Scholarās Cloister, Menil Drawing Institute. Photo by Richard Barnes.
When Renzo Pianoās Menil Collection building opened in 1987 critics called it ājust perfect.ā Johnston Markleeās Drawing Institute improves on perfection
Is it an insult to say my favorite part of the museum is the trees?
Not in the case of the Menil Collection campus in Houston. The opening of the institutionās latest buildingāthe Menil Drawing Institute, on November 3āwas also the occasion for replacing a diseased tree with a 25-year-old live oak, which arrived wrapped like a sculpture and necessitated closing a street.
This particular tree was on an open lawn opposite the Menil Collection building, the two-story Renzo Piano-designed pavilion that opened in 1987 and launched Pianoās career as architect of silvery rectangles with complicated roofs, as later seen in Basel and Chicago and Dallas and New York and Los Angeles. The first is the bestāand was for many, including me, a revelation of how a museum could be.
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