Dallas Architecture Tour

Adolphus Busch's 1912 statement that Dallas deserved a world-class luxury hotel — in Flemish Baroque, because why not.

The tallest building in Dallas — known locally as 'The Jolly Green Giant' for the green argon tube lighting that outlines its crown at night.

The largest LGBTQ+-affirming church in the world — founded in Dallas in 1970, with a Philip Johnson-designed sanctuary that stands as one of the most significant pieces of LGBTQ+ architecture in the United States.

The 1987 SOM tower (Richard Keating) with a six-story hole cut near its crown — Dallas's most recognizable skyscraper profile, now being rebranded the Dallas Arts Tower.

Philip Johnson & John Burgee's last collaboration (1987) — a 60-story postmodern tower crowned with Roman barrel vaults, and a bank-bust cautionary tale.

The Ford plant that became a hat warehouse that became lofts. The munitions factory that became a concert venue. The bank that became a boutique hotel with a cantilevered pool.

I.M. Pei's 1978 civic building leans toward you at 14 degrees — deliberately, structurally, intentionally.

Over a century of collecting, a 1984 Edward Larrabee Barnes building, and free general admission — the civic argument that art belongs to everyone.

I.M. Pei's 1986 crystalline glass tower — one of the most beautiful skyscrapers in America and the least talked about.

Philip Johnson's open cenotaph — a room without a roof, built to honor a man who never came home to this city.

The only freestanding theater Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed and saw built — a 1959 concrete drum on the edge of Turtle Creek, home of the Dallas Theater Center.

Santiago Calatrava's 400-foot arch over the Trinity River — the most expensive single infrastructure project in Dallas history.

The 1943 Art Deco tower that anchored Dallas's financial district — home to the bank that financed much of Texas's oil and cotton empires.

I.M. Pei's 1989 concert hall, considered one of the finest acoustic environments in the world.

Renzo Piano's 2003 sculpture garden and the 42-story mirror next door that's been reflecting concentrated sunlight into it ever since.

The 1892 Dallas County Courthouse in Romanesque Revival red sandstone — the oldest surviving major civic building in Dallas.

Thom Mayne's floating cube with the glass escalator tube and a living roof — one of Texas's most sustainable buildings, privately funded by the Perot family, and still reinventing itself inside.

The geodesic sphere on a 560-foot stem that has defined the Dallas skyline since 1978.

Philip Johnson's 1976 interfaith sanctuary — the same architect as the JFK Memorial, the same instinct toward quiet enclosure in the middle of urban noise.

Built in 1912 by Adolphus Busch of Anheuser-Busch — the most elaborate building in Dallas at the time and the city's first true luxury hotel.

The 1956 Statler Hilton (William Tabler) — hailed as the first modern American hotel; a cantilevered-slab, thin-curtain-wall prototype saved from demolition and reborn in 2017.

The 1916 Beaux-Arts terminal that served as Dallas's front door for most of the 20th century.

Norman Foster's 2009 opera house and Rem Koolhaas's 2009 theater stand side by side — two of the most radical performance buildings in America.