You are here

Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » Gulf Coast » Houston (Harris County) » Downtown Houston » McKee Street Bridge

McKee Street Bridge

-A A +A
1932, James Gordon McKenzie, engineer. McKee St. and Buffalo Bayou
  • (Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )

The McKee Street Bridge is one of several bridges constructed across Buffalo Bayou in the late 1920s and early 1930s to the designs of the city's bridge engineer McKenzie. The sinuous reinforced-concrete girders bracketing the roadway take the form of moment diagrams: the undulating arched profiles of the girders represent the distribution of structural stresses involved in bridging the channel. In 1985 Houston artist Kirk Farris painted the girders in light and dark blue to contrast with the red brick street paving. Under his leadership, the banks of the bayou adjoining McKee Street were transformed into parklike landscapes.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
×

Data

What's Nearby

National Biscuit Company Building
Harris County Civil Courts Building (Harris County Courthouse)
Houston Cotton Exchange and Board of Trade Building
Metrorail Red Line Preston Station
Scanlan Building

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "McKee Street Bridge", [Houston, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-HN26.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 336-336.

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.

,