Bob Lanier Public Works Building is a 410 ft (125 m) tall skyscraper in Houston , Texas . It was completed in 1968 and has 27 floors. It is the 41st tallest building in the city. Eero Saarinen 's CBS Building in New York City inspired the design for this building. It was named after Houston mayor Bob Lanier who served between 1992 and 1998.
23-603: The building is located one block from Houston City Hall and Hermann Square. It is bounded by Louisiana, Rusk, Smith, and Walker Streets. The Rice Hotel Family Laundry formerly stood where the Lanier building is today. This building was previously the Houston Lighting & Power office building. In 1999 the City of Houston, which had acquired the building, renovated it for $ 43 million to house city government offices. It
46-723: A November 1939 article of the Scripps Howard Houston Press and publicized it in 2010. The statue project was dropped by the DRT chapter and the Oran M. Roberts Chapter 440, UDC, stepped in and raised the funds to have the Allen Brothers statues commissioned and cast in bronze. On July 15, 2008, world-renowned surgeon Dr. Michael E. Debakey would lie in state in Houston City Hall after he died
69-645: A bank. By the end of 2012, however, the Ben Milam was taken down. While conservative style marked Finger's luxury hotels, some of his other buildings reflected Art Deco style. In 1925, he designed the Temple Beth Israel , more recently repurposed as a theater building for Houston Community College . His 1929 building, the Houston Turn-Verein Clubhouse, employed some Austrian-inspired "zig-zag" Art Deco elements. Meanwhile he
92-678: A downtown park, Herman Square. However, the Great Depression sidetracked the plans for the new center. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted the Works Progress Administration program, the city applied for a WPA grant to help finance the construction of a new City Hall. The grant was approved, and construction began in March 1938, continuing for 20 months. Joseph Finger had designed
115-438: A number of Houston-area landmarks. The exterior of the building features a sculpture by Herring Coe and Raoul Josset, and regional white, pock-market Texas limestone. The front faces Hermann Square, accessible by a series of paved terraces and stairs. The City hired Hare and Hare of Kansas City to design the rectangular pool and its surrounding landscaping, which includes lawns, rows of shrubs, and live oak trees. The design on
138-547: A series of architecture partnerships, starting with Green & Finger in 1913. At that firm, he designed the DeGeorge Hotel , located at the corner of Preston and Labranch. His second partnership was with Lamar Q. Cato (Finger & Cato). After 1922, he worked independently. By the late 1920s, he established a robust business for hotel design, completing three hotels outside Houston, and the Auditorium Hotel ,
161-475: A specially cast aluminum . The lobby is walled with lightly veined marble . The gateways to the Tax Department are inlaid with bronze , nickel and silver . The elevator lobbies are treated with marble base, walls and wainscoting . Above the lobby entrance is a stone sculpture depicting two men taming a wild horse, which is meant to symbolize a community coming together to form a government to tame
184-551: A store front for Levy Brothers' Dry Goods, a collaboration with Alfred C. Finn . This design team later produced Jefferson Davis Hospital, which occupied a site more recently occupied by the Federal Reserve Building. From 1944 until his death in 1953, Finger worked in a partnership with George W. Rustay. Finger designed the 1939 Houston City Hall , designed in a stripped classical style. In response to criticism from Houston mayor R. H. Fonville , who wanted
207-537: A style with more classical reference, Finger said, "Here in America we are rapidly developing our own type of architecture which is far above that of foreign countries. We are building for the masses, not the classes." Above the lobby entrance of the City Hall is a stone relief of two men taming a wild horse, symbolizing a community coming together to form a government to tame the world around them. This sculpture, and
230-590: The Museum District is named. Hermann Square contains a simple, but regal elegance and is regularly used for festivals , protests and concerts . To accommodate larger events, the reflecting pool is planked over and tents and kiosks are often erected. Although there is some speculation about whether or not people are allowed to stay in the park overnight, the Parks Department officially says that people are not permitted to sleep there. In 1987,
253-411: The lobby floor depicts the protective role of government. In the grillwork above the main entrances are medallions of "great lawgivers" from ancient times to the founding of America, including Thomas Jefferson , Charlemagne , Julius Caesar and Moses , and an outdated city seal adorns the interior doorknobs. The building is faced with Texas Cordova limestone , and the doors to the building are of
SECTION 10
#1732772601700276-822: The Ben Milam Hotel, the Plaza Hotel, and the Texas State Hotel , all in Houston. Many of these hotels catered to wealthy residents with modern amenities such as air conditioning and running ide-water. All of these Houston hotels were still standing through the first part of 2012, when the Auditorium and Texas State still operated as hotels, the DeGeorge was used as a hotel for veterans, and the Plaza as
299-675: The City Hall complex is located on Bagby Street on the western side of Downtown Houston . It is surrounded by the Houston Skyline District and is similar in design to dozens of other city halls built in the southwest United States during the same time period. City Hall is flanked by Tranquility Park and the Houston Public Library . The simply designed structure featured many construction details that have helped to make this building an architectural classic. From 1841 to 1939, Houston's municipal government
322-520: The chamber. All meetings are open to the public. Beginning in October 2013, 12,000 Square feet of space on the West side of the first floor was renovated for use by HTV Houston Television ( HTV studios ). The renovations were overseen by Balfour Beatty Construction and were completed on March 14, 2014. The architect of the City Hall was Joseph Finger , an Austrian-born Texan architect responsible for
345-621: The city attorney's office stated in the Houston Chronicle that the police are not to arrest anyone sleeping in the park. [REDACTED] Media related to Houston City Hall at Wikimedia Commons Joseph Finger Joseph Finger (7 March 1887 – 6 February 1953) was an Austrian American architect. After immigrating to the United States in 1905, Finger settled in Houston, Texas in 1908, where he would remain for
368-539: The city hall building in a stripped classical style. He wanted to place on the front terrace statues of John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen , but the City of Houston lacked the funds needed to add the statues. The statues would have cost $ 8,000 and the city was still suffering from the Great Depression . The Texas Star Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (DRT) discovered this fact from reading
391-744: The duration of his life. Finger is best remembered for his role in bringing modern architecture to Texas . Joseph Finger was born 7 March 1887 in Bielitz , Austria-Hungary to Henri Finger (1862-1941) and Hani Seifter (1870-1947). After finishing high school and technical training, he moved to the United States in 1905. Finger settled first in New Orleans in 1905, then moved to Houston, Texas in three years later. He found employment with C. D. Hill & Company , an architecture firm based in Dallas , where he worked for about five years. Finger joined
414-571: The previous Friday due to natural causes, the first such honor for any deceased resident of the city. On July 29, 2024, Houston-based U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee would become the second person to lie in state in Houston City Hall. The Mayor of Houston and City Controller have their offices in this building. Council Members have their offices immediately across the street at the City Hall Annex building. Tuesdays at 1:30pm, and Wednesdays at 9:00am, Houston City Council meets in
437-583: The twenty-seven other friezes around the building, were carved by Beaumont artist Herring Coe and co-designer Raoul Josset . On June 18, 1913, Finger married Gertrude Levy (1891-1985), a Houston native. The couple had one son, Joseph Seifter Finger (1918-2003), who also practiced architecture. In Houston, Finger was a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks , the Houston Chamber of Commerce, Houston Turn-Verein, B'nai B'rith , and
460-414: The world around them. The plaster cast for this sculpture, and twenty-seven casts for friezes around the building, were done by Beaumont artist Herring Coe and co-designer Raoul Josset . The front of the city hall building steps down to a small park, George and Martha Hermann Square, which is dominated by a reflecting pool . That was once the homestead of George H. Hermann for whom Hermann Park in
483-453: Was headquartered at Old Market Square . It was destroyed by fire in the 1870s, and also in 1901, and rebuilt each time. In those days, City Hall was part of the lively commercial atmosphere of the Square. However, by the 1920s, the city leaders decided the site was no longer appropriate for their needs. In 1929, the city's planning commission urged the establishment of a civic center around
SECTION 20
#1732772601700506-714: Was previously known as the Electric Building . The renovation occurred under the direction of Mayor Lanier. The main office of Houston Public Works is in the Lanier Building. Divisions of the Mayor's Office at the Lanier Building include 3-1-1 (5th Floor) and Office of Business Opportunity (7th Floor). Houston City Hall The Houston City Hall building is the headquarters of the City of Houston 's municipal government . Constructed during 1938 and 1939,
529-611: Was the artitect of over two dozen Art Deco grocery stores for the Weingarten chain. Though Finger established a practice of commercial architecture, he also designed many single-family residences, especially in the Riverside Terrace neighborhood in Houston. One of these was for Abe Weingarten . Jesse H. Jones contracted for his services for a mixed-use building to house the Houston Chamber of Commerce with
#699300