Besides his great work as Director of the Gardens at the Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Garden, Dave Forehand designed and planted the community vegetable garden at the McDermott country house. Residents from Dallas neighborhoods and Highland Park were able to congratulate Dave Forehand on his gardens.

www.ArchitecturallySignificantHomes.com

Jaap van Zweden, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Music Director, came to Dallas and routinely has the audience in McDermott Concert Hall on their feet. Whether the patrons are from Oak Cliff, East Dallas, Highland Park, Greenway Parks, White Rock Lake, Bluffview, Mayflower Estates or Preston Hollow, the enthusiasm for the Dallas Symphony has never been greater.

http://www.PrestonHollowDallasHomes.com/

While there has been much attention given to the Trinity River Corridor and the Calatrava bridges, there is so much more to the developing Trinity Park which is larger geographically than the city of San Francisco. A helicopter ride from the Trinity River Audubon Center took friends and patrons from Oak Cliff, White Rock Lake, Preston Hollow, Bluffview, Highland Park, and other Dallas neighborhoods over the Trinity Horse Park and included views of the future site of the polo grounds, lakes, and other recreational activities.

Dallas has thrived aesthetically, much in part because of the efforts and leadership of Mary Suhm, the Dallas City Manager, and civic leaders like Dr. Gail Thomas, Mary Cook, and Deedie Rose. The renovated Pump House on Turtle Creek in Highland Park is a fitting location for this Dallas event celebrating the Dallas CityDesign Studio.

Salum Restaurant owner and chef Abraham Salum draws intelligent people from downtown Dallas, Turtle Creek, Highland Park, Bluffview, Preston Hollow, and Greenway Parks who love good food in this Turtle Creek neighborhood restaurant.

Friends from across the city, including Highland Park, Bluffview, North Dallas, Preston Hollow, and Oak Cliff, came to celebrate Michelle Shelmire at DISH, an Oak Lawn restaurant and bar.

Minimal, submerged, and subtle, this stark modern home designed by Antoine Predock, FAIA, blends into its Turtle Creek site. Upon exploration of the site landscaped by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, the home grows into an amazing environment of natural landscape, topography, art installations, and dramatic gardens, pathways, bridges, and land itself that becomes art.

Landscape architect Mary Ellen Cowan designed the landscape for the original Highland Park Pump House, renovated with design by architect Gary Cunningham.

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Robert Bellamy, known for his ceramic work and gardens, opened his own personal garden for The Garden Conservancy's garden tour. Here in East Dallas you will see a laboratory of his landscape ideas and themes. The gardens at 4421 Beverly Drive and 4023 Cochran Chapel Road are other examples of his work.

Architect Max Levy renovated and expanded this 1950s Walnut Hill Lane home in Preston Hollow. The landscape by Susi Thompson, which further accentuated the style of this midcentury modern home, was recently featured on a Dallas garden tour. Max Levy, FAIA; Susi Thompson, landscape architect; and the owners, Charles and Jo-Anne Marshall reminisced about the success of the project.

Architect Stephen Chambers has designed many modern homes in Bluffview. At 5453 Surrey Circle he designed this Bluffview modern home with the modern landscape provided by landscape architect Shane Garthoff. The garden was recently featured on the Open Days garden tour.

Tudor cottages east of Lakewood County Club comprise the Hollywood/Santa Monica Conservation District. This beautiful garden, which was recently featured on The Garden Conservancy's Open Days garden tour, reflects the style of the home and the Hollywood Heights neighborhood.

Artist and academic, Thomas Feulmer lectures, gives tours, and organizes seminars at The Rachofsky House designed by Richard Meier. He is smart, talented, and an asset to the house, the collection, and the City of Dallas. Recently he collaborated with Southern Methodist University on a photography class at The Rachofsky House on Preston Road in Preston Hollow.

The late architecture critic David Dillon expressed his pleasant surprise at both the architectural success of the Wyly Theater designed by Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus and the Winspear Opera House designed by Sir Norman Foster, and how enthusiastically the Dallas community was embracing the Arts District.  David Dillon was never one to take credit for any part of the evolving aesthetic success of Dallas, but you could sense the pride he had in this Dallas accomplishment.  Buildings that related to each other and that created a place was a concept he lauded and advocated.  I first spoke with David Dillon in the early 1980s about Munger Place and provided him with prints of the photographs found in the original Munger Brothers book.  Over the years I might get a call from David regarding the annual Restoration House of the Year Award I had organized, a historic neighborhood, a specific architect or a modern home.  He always impressed me with his interest in and insight on quality design regardless of the period or style. 

As did most people, I always enjoyed reading David Dillon reviews and was appreciative of his insightful and sometimes brave commentary.  He subtly shaped the thoughts and aspirations of Dallas citizens who influenced the city.

I have many inscriptions from authors of books, but I have always treasured the one he wrote many years ago on his O'Neil Ford book: "To Doug - Who has understood O'Neil's work from the beginning and is one of the people who help keep his ideals alive." 

Shortly before David's death I wrote an article for the Dallas Architecture Blog where I discussed the Haggerty/Hanley house and the timeless architecture of O'Neil Ford.  This article is now dedicated to David Dillon.  It is apparent from the ongoing architectural success of Dallas that many in Dallas understood the ideals of O'Neil Ford. 

I join so many people in Dallas who miss David Dillon as a critic, an author and a friend.

http://www.dallasarchitectureblog.com/2010/05/what-makes-some-modern-architec...

Last winter, in a small urban garden in Munger Place, just over two miles from the Wyly Theatre and the Winspear Opera House in the Dallas Arts District, a Cooper's Hawk landed in the middle of a small, aged metal birdbath, contemplating his next meal from a prolific variety of songbirds. After successfully snaring a few in flight culminating in a melodious last gasp from the prey, the rest of the diverse flock moved to safer ground. Finally, the songbirds returned as did a Great Egret that landed alongside a small koi pond, hunting its next meal. The koi dived deep causing the egret to take a long legged walk over to an even smaller koi pond to target its prey with its long coiled neck swaying back and forth ready to strike. Unsuccessful, the egret came back for another try the next morning. These urban jungle trained koi were too mean, lean, and streetwise to succumb to this feathered predator and remain safe...for now. The flowers were not so lucky. Were they uprooted by raccoons or opossums? It's just another day in the jungle.

Even with the azaleas in bloom in Highland Park and the tulips in bloom at the Dallas Arboretum, the Nasher Sculpture Center garden is like a magnet to Park Cities and Dallas homeowners, students, and visitors who can see an extraordinary collection of 20^th century art in a protected and beautiful setting in the middle of downtown Dallas.

In addition to the sculptures displayed in the Nasher Sculpture Center gardens featured on a previous post, the inside of the museum also featured an amazing and playful display of artist Jaume Plensa's work. Art patrons and homeowners from Oak Lawn, Swiss Avenue, and Highland Park enjoyed walking through the exhibition's curtain of strung letters traversing the entrance of the museum and viewing the artist's use of letters, light, and human forms to create unique and fascinating sculptures and art. The citizens of Dallas have a long history of great appreciation for modern art and architecture.

The Nasher Sculpture Center for the first time curates an exhibition of a living artist, Jaume Plensa. A spectacular showing was mounted, displaying works from sculptures outside the front of the Renzo Piano designed museum to sculptures on the terraces and throughout the museum gardens. On an earlier post we showed a photograph of Jaume Plensa's work on the Eugene McDermott Terrace at the Meadows Museum at SMU in University Park. Now Dallas and Highland Park homeowners, residents, and visitors can see a full body of work of this extraordinary artist, Jaume Plensa.

Artist Jaume Plensa enjoyed coming by the Nasher Sculpture Center at night and seeing his sculptures on raised platforms lit in changing washes of colored light. These Plensa sculptures were a great announcement for the fantastic exhibition inside the Nasher Sculpture Center where people came from neighborhoods across the city, including Greenway Parks, Kessler Park, Bluffview, and Preston Hollow, to enjoy the exhibit.

Dr. Richard Brettell, formerly the Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, currently Chair of Art and Aesthetics at UTD and a monumental cultural and creative force in Dallas, discusses the current FRAME exhibitions and this home in Preston Hollow designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, who also designed the Dallas Museum of Art. Seated outdoors were prominent residents of Bluffview, Volk Estates, Strait Lane, Preston Hollow, and Highland Park who came for this Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture Institute 100 lecture. Dr. Larry Allums, Executive Director of the Institute, presided at the lecture.

Art philanthropists, patrons, and friends of the Dallas Museum of Art convene every April for the Dallas Art Ball to celebrate the Dallas Museum of Art and to raise funds for the further success of the museum. Civic leaders and patrons in attendance included Highland Park homeowners, the remarkable Margaret McDermott, Nash and Marion Flores, Ford Lacy and Cece Smith, Jeff and Shannon Estes, Grace Cook, and Olivier and Laure Meslay from the auction stage donating their chateaux in Bordeaux for a week.

Stephen Fox wrapped up the day at the Dallas Architecture Forum Texas Regionalism Symposium held at the Nasher Sculpture Center, discussing architect E.G. Hamilton and his design of NorthPark Center, its influence on Texas and Texas' influence on it. E.G. Hamilton also designed important Highland Park residences, including one of Dallas' most significant homes on Crescent. Other speakers included Fort Worth architect Mark Gunderson.

Former Dallas City Councilperson Gary Griffith, who is a Lakewood homeowner and is very supportive of the Dallas Arts District, was in attendance along with other notable homeowners from Turtle Creek neighborhoods, Park Cities, Preston Hollow and Bluffview to see a riveting performance of Death of a Salesman produced by the Dallas Theater Center at the Wyly Theatre in the Dallas Arts District.