Texas & Louisiana Industry News: February 2024
New visitor center at Houston’s historic Glenwood Cemetery was built using Italian marble, stucco and bronze.
Photo by Luker Photography
Project Brings Modern Design To Historic Houston Cemetery
“The building is carefully integrated into the overall master plan, ensuring a seamless transition from the historical environment to the contemporary structure.”
—Dillon Kyle, Principal & Founder, Dillon Kyle Architects
The modern visitors center at Houston’s Glenwood Cemetery, which was established in 1871, is respectful of its historical surroundings, its designer said. “The building is carefully integrated into the overall master plan, ensuring a seamless transition from the historical environment to the contemporary structure,” said Dillon Kyle, principal and founder of Dillon Kyle Architects, Houston.
Serving as a main gathering space for visitors, the recently completed center also will be used for genealogy research and as an event space for Houston area local groups, with on-premises kitchen facilities that can accommodate about 150 people. Work began on the project in 2016.
Visitors to the 14,400-sq-ft Italian granite, bronze and stucco building have views of the 88-acre cemetery from its main gathering space, where large glass windows and stone and bronze accents create a visual contrast between the old and the new, said Kyle.
The center also includes a bronze donor panel and archives room that, in addition to storing burial records and other information of those interred, holds historical city data and maps of the region. Among former Houston residents buried at Glenwood are industrialist and Hollywood producer Howard Hughes and George R. Brown, co-founder of one-time construction giant Brown & Root.
Kyle said Glenwood is the first cemetery structure he has designed, pointing to its dome construction as a challenge. The center is on a site that was originally a maintenance and repair shop. The cemetery has declined to release the project cost. A 19th-century structure that previously housed administration offices is set to be reused as a chapel or auxiliary meeting place.
Port of Brownsville Wins $11.5M Dock Reconstruction Grant
The Port of Brownsville’s Cargo Dock 3 reconstruction project has received $11.5 million in funding from a Texas Dept. of Transportation maritime infrastructure program.
The funds will boost the dock overhaul, estimated to cost $30 million to $35 million, and improve port capacity, efficiency and safety standards. The dock, which dates to the 1940s, originally was used for agricultural commodities and now handles general bulk cargo. Work phases include dock demolition, placement of steel piles for new dock structural support and project construction, said the port. The dock was one of 31 projects to receive an estimated $240 million in state funding.
