COLUMN: Community connections of Houston museums

Contributed by Shandra Shumate, geography major

Museums can be an integral part of their surrounding community. Focusing on two such museums in Houston; The Menil Collection and Project Row Houses, the community connections are easy to see. These two different museums showcase their community as well as their inside exhibits.

They both tell a tale of community and are thought-provoking. They both attract people looking for answers to questions about the geography of neighborhoods. Both are situated next to a public park and have a religious area, such as a church or chapel, close by.

Each have an area reserved for eating and shopping. Each attract a diverse customer base, young, old and from everywhere in the world. These two different types of museum offer insight into history and culture from a different time era.

They both educate and create strong bonds with their communities. Their mission comes from an artistic, creative base with both wanting art to proliferate through the ages. Supporting educators and programs, giving students opportunities to succeed, these museums prove how important community interaction can be.

Both museums are successful and are striving. That factor says they have listened and adapted to the needs of their communities. Neither one seem eager to grow very large, but instead focus on quality instead of quantity. They attract young ambitions without alienating older ideas.

The Menil Collection tells a story of modernity and minimalism. The simple gray buildings draw only as much attention needed to invoke curiousness. You really do want to see what is in the buildings, especially after the green space and the surrounding neighborhood is so inviting. Free parking attracts far away visitors and sidewalks bring together locals that meander around the landscaped grounds in perchance of an international encounter.

There is Bistro Menil, a moderately priced, very trendy restaurant for lunch enthusiasts. It has outdoor seating as well 
as indoor with a small bar area where you can also sit. The other gray buildings associated with the Collection are a sidewalk away and seem to be attracting a variety of patrons enjoying the morning summer shade casted from the mature oak trees in this established part of Houston.

The main Menil building has maintained a steady artistic presence within this area since 1987. The permanent exhibits rotate thru the art collection of the Menil family. The temporary exhibits host an outstanding array of artistic creations. One feels they have immersed themselves into art culture within seconds of entering the building. It does indeed look bigger on the inside than on the outside which is how the Menil’s wanted.

The natural light keeps the large open spaces illuminated which helps contribute to the continuity of the openness. Your eyes are drawn to see something and your legs lead you as if they have a mind of their own. It is easy to play the part of student here; eager to learn answers to the questions that each piece asks.

You realize that if you don’t slow your pace you will lose out on savoring the complete environment that encapsulates the big picture. Even the layout of the building begs you to slow down and don’t worry about what’s around the next corner, you’ll get there when you get there.

As you walk back out into the unfiltered sunlight, you feel a satisfaction as if you’ve been let in on a secret. This community suddenly feels familiar to you and you want to spend more time rambling around and learning more of the secrets within the other gray buildings.

Project Row Houses is also representative of art conservation and proliferation in Houston, Texas. Established in 1993, this community based artistic endeavor embraces five city blocks and includes 39 structures. The programs they administer stretch even further.

There is a 

young, single mother’s program, a small business support program, and an art exchange student program with other cities around the world. Walking around the sidewalks in front of the row houses, you really get to see their full size and closeness these structures had in proximity with one another.

The communal backyards have a couple of steps off each back-door porch platform and I imagined myself as a child, sitting on those steps, waiting on ice cream and talking to my cousins. The steps lead into the rectangular backyard and added more livable amount of square footage, weather permitting of course.

With a little time wandering around these blocks, you get the feeling of yesteryear nostalgia mixed in with current community conditions. Such as the cooperative grocery store and the bakery a block away, situated in old buildings but living with new ideas to support the community.

Emancipation Park is among the Project Row Houses sprawl. This is the oldest park in Texas, but you would not know it from only looking at it. The historical value of Project Row Houses observed within this community is more than just a snapshot in time, it takes the old structures and gives them new lives to live.

These houses don’t want to just be gazed upon, they want to house, and by rotating artists and young mothers and striving peoples into these spaces, these houses continue to be able to do what they were intended to do.

Both of these community establishments have strong identities that resonate education and respect. They asked what their communities needed and listened to the answers. While the Menil Collection fascinates us with modernity and structured experiences, Project Row Houses fascinates us with historical structures and modern experiences.

Both have embraced and elevated art within their missions and vision. The Project Row Houses tells a story of its community, the Menil tells a story to its community. The houses, of Project Row Houses, by themselves, tell a story, but the Project as a whole, tells a bigger one and after only one visit I know I will be going back to check-in time to time to see how things change or don’t change.

Both the Menil and Project Row Houses are free to visit, they rely on funding from other sources. These two institutions are not only gems in their community but are also gems of the greater city at large.