moderndallas.ed 54 - february24

The Shape of Life

domiteaux garza architecture creates homes around people and how they live

by J. Claiborne Bowdon

Claiborne Bowdon

“It started when I was very young. I liked drawing pictures of things, and then one Christmas my parents gave me a book called ‘A Testament’…and I opened it up and it was a book about Frank Lloyd Wright, one of his manifestos, and I couldn’t put it down. I think I was about eleven years old at the time. I was fascinated by it.” Mark Domiteaux isn’t entirely sure how or why his parents knew to give

him that gift that Christmas, but years later in his twenties, when he was well into his journey towards becoming an architect, he discovered he had a great great uncle that came over to America from France that was an architect. “It was kind of in the blood.”

He moved to Dallas in 1982 and enjoyed several suc-

J.

// overhill residence

cessful positions and partnerships over the decades. In the early 2000s Ruben Garza, a native of Dallas, would become an intern at his firm. Garza’s draw towards architecture came at just the right moment. “I had no idea of architecture at all until I was in high school. I was finishing up high school and was planning to go to (college) as a mathematics major because I loved mathematics, and art, and someone said you should look at architecture, but I never really took it seriously.” In his senior year he would take two drafting classes to fill space in his schedule, and they so enthralled him that it would lead him to reapply to

college for architecture instead of mathematics. However, two years prior when he was a sophomore he had a girlfriend that lived within walking distance of their school and he would walk her home. It was on this walk that he encountered a building that was an echo of his future.

“I would walk her home and then I would walk past this old Piggly Wiggly or corner store that they had converted into some residences and so it was this really cool one story brick building with tin panels and still had the storefront and everything, and that really caught my attention.

// overhill residence

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I loved the idea that a house could be more than just a typical house that you see. Come to find out fifteen years later working with Mark as an intern that (the building) was one of Mark’s first projects.” The winds that move us through our lives often only reveal their direction much later, and once they do surprise us with their wisdom.

Ruben would go on to work at another architecture firm after his internship, but he and Mark would reconnect

during the pandemic because they had enjoyed working with each other all those years ago, and so Domiteaux Garza Architecture was formed. In just these last few years they have multiple completed homes and other projects in their portfolio. Their success, and the variety found within it, comes from a dedication to discovering what their clients really need and want. Ruben specified “(Projects) should also be client specific. The way the client livesthe process they go through in the morning when they’re

// royal crest

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getting ready, and what their lifestyle is, and when they’re occupying the space, and what spaces they occupy the most, and the proximity-all of these things should be how the design is generated.”

Mark expanded on that saying that “The reality is that almost every room is a kind of event space in which they

act out those daily routines and if you can get to the core of what those routines are for each type of room, whether it’s the bathroom, bedroom, or their study, or kitchen, they have notions about how they’d like to live in these spaces but they’ve been constrained by houses that don’t fully embrace all those ideas. I think we help make these spaces that enhance and support and enrich those experienc-

es, and so (the people that live in them) feel freer to do or operate in those spaces in a way that they had never experienced before.”

Perhaps the best example of their work in service of these principles is Royal Crest. It’s a crisp, low-set, mid-century-inflected home studded with walls of glass welcoming the inside to the outside with an expansive floorplan, but

more than welcoming these elements and emphasizing openness it’s built around its owner’s need to navigate it in a wheelchair. The front door is significantly wider than average. The pool outside the main living area is at the same level as the house with a protective curb along the edge, and has a ramp down to a waist-height level around the pool and then the backyard below. The master bedroom at the back of the house is unique to the rest of the

// royal crest

home in that it has a butterfly roof, and with good reason. Mark noted that “We tried to make these spaces as light and airy and enjoyable as possible.”

The butterfly roof was utilized specifically because it allowed for larger windows to welcome more light into the space and it appears in their Overhill project for the same reason, but here the butterfly roof dominates and crowns

the home with a triumphant sweeping gesture. Despite this, the soaring and smooth white ceilings you see at Royal Crest are instead framed with repeating dark wood beams to help create a more intimate feel. The owners of Overhill have an extensive art collection, but Mark and Ruben wanted the home to feel like a home and not an impersonal gallery. The beams help to communicate the warmth of the couple that live in the home.

// belclaire studio

This same feel is captured in what may be their smallest project, but it still succeeds in having a signature look with no less personality. Mark described the Bellclaire studio as being a bit like a Monopoly house in that its shape is so “archetypical”, and then of course there’s the unexpected color given to it by the pink panels at the front. “It was such a fun expression of what the client was after.” What

the client needed was a workout space that she could use to work out with clients, but would also be something for her, separate from the house. Large or small, Mark and Ruben are able to create a pocket in the world that contains, shelters, and nurtures.

// domiteauxgarza.com

// belclaire studio

by

Johannes Boekhoudt

// 91-201, 1991, acrylic on paper, 40h x 60w in

Johannes Boekhoudt was born in Curacao and grew up in Costa Rica. He began his career as an artist in New York. His work has been shown and celebrated throughout the world. He is no stranger to the world and the people in it, and has described his own work as a tool to inspire, uplift, and empower. All of this comes to bear in his latest show in a much more direct way than it ever has before.

Boekhoudt is a self-described abstract expressionist,

which is what makes this group of work so surprising. The subjects are very clearly figural, and they are typically quite grounded within the space they occupy. They carry a weight in the space because of the weight of the message they are meant to convey. The group of work is called “Faceless.” Painted in 2019 this group is meant to represent the children of the world that have been or are the victims of war – the survivors and especially the lost. The show name “Faceless” describes the metaphor of

the work itself that is meant to symbolize how these children are often no more than a tally, just a number that can hardly encompass the horror of what it represents. To further demonstrate this the children are all faceless not because they have not been given one by the artist, but because they have been blotted out. You can see where their

face would be but the artist has painted a contrast color over it. The deliberate gesture by Boekhoudt is emblematic of the deliberate choice to ignore the children they represent. They are everywhere unseen, unheard, unfelt, and unacknowledged.

Boekhoudt’s signature crosses are very much on display, and they are employed as they often are in his

other work to create a three-dimensional depth through size and pattern, but they serve many other roles here. At times they appear as a wall not to the figures they share the space with but as a more confrontational set of faces themselves demanding your attention be directed to the subject. They also mass together in distinct or blurry accumulations that you could hardly begin to count. In this way they are just as powerful as the figures as they stand in for reminding and overwhelming with the vast number

of lives they can be seen to represent.

Just on a formal level these paintings showcase a remarkable new direction for Boekhoudt. The darkness of some of the canvases and how the tonal crosses disappear into and form it are a quite haunting beyond their dark shade. The variety here can also be taken to symbolize the many lives effected and lost to war. Perhaps as this show is viewed the blank spaces where a face would be might be filled in with the imagination of the viewer with a face they’ve seen on TV or in an article, or perhaps with their own child’s. The show is on view through March.

// jesuitdallasmuseum.org

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the spirit of a SPACE

by kendall morgan

Dallas photographer Charles Davis Smith celebrates the architectural experience.

Many photographers can capture the elegant angles of a Brutalist building, a well-lit interior staged with modern furniture or a historical Victorian structure nestled in a small frontier community.

But very few will approach their art and craft quite like Charles Davis Smith. A member of the Fellowship of the American Institute of Architects, Davis Smith looks at his

subjects through a more academic, considered view and no wonder—his training as an architect allows him to approach his imagery through no less than nine principle tenets of design.

Always found sketching buildings as a child, the Kentucky native comes by his fascination organically, but he didn’t pick up a camera until he was completing his bachelor’s of environmental design at Texas A&M University in College Station.

// avondale residence | morrison dilworth+walls

“I couldn’t afford a camera, so I bought a used camera and lenses. Back in those days pre-Internet, how we learned about what was new was either going to see it or catching it in an architectural magazine. I saw a Richard Meier building in person that I had seen in a magazine, and I was so disappointed because it looked so good in pictures. I realized it was the photographer (who made the difference).”

Because he was a member of the University’s first historic preservation program, Davis Smith was allowed to document historic American buildings as part of his course credit. By the time he had completed his masters in architecture and landed at Frank Welch’s Dallas firm, photography was a steady hobby—and a lucrative one. Architectural colleagues often approached him to document their work, some of which landed in magazines such as Texas Architect.

// rio vista | buchanan architecture

Once Davis Smith left the firm, he quickly realized he lacked the established contacts he needed to build a successful solo company. But he had no lack of photography clients, so by the mid-90s, he was spending far more time behind the shutter than in front of the drafting table.

“This was back in the film days when we used large-format cameras, and there were maybe four people who Dallas who shot all the work—five if you count Fort Worth,” he recalls. “I think it really helped (I was an archi-

tect). One thing we’re taught when you design a building, you should keep in mind what it’s being used for and how light, shade, and shadow plays on different materials to change the mood of a space. I learned to apply as a photographer a lot of the same stuff as I was taught as a designer. We’ve got to show the readers of a magazine that the building has to make sense when they see a photo of it.”

Now published in many national design and trade magazines, including Architect, ArchDaily, Architectural Re-

// autohaus | mfarchitecture

cord, Architectural Digest, and Dwell, Davis Smith has also exhibited nationally at museums such as the Oakland Museum of California. Together, his clients have garnered over 250 awards for the buildings he has photographed, and Davis Smith himself has landed the covers of 28 magazines and contributed to over 20 books. From the Perot Museum to the Philip Johnson house on Strait Lane, no local architectural marvel is uncaptured by his unerring eye.

A particular favorite of Davis Smith is the classical courthouses of Texas. He spends his spare time documenting them courtesy of the Texas Historic Courthouse Preser-

vation Program, which helps raise money to restore these iconic Victorian buildings.

“They’re doing such a great job I’m seeing some life come into these little downtowns with shops and activity on the weekends,” he says. “I love shooting all architecture. I love the modern stuff; it’s just so clean and pure, but I have a great respect for the classic stuff, and that’s why I love the courthouses.”

Although he travels less than he used to, the photographer is willing to load up his truck with his gear and a drone for assignments across the south, stopping

// greenway parks | max levy architect

Engage

Educate Experience

Enjoy

The Dallas Architecture Forum is for everyone who wants to experience inspired design. The Forum presents an award-winning Lecture Series that brings outstanding architects,interior designers, landscape architects and urban planners from around the world, as well as Symposia, Receptions at architecturally significant residences, and Panel Discussions on issues impacting North Texas.

to take pictures along the way. Still shooting for notable Dallas firms (including Frank Welch, Max Levy, Ron Wommack, and Lionel Morrison as well as up-and-comers Thad Reeves of A. Gruppo and Marc McCollom), he has adapted to the ebb and flow of technology. The time he used to spend picking up trash or covering unsightly signage behind the computer is now set aside to work on the computer, “making a photo look pretty.”

Yet it’s his adherence to his “tenets of architectural photography” (in the sidebar) that have elevated him head

and shoulders above the competition and kept him busy for over two decades.

“I try to walk a viewer through a space from start to end. The architect wants really fantastic photos, but that’s not just it. One photo has to lead you into the next, so when you put them all together, it needs to tell a story and tell the full story. Storytelling without words, that’s what photography is.”

// csphoto.net

// greenway parks | max levy architect

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// the kisss lounge chair, a fun-loving connectable upholstered seater that pays homage to salvador dali’s iconic mae west lips sofa available: scottcooner

lexan series invokes the movement and playfulness of the artist’s sculptural work. available: goodcolony

// contemporary blown crystal glass lamp, pebbles by boris klimek for bomma available: smink

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