Houston, We have a Problem

I just got back from a nine-day excursion through Spain with a brief visit to Morocco. It was a wonderful trip and I will write in more detail about the cities that we visited in a few days. Aaron and I left Barcelona on a night train to Madrid. We then went to Segovia, Cordoba, Granada, Algeciras, Tarifa, Tangers and Seville. We also stopped in Cadiz to transfer from a bus to a train; by the standard that my friend Richarch Buxbaum and I established last year – stepping off of the station constituting a visit – Cadiz counts and therefore we went to nine cities. We had to go back through Madrid to Barcelona, because there were no tickets left for a direct return from Seville. August means vacation for all Spaniards and every mode of transportation is quite busy.

On the last night train from Madrid to Barcelona, I met some young Englishmen who were traveling through Europe for a month. I mentioned that I was from Houston. The one from Essex (a suburb of London) said, “Oh yah, I’ve read some things about Houston – it’s a fattest city in the world!”

I had to smile and nod in agreement. They did observe, however, that I personally seemed to be doing all I could to pull the weight average toward a more reasonable number – a task for which I expect to be justly compensated by the Houston Chamber of Commerce or the Office of Tourism (if the latter entity actually exists) upon my return.

It’s no wonder that we were not chosen by the US Olympic Committee as a candidate for the 2012 Olympics, even though they admitted that we have the best sports facilities of any of the cities in contention.

It’s made me think about the relationship between architecture, urban planning and public health. Earlier, when I was writing about Barcelona, I commented on the amount of space dedicated for pedestrians in a climate that is not unlike Houston’s.

Having said that, just more sidewalks is not the answer. As my friend Kamran Mouzoon, also an architect, observes, Houston lacks “places”. There are no, or very little, public “places” – places where one can go for free and simply enjoy the space. It’s the existence of those “places” that makes people walk from one to the other. In Rome, one walks from one plaza to the next, from one monument to the next, from one “event” to the next and so on. The same holds for many cities in Europe, including, of course, Barcelona. What Houston does have are some beautiful skyscrapers, which, unfortunately, are not accessible to the public due to security reasons – quite a shame in my view. One Saturday last Spring, we couldn’t get into the lobby of Houston’s Penzoil Place, perhaps Philip Johnson’s greatest Modern masterpiece, even though we were accompanied by Dr. Joe Colaco, the engineer who designed its structure!

Along those walks in Barcelona and elsewhere, there are shops, restaurants, etc. These walks also allow for pleasant exercise – from my, albeit limited, experience traveling in Europe, one hardly sees any morbidly obese people; unfortunately the folks who are overweight are more likely than not American tourists.

So what to do in Houston, which lacks several-hundred-old monuments and ruins? To start, my suggestion is to put more parks in downtown. I am working on an idea that I hope to develop into an article for submission to Cite Magazine (a Houston-based Architecture and Design publication). Basically, I would turn many of the parking lots in downtown into parks – a scheme not unlike Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette in Paris. Here, the “follies” would be the 250 feet by 250 feet city blocks. Once the sites are selected, there would be an international competition where only one lot would be granted to any particular architect. Of course this would mean that the public transportation system would have to be developed to a degree whereby there would be less need for parking in downtown.

Clearly an active downtown needs more than parks. My cousin, Hormoz Bastani, who has been an architect for more than thirty years and lived in Houston for almost the same time, thinks that schools are the key. As long as families don’t live in downtown, he thinks that there will be no “life”. The thesis of one of my classmates at the University of Houston, Aldolfo, was a scheme for a downtown elementary school on a 250 feet by 250 feet block, in accordance with the standards of the Houston Independent School District – proving that it can be done.

More suggestions for Houston: stop tearing down what have become historic buildings, like the old CRS headquarters, even if it means finding another location for the Toyota Center (too late now), and for the love of God, stop building “Renaissance” skyscrapers like the new Civil Court Building. But I digress . . .

A series of interesting parks would make living in, and visiting, downtown – an effort that has started and is being encouraged by the City – healthier and more pleasant. The shops, restaurants, clubs, etc. will naturally follow.