Newsletter of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University
The Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects honored Preston Bolton, FAIA, an Outstanding Alumnus of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, with a donation to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in Bolton’s honor during a Dec. 17 ceremony at the museum.
The donation, a tea set and three silver pieces designed by the Italian architect Gae Aulenti, is part of a partnership between Houston’s AIA chapter and the museum, which has established an AIA Houston Design Collection featuring more than 25 objects designed by noted architects including Josef Hoffman, Eliel Saarinen, Sir Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Louis Sullivan and William Lecaze.
“This year AIA Houston has chosen to honor Preston M. Bolton, FAIA, for his uncompromising efforts to support and improve the Houston community,” said Brian Malarkey, president of AIA Houston.
Bolton received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Texas A&M in 1941. After serving with a field artillery unit in World War II in Europe and the Middle East, and earning five Bronze Stars, he moved to Houston to begin a landmark career in architecture.
In 1951, Bolton and Howard Barnstone began a 10-year collaboration, producing a series of Modern, rectilinear, flat-roofed houses in the manner of Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe that brought their firm, Bolton and Barnstone, to national attention.
These homes included, among others, the Gordon (1955), Moustier (1955), Farfel (1956), and Owsley (1961) houses in Houston, the Blum House (1954) in Beaumont and the Cook House (1959) in Friendswood.
During this period Bolton and Barnstone won 16 design awards from the Texas Society of Architects, AIA Houston, and Architectural Record magazine. Their work was widely published in other national and local magazines.
Bolton formed his own form, P.M. Bolton, in 1962, and continued to design houses that received local, state and national recognition.
He also has a long record of service to the Houston community, serving as a board member for numerous arts organizations over the years.
He was named an AIA Fellow in 1967 and has served as president of AIA Houston and the Texas Society of Architects.
The silver pieces and tea set donated to the museum were designed by Gae Aulenti, an Italian architect, lighting, interior and industrial designer born in 1927.
Among her high-profile projects were the creation of the Musée National d’ Art Modern at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1982-85), the design of Palazzo Grassi in Venice (1985) and the direction of the refurbishment transformation of the Scuderie Papali in Rome (1999).
- January 22, 2009 -
