discernable in the former Anson Jones Building of 1943, a Texas State Department of Health building, now Avenue Lofts. The Texas Supreme Court Building (1956) perhaps most dramatically illustrates the shift from historically-based architecture to Modernism. Coming just twenty-one years after the US Supreme Court Building in DC, which resembles a Greek temple, the Texas Supreme Court Building’s smooth flat columns and large windows declare that a lot had changed in how to express democracy and justice through architecture.

Which Brings Us to the Present (Sort of)

To be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, a building must be at least 50 years old, so it makes sense to end this survey of historic architecture at 1959, before speculative predictions of significant architecture can get me into trouble. I may already be in trouble anyway for leaving out the names of so many great benefactors in this sweeping summary of Austin architectural history. But perhaps it’s still worthwhile to look at history in this anonymous way: even though some reckless guest columnist has now come along and snubbed our city’s great shapers, they left their signatures in our landscape. Some made monuments by building them; some made monuments by saving them. What are we going to do in 2010: how are we going to sign our names in the landscape? Let’s learn from the past, let’s appreciate its vestiges, and let’s make some monuments.