They really like us
Jones Hall wins the heart of London's Daily Telegraph
Jones Hall is drawing across-the-pond love.Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau
Steven Hough, reporter at The Daily Telegraph
Photo by Laurie
Downtown's polished stone symphony hall has got London's Daily Telegraph blogger Stephen Hough ready to transfer to the Bayou City, notes the Houston Press.
Not only does Hough praise our symphony, but he considers the "magnificent" Jones Hall for the Performing Arts worthy of a poetic anecdote:
Every time I left the front door of the Lancaster Hotel where I was staying I faced this wonderful building with its twenty-eight frozen pillars boxed in a seductive, meltingly curvaceous inner structure.
Mr. Hough, is that a conductor's wand in your pocket, or are you just excited to see Jones Hall?
The nighttime concert pianist says that Jones Hall, winner of the 1967 American Institute of Architects' Honor Award, represents "the best" of 1960s architecture, yet stands in mint condition and "reflects the sun in a constant dance of shapes as the stone bends around the bend of the city block."
That's a lot of bending.
The writer continues,
But its visual allure has a lot to do with the contrast of rigidity in the pillars with flexibility in the building itself. It has a tunefulness about it — a counterpoint of shape which tickles the eye from every angle."
It's no secret that the Houston Symphony was positioning itself for new digs amid complaints that the barn-like Jones Hall's acoustics are subpar, but the plans were squashed with the onset of the recession. But with the validation of the UK, home of all things classy, perhaps the symphony will be content to just sit pretty.
