[From the Overnight section of The Dallas Morning News]
AIA lauds Omniplan work
Design award judges lament lack of spark among subdivisions
By David Dillon
Architecture Critic of The Dallas Morning News
Architecture always tells us where we've been, and occasionally even where
we're going. Judging by the 1993 Dallas American Institute of Architects
design awards, announced Saturday, we're going to get sicker in the coming
years, but also find new uses for the hundreds of abandoned warehouses and
shopping centers around town. Of 49 submissions, eight were hospitals and
clinics, and 16 were interiors projects of one kind or another. Collectively,
they tell us where the money is and isn't these days.
Lionel Morrison of Omniplan received the only Honor Award for the Lebowitz
Townhouses in Dallas, which jurors praised for their clarity and meticulous
detailing.
Mr. Morrison also won a Merit Award for the Fidelity Bank on Preston Road,
which he recycled from a defunct video store. Other Merit Awards went to
Phillips/Ryburn Associates for a "dog trot" country house in East
Texas and Good Fulton and Farrell for converting a gutted warehouse in Carrollton
into the Harris Adacom Technology Center.
Citations went to Cunningham Architects for the Cistercian Abbey Church
in Irving and Phillips/Ryburn Associates for the restoration of the Warner
Clark house in Highland Park, designed in 1930 by David Williams. RTKL Associates
received a citation for The Boulevard, a renovated 1960s shopping mall in
Las Vegas, Nev., as did Dan Shipley for 5501 Columbia, a landmark
Dallas fire station reborn as a gallery and community art center.
While the jurors applauded simplicity, straightforwardness and sensitivity
to materials, they didn't applaud often.
"Overall we found this a disappointing body of projects," said
James Steward Polshek of New York City. "The operative word for most
of them is banal."
The jurors were especially critical of the interiors submissions, which
they dismissed as "dull" and "ordinary."
"Interiors can be a great opportunity for experimenting with materials
and the processes of construction," said Enrique Norten of Mexico City.
He said he was also surprised by the lack of risk-taking in the submissions.
"Everything seems so safe and secure here."
Not if you talk to local architects, it isn't; but judging by their current
work, probably so.