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Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts

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1966, Caudill Rowlett Scott. 615 Louisiana St.
  • (Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )

Houston Endowment, a philanthropic foundation organized by Jesse H. Jones and his wife in 1937, built Jones Hall as a performing arts center and then presented it to the City of Houston. Jones Hall is representative of the 1960s in its crypto-classical cultural center style and in its conception as a multipurpose hall designed to accommodate symphony, opera, ballet, and theater. Charles E. Lawrence, chief designer for Caudill Rowlett Scott, skillfully compacted the 3,000-seat auditorium and stage onto a 250-foot-square city block by aligning them on the diagonal, so that the stage backs up to the Louisiana-Texas intersection alongside the main entrance at Louisiana Street and Capitol Avenue. With a spatially ingenious stepped-section organization, Lawrence routed audience circulation up and around the sides and rear of the auditorium shell. Since 1987 Jones Hall has been home to the Houston Symphony.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

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Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts", [Houston, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-HN11.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 331-332.

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