Texas Two Step: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Addition(s) to Houston's Museum of Fine Arts

This study analyzes Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's two additions to Houston's Museum of Fine Art (MFAH), completed in 1958 and 1974. Enigmatic projects within the renowned architect's oeuvre, these designs by Mies are not only unique as additions to an existing building, but the second also involves a partial demolition of his own work. The formal aspects of both additions with curved north façades, uncommon for the architect, have only been sparingly considered in previous writings. Given this two-part project encompasses both the architect's first completed museum and, by some accounts, his final built work, this study aims to position the MFAH additions as potentially the most interesting and complex post-World War II work within Mies's oeuvre. This research is mainly based on site and archival visits as well as mining the vast published literature dedicated to the architect. That the first addition might be understood as a sacrificial armature for the second is an interpretation apparently not previously explored but may be concluded from synthesizing archival evidence.