The Prudential Building just south of the Texas Medical Center has a date with the wrecking ball.
Located at 1100 Holcombe Blvd., it was built in 1952 and it is still prized as an example of modern architecture. It is considered one of the finest designs ever conceived by Houston architect Kenneth Franzheim.
Art associated with the building has caused concern, if not outright controversy, both at its birth and now again at its impending death.
In front of the Prudential Building was a fountain with a sculpture of a man and woman holding a baby entitled “Wave of Life” by artist Wheeler Williams.
That sculpture scandalized matrons and fascinated little boys all over Houston because they were essentially nude – bare assed Buck nekkid, without a hint of embarrassment or shame! Imagine the arrival in the Houston in 1952 of a 30 foot tall woman flaunting her bare breasts for all to see! Even as a kid I liked the sculpture.
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Center bought the building and surrounding property in 1974 for a reported $18.5 million. The Prudential Building was renamed the “Houston Main Building” by the hospital administrators, but I don’t think anyone outside the Medical Center ever called it that. Sort of like the Transco Tower will always be the Transco Tower to native Houstonians, regardless of how many times the building changes hands – changing the name of an iconic building is almost sacrilegious and we just won’t stand for it.
Preservationists tried for years to save the Prudential Building. But retrofitting the old building is prohibitively expensive and more room is needed so more cancer patients can be treated in efficient new buildings, so it’s time for the Prudential Building to go. The building is being fenced in, dismantled and will vanish forever in 2011.
The big artistic concern associated with the Prudential Building’s demise has been what to do with this:
That’s part of a 16 by 46 foot mural by Southwestern Artist Peter Hurd, which the artist titled “The Future Belongs To Those Who Prepare For It.”
Although the piece is definitely valuable – estimated worth around four million dollars – the current owners haven’t been able to give it away.
As you might imagine, lots of folks would love to have it, but the cost of removing and relocating the huge curved mural is somewhere in the half-million dollar range. For most of a year, there had been no takers, but this past week the Houston Chronicle reported that the painting will be headed to a new home in New Mexico.
An anonymous donor has agreed to pony up the moving costs, and the mural is headed for the new public library in Artesia, New Mexico, a town where the artist once lived and worked.
By the way, in researching this piece I learned that Wheeler Williams, the artist who did that sculpture, was a member of the jury in the Alger Hiss perjury trial - before the statue - and a big supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his search for communists - after. It doesn’t have anything to do with the story; I just thought it was interesting.
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