You are here

Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » South Texas » Corpus Christi (Nueces County) » Central Corpus Christi » Klee Square

Klee Square

-A A +A
1952, 1953, Cocke, Bowman and York. 505 S. Water St.
  • (Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )

At the base of the bluff, juxtaposed against the residential and religious buildings above on S. Upper Broadway, Klee Square must have appeared as a modern curiosity in Corpus Christi at its time of construction. Built during York's halcyon days as designer and partner in the Harlingen-based firm of Cocke, Bowman and York, the split-level office/shopping complex is contemporaneous with York's own house in Harlingen ( MR29), also from 1952. Both buildings best exemplify York's modernist precepts, through which he brought a relaxed, informal environment to the workplace.

Constructed in two phases, the one-story U-shaped complex is organized around a long, irregularly shaped courtyard. The central circulation spine leading to the workspaces is a screened concourse intended to serve as display space. Recalling the screened terrace in York's house, both spaces expose the assembly of pipe columns, bar joists, and steel decking, fitting within the designer's written tenet of “expressing structure, simplifying details, [and] omitting unessentials.” In the interior, spaces are sealed from the elements by sheets of glass, or opaque, modular insulating panels attached to the steel frame.

A third, unbuilt phase of Klee Square in the upper segment of the sloping site proposed a four-story apartment wing with folded-plate roofs overlooking the office complex and the bay. When York's Harlingen firm dissolved its partnership in 1954, he established his own branch office in Klee Square.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
×

Data

What's Nearby

South Upper Broadway
Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd
Breakwater and Seawall
First United Methodist Church
Furman Avenue Houses

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Klee Square", [Corpus Christi, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-CC26.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 245-245.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,