To Mark Lamster, a Pulitzer Prize winning architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News, Dallas is both self-important and insecure. He paints the city as constant contradiction: both rich and poor, beautiful and ugly.
Lamster's book, "Welcome to Paradox City: A Critical History of Dallas as Told Through its Architecture," explores this history through some of the city's most significant buildings. He joined NTX Now hosts Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning to discuss the new book.
These interview highlights have been edited for length and clarity.
Lamster said the I.M. Pei-designed Dallas City Hall is perhaps the most paradoxical building in the city.
"From the outside, it's this monumental, kind of brooding, imposing structure," he said. "But when you go in, it has this incredible light filled atrium that's open and bright and spectacular. So, a sort of yin and yang building, if you will and certainly one that the city should not think about destroying or moving its bureaucracy from."
That's one big problem Lamster sees with Dallas, is the city's relative inability to see the significance in maintaining, restoring and valuing its history.
"Dallas is always looking towards the new, towards what's next," he said. "It's sort of a part of its ambition to be great — but the flip side of that coin is that it doesn't take care of its things, and it is willing to treat its architecture and its built environment as sort of a commodity that can just be demolished or destroyed whenever the new thing comes along, which is a shame."
But there are still buildings in North Texas that reveal parts of our history that some have attempted to erase or whitewash.
Lamster points to the Knights of Pythias Temple in Deep Ellum. Constructed by African-American architect William Sidney Pittman in the early 20th century, it became a city center for the Black community in Dallas.
"It had everything in it," Lamster said. "It had restaurants, lawyers offices, barbershops, doctors, real estate agents, a drug store. It was a town within itself."
As Deep Ellum evolved and somewhat deteriorated over the years, the building was sold off and abandoned before being taken over by an insurance company that Lamster said tried to whitewash its connection to the Black community.
"Literally, the building was whitewashed, covered in white paint," he said. "The city had to step in to protect the building at one point from that desecration, and then about five years ago, it was transformed into a luxury hotel."
"So, it has a new life, but it's a very, very different life than it was when it was constructed," Lamster said.
To hear the full conversation with Mark Lamster, click the 'listen' button above.
Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning are the hosts of KERA's NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Miranda at msuarez@kera.org or Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you.
