Texas Asia Society

Last updated
Asia Society Texas Center
Texas Asia Society.JPG
Location
,
Information
Established1979
Website www.asiasociety.org/texas

The Texas Asia Society is one of the twelve centers of Asia Society. This society strengthens relationships between Americans and the peoples, leaders, and institutions of Asia. The Texas Asia Society hosts public programs and exhibitions to increase knowledge of Asia, enhance dialogue, and generate new ideas across the fields of art and culture, business, and education.

Contents

Mission

The Texas Asia Society is the leading educational organization dedicated to promoting Asian culture among the peoples, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. Asia society focuses on art, business, culture, and education.

History

First Lady Barbara Bush and former Ambassador Roy M. Huffington established Texas Asia Society in 1979. They recognized the need to educate Americans about Asia and to make stronger connections between Houston and the peoples and institutions of Asia. In 1995 the Texas Center’s board of directors voted to build a home for its programs and activities. The Board selected Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, best known in this country for his renovation and expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, to design the building, located in Houston’s Museum District. The building was completed in early fall 2011. The building featured a Performing Arts Theater, a Gallery, an Education Center, and more. It was open to the public on April 14, 2012. With the opening of the Center, Asia Society takes its place as a major educational and cultural institution in the region, the driving force in transforming Houston into an Asia-Pacific city.

Architecture

Cherry Wood Walls Cherry Wood.JPG
Cherry Wood Walls
Front Lobby Front Lobby.JPG
Front Lobby
Stairs Side Stairs.JPG
Stairs

Asia Society Texas Center was designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, a Japan-born student from Harvard. The building combines modern design with the serenity associated with Asia. Its 40,000 square feet is spread over two stories and basement, resulting in a profile that fits well into its residential surroundings. Yet the building immediately draws the eye – first by the grace of its lines, then by the materials and workmanship that went into its making.

In 2003 the Texas Center purchased a 2.3-acre building site in the neighborhood that includes the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and other major cultural institutions. The following year the block-size property across the street was purchased for parking. In 2004, with the selection of Taniguchi, the project moved into high gear. Construction on the $48.4 million building began in January 2010 and by fall 2011 was complete.

For his first freestanding building in the United States – previously he was best known in this country for his expansion and renovation of the Museum of Modern Art in New York – Taniguchi combined graceful design with stunningly beautiful stone, wood and glass to give Asia Society Texas Center its distinctive character.

Jura Limestone

Jura Limestone is the main material used for the exterior and interior walls. In order to find 50 blocks of acceptable material, the limestone had to be from the Jurassic geological period, which ended 150 million years ago. Mr. Tanaguchi used this material in many of his projects, but 90 percent of the stone that came in was rejected by him.

American Cherry Wood

American Cherry Wood provides the wall paneling in the Fayez Sarofim Grand Hall and the Brown Foundation Performing Arts Theater. The wood was chosen for its rich color, beauty and warmth. Paneling in the Grand Hall is from a single North American cherry tree over 100 years old. It was selected for its deep color and fine grain.

Basaltina Italian Stone

Basaltina Italian Stone flooring on the ground level was quarried an hour north of Rome. Basaltina is a volcanic stone used for centuries; the ancient Romans used it to build roads and monuments. Basalts have the consistent coloration, markings and subtlety of limestone and the durability of granite. It is aged through a natural process so it can be honed and polished. Admiring its unique gray tone, Taniguchi has used it in many of his buildings.

Education

Student tours

The Texas Asia Society invites students and teachers to their center, providing them with many educational opportunities for students to learn about Asian art, culture, and traditions.

The Education Department staff provide tours of the exhibitions in the Louisa Stude Sarofim Gallery, PowerPoint presentations emphasizing important information about Asian art, culture, geography, and politics, explanation of the Texas Center and its unique architecture, and art-making activities in the Edward Rudge Aleen III Education Center.

Educator workshops

The Asia Society Texas Center Educator Night series combines a two-hour workshop with a performing or visual arts experience. Designed for K–12 and university instructors, these trainings give educators a greater understanding of Asian art, culture, economics, government, music, and theater.

Family programs

Held at Asia Society Texas Center throughout the year, Family Days give audiences of all ages the chance to learn more about Asian culture through demonstrations, exhibits, performances, and storytelling. Families may create crafts together, learn about Asian games and holidays, or have their faces painted with Asian-themed decorations.

Business

Asia Society is a forum for ideas. They host business leaders, diplomats, government officials, and policy experts addressing the whole range of public issues affecting Asia and the rest of the world. They convene and connect, providing Houston business, academic, and civil leaders, as well as the interested general public, with useful, thought-provoking analysis of developments in Asia that impact Texas and the Gulf Coast region.

Houston's ties with Asia are strong. Asia is vital to the energy industry and East Asia trade is the fastest-growing market for the port of Houston. Houston must continue to have links with the Asia Pacific region if it is to thrive. The Texas Center wants to be Houston's gateway to Asia.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Houston Museum District</span> Area centred on museums in Houston, Texas

The Houston Museum District is an association of 19 museums, galleries, cultural centers and community organizations located in Houston, Texas, dedicated to promoting art, science, history and culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southwestern University</span> College in Georgetown, Texas, U.S.

Southwestern University is a private liberal arts college in Georgetown, Texas. Formed in 1873 from a revival of collegiate charters granted in 1840, Southwestern is the oldest college or university in Texas. Southwestern offers 40 bachelor's degrees in the arts, sciences, fine arts, and music as well as interdisciplinary and pre-professional programs. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the National Association of Schools of Music and historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoshio Taniguchi</span> Japanese architect (born 1937)

Yoshio Taniguchi is a Japanese architect best known for his redesign of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which was reopened November 20, 2004. Critics have emphasized Taniguchi's fusion of traditional Japanese and Modernist aesthetics. Martin Filler, writing in The New York Times, praised "the luminous physicality and calm aura of Taniguchi's buildings," noting that the architect "sets his work apart by exploiting the traditional Japanese strategies of clarity, understatement, opposition, asymmetry and proportion." "In an era of glamorously expressionist architecture," wrote Time critic Richard Lacayo, MoMA "has opted for a work of what you might call old-fashioned Modernism, clean-lined and rectilinear, a subtly updated version of the glass-and-steel box that the museum first championed in the 1930s, years before that style was adopted for corporate headquarters everywhere."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tokyo National Museum</span> Art museum in Tokyo, Japan

The Tokyo National Museum or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the four museums operated by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, is considered the oldest national museum in Japan, is the largest art museum in Japan, and is one of the largest art museums in the world. The museum collects, preserves, and displays a comprehensive collection of artwork and cultural objects from Asia, with a focus on ancient and medieval Japanese art and Asian art along the Silk Road. There is also a large collection of Greco-Buddhist art. The museum holds over 110,000 Cultural Properties, including 89 National Treasures of Japan, 319 Horyuji Treasures, and 644 Important Cultural Properties. As of 2022, there were 902 arts and crafts designated national treasures by the Japanese government, meaning the Tokyo National Museum has about 10% of the art and crafts designated national treasures of Japan. In addition, the museum houses over 3000 Cultural Properties deposited by individuals and organizations, including 55 national treasures and 253 important cultural properties. The museum also conducts research and organizes educational events related to its collection.

The Seoul Arts Center, also referred to as SAC, is an arts complex in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, in South Korea. It consists of five main buildings: the Opera House, with three auditoriums; the Music Hall, with two concert halls; the Hangaram Art Museum; the Hangaram Design Museum; and the Seoul Calligraphy Art Museum. The Opera House is built in a shape that resembles the traditional Korean bamboo hat called gat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asia Society</span> Non-profit organization based in New York City

The Asia Society is a 501(c) organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States and around the world. These centers are overseen by the Society's headquarters in New York City, which includes a museum that exhibits the Rockefeller collection of Asian art and rotating exhibits with pieces from many countries in Asia and Oceania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyoto National Museum</span> Art museum in Kyoto, Japan

The Kyoto National Museum is one of the major art museums in Japan. Located in Kyoto's Higashiyama ward, the museum focuses on pre-modern Japanese and Asian art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Houston Theater District</span> Neighborhood of Houston in Harris County, Texas, United States

The Houston Theater District, a 17-block area in the heart of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, is home to Houston's nine professional performing arts organizations, the 130,000-square-foot (12,000 m2) Bayou Place entertainment complex, restaurants, movies, plazas, and parks. More than two million people visit the Houston Theater District annually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Fine Arts, Houston</span> Art Museum, Institute, Library, Sculpture Park in Houston, TX United States

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building in 2020, it is the 12th largest art museum in the world based on square feet of gallery space. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 6,000 years of history with approximately 70,000 works from six continents.

Fayez Sarofim was an Egyptian Coptic-American heir to the Sarofim family fortune, fund manager for a number of Dreyfus family stock funds, largest shareholder of Kinder Morgan and part owner of the NFL team Houston Texans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Houston</span>

The architecture of Houston includes a wide variety of award-winning and historic examples located in various areas of the city of Houston, Texas. From early in its history to current times, the city inspired innovative and challenging building design and construction, as it quickly grew into an internationally recognized commercial and industrial hub of Texas and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Arts and Design</span> Art museum in Manhattan, New York City

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the museum celebrates the creative process through which materials are crafted into works that enhance contemporary life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hobby Center for the Performing Arts</span> Theater in Houston, Texas

The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts is a theater in Houston, Texas, United States. Opened to the public in 2002, the theater is located downtown on the edge of the Houston Theater District. Hobby Center features 60-foot-high (18 m) glass walls with views of Houston's skyscrapers, Tranquility Park and Houston City Hall. The Hobby Center is named for former Texas lieutenant governor and Houston businessman, William P. Hobby, Jr., whose family foundation donated the naming gift for the center. The center replaced the former Houston Music Hall and Sam Houston Coliseum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenn D. Lowry</span> American art historian and museum director

Glenn David Lowry is an American art historian and director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City since 1995. His initiatives there include strengthening MoMA's contemporary art program, significantly developing the collection holdings in all media, and guiding two major campaigns for the renovation, expansion, and endowment of the museum. He has lectured and written extensively in support of contemporary art and artists and the role of museums in society, among other topics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo</span> Art museum in Tokyo, Japan

The Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Japan, is the foremost museum collecting and exhibiting modern Japanese art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of San Antonio</span>

The culture of San Antonio reflects the history and culture of one of the state's oldest and largest cities straddling the regional and cultural divide between South and Central Texas. Historically, San Antonio culture comes from a blend of Central Texas (Southern) and South Texas (Southwestern) culture. Founded as a Spanish outpost and the first civil settlement in Texas, San Antonio is heavily influenced by Mexican American culture due to Texas formerly being part of Mexico and, previously, the Spanish Empire. San Antonio is also influenced by Texas Hill Country culture. The city also has significant German, Anglo, and African American cultural influences. San Antonio offers a host of cultural institutions, events, restaurants and nightlife in South Texas for both residents and visitors alike.

BNIM is an architecture and design firm founded in 1970 in Kansas City, Missouri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qatari art</span>

The modern Qatari art movement emerged in the mid-20th century, as a result of the new-found wealth acquired from oil exports and subsequent modernization of Qatari society. Because of Islam's non-inclusive stance of depictions of sentient beings in visual arts, paintings historically played an insignificant role in the country's culture. Other visual art forms such as calligraphy, architecture and textiles were more highly regarded in the Bedouin tradition.

Yoshirō Taniguchi was a Japanese architect. He was born in the city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. He was a graduate of Tokyo University Department of Architecture and professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology from 1929 - 1965. As an architect, he created over 50 buildings and 10 memorials and participated in many professional activities as a statesman of Japanese modern architecture. “Yoshirō Taniguchi must be regarded as one of the most widely known, and, in the best sense, popular architects in Japan. Taniguchi is also well known for his writings and has made a name for himself as a designer of tombs, monuments and memorials which are all exquisite in themselves and suited to their surroundings.”.

Christopher Binyon Sarofim is an American businessman and fund manager.

References

[1]