Modernistic Austin

The Preservator has, dear reader, been on a brief hiatus. It wasn't you, it was we. In part, The Preservator has been on the road. One recent stop was at the National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference in Austin, Texas.

In Austin, The Preservator was lucky enough to take a a walking tour of downtown's Art Deco buildings. Evidently, Art Deco came late and stayed late in Texas, leaving behind a rich mixture of public and private buildings in the Texas Hill Country. In Austin, here's some of what we saw.


At the time these buildings were constructed, they weren't called Art Deco, but simply "Modernistic." The Depression-era building boom that led to the construction of these buildings also helped create a more modern image of Texas and its cities.

Our tour was led by the wonderful historian David Bush from the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance. Along with his colleague Jim Parsons, Bush wrote Hill Country Deco, which was the impetus for the tour.