Please note that advance registration is required for this online program. Scroll down or click here to register.
When it was built near Angleton in the early 1970s, the House of the Century — a weekend getaway for Houston art patron Marilyn Oshman and her family — was a vision of the future. Avant-garde San Francisco collective Ant Farm gave the curvy concrete structure a Plexiglas entrance tunnel, porthole windows, padded walls and transparent plumbing. Though the design was never very practical, Oshman thought of it as a work of art; magazine editors and fashion directors agreed, flocking there for photo shoots, and even Woody Allen considered using the house as a filming location.
House of the Century (1972, Ant Farm)
The nearby Brazos River flooded the property in 1985, ruining the home’s interiors, and today the House of the Century is a vine-covered shell. Its entrance tunnel is gone, most of the windows are boarded up and interior finishes and furniture have been ripped out. But there is still nothing quite like the quirky remnant of ’70s architectural counterculture, which comes with its own set of preservation questions: Should the house be restored or left to rot, moved or replicated?
Join Preservation Houston and author, architecture critic and professor Mark Lamster for an online program at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, September 13, exploring the story of the House of the Century and how this unique building might be saved. This program is presented in partnership with Houston Mod and the Society for Commercial Archaeology.
About the speaker
Mark Lamster is architecture critic of the Dallas Morning News, a professor in the architecture school at the University of Texas at Arlington and a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is the author of several books and a contributor to others; he writes often for Architect, Architectural Record and Metropolis and has been published in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal. His biography of architect Philip Johnson, The Man in the Glass House, was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Lamster holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and Tufts University. A native New Yorker, he lives with his family in Dallas.
Event format
This program will be presented via Zoom. Registrants will receive additional information, including a link to join the program, via e-mail.
Registration and pricing
Access to this program is free for members of Preservation Houston/Pier & Beam, Houston Mod and the Society for Commercial Archaeology; registration is $10 for non-members. Advance registration is required. Sign up by 2 p.m. Tuesday, September 13.
Can’t join us live? No problem
We will make a recording of the full program available to all registrants, so you can watch at a time that’s most convenient for you.
This event is presented as part of the Bart Truxillo Program Series, which honors the memory of pioneer preservationist and Preservation Houston co-founder Bart Truxillo. The Truxillo Program Series is made possible by the generous contributions of Preservation Houston's members and friends. If you would like to support future programming, please consider adding a donation to your registration or becoming a PH member.
This program is made possible with funding from Humanities Texas and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the federal ARP Act.