A project presented to the Architectural Review Committee of the City of Austin’s Historic Landmark Commission earlier this week would modify a 135-year-old downtown Austin building with a significant renovation including an extra floor, according to documents presented at the committee’s August 8 meeting. Overseen by acclaimed local studio Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, the plan would modify the Heierman…
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A Midcentury Modern Church Heads for Historic Status in Downtown Austin
Perhaps Austin’s most striking modernist house of worship in the downtown area, the vaulted roof of St. Martin’s Evangelical Lutheran Church stands as a timeless example of local midcentury architecture at 606 West 15th Street. Completed in 1960, the church fuses old and new by incorporating the ancient historical form of a Gothic cathedral’s vaulted basilica, adapted in…
Downtown Austin’s Future Street Network Could Use Your Help
Transformative infrastructure improvements like the multiple planned transit lines of Project Connect and the controversial expansion of I-35 through downtown don’t get built in a vacuum — they’re potentially highly disruptive during their construction, but the physical placement and accommodation of these projects in the limited space of downtown also implies more permanent changes to some parts of the…
Austin’s Mexican American Cultural Center Closing for Expansion This Year
The Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (ESB-MACC) located at 600 River Street is an often-overlooked masterpiece of Mesoamerican-inspired modernist architecture, standing at the crown of downtown Austin’s ever-changing Rainey Street District and representing the historic working-class Mexican American character of the neighborhood prior to its rapid development starting in the 2000s. Designed by the late Mexican architect Teodoro González de León with Hispanic-owned…
Here’s What 13 Floors of Hotel Looks Like at East Fifth and Trinity
The plan by local hospitality firm White Lodging to develop a 13-story, 260-room hotel under Marriott’s Autograph Collection at the southwest corner of East Fifth and Trinity Streets is a good reminder that many of the setback requirements in Austin’s creaky old code are also metaphorically setting us back — like, as a city — since the ramifications…
Nearly 700 Homes Planned Across Two Towers Near Austin’s Convention Center
Recent permit activity for the Block 32 tower project, planned by an unknown developer for a half-block site at East Third and San Jacinto Streets a stone’s throw from the Austin Convention Center, indicates the development will contain two towers built next door to each other across two phases of construction. It’s not yet clear if these will be…
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