BEST IN SHOW
Dallas Decorative Center welcomes the design trade and those seeking the finer things. BY PEGGY LEVINSON
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rammell Crow visited the new Chicago Merchandise Mart in the early 1950s and decided Dallas needed one. But he wanted to one-up Chicago’s fortress-like building and instead design an open-air shopping center concept to take advantage of the mostly temperate weather in our fair city. Along with Crow, architect Jacob Anderson and landscape architects Arthur and Marie Berger developed the concept for Dallas’ revolutionary Decorative Center in 1953. Instead of an enclosed structure, they unveiled a Modernist arcade for showroom spaces surrounded by nonlinear parking in a park-like setting. Fast-forward to today, the structure of the center remains lovingly the same under the helm of Bill Hutchinson, president
of Dunhill Partners. Impressive outdoor sculpture sets the tone, like Anna Debska’s bronze Fighting Stallions at the entrance and François Stahly’s marble obelisk Mainandros in the center of the cruciform parking lot. While most decorative centers in the country are drab, closed-off buildings, the Dallas Decorative Center proclaims itself a chic, welcoming hub of art and design. Entering the narrative in 2014, Hutchinson envisioned a Design District energized as a social, live-work neighborhood, and set about diversifying the Decorative Center tenants to include full-service restaurants such as Headington Companies’ Sassetta and Wheelhouse, connected by a patio and artist Daniel Arsham’s Moving Figure. The showrooms remain the mainstay,
Eggersmann’s Unique Collection is available in over 20 raw materials through the Eggersmann showroom on Hi Line.
Artistic Tile’s Sail Fete gets its inspiration from Italian Cosmati Floors. Available at Artistic Tile in the Dallas Decorative Center.
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