John S. Chase-The Chase Residence

The low-slung brick home that architect John Saunders Chase completed for his own family in 1959 was Houston's first modernist house with a true interior courtyard, a form with which other progressive architects were only starting to experiment. It was equally radical that he built it at all. When Chase graduated from The University of Texas School of Architecture in 1952--the first African American to do so--no Houston architecture firm would hire him. Chase petitioned the state for special permission to take the licensing exam, becoming the first African American registered as an architect in Texas. By 1959, he ran his own thriving firm and had established a position of remarkable influence in Houston's social, political, and economic life. The Chase Residence, in both its original version and after a fundamental alteration undertaken in 1968, is a testament to Chase's accomplishments.

Beautifully illustrated, John S. Chase--The Chase Residence examines how the architecture of this seminal but little-known house frames the life lived within it. It places the house in the larger context of Chase's architectural career and his times. The book is also intended for readers broadly interested in the relationship between American architecture and society.

Author: David Heymann, Stephen Fox
Publisher: UT Austin School of Architecture
Published: 12/01/2020
Pages: 40
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.30h x 12.30w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780934951326

About the Author
David Heymann, FAIA, is the Harwell Hamilton Harris Regents Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. His work examines the complex relationships of constructions and landscapes. Heymann is a contributing writer for Places Journal and author of My Beautiful City Austin. Design honors for his architectural work include selection for Emerging Voices by the Architecture League of New York.Stephen Fox is an architectural historian, lecturer at the Rice University School of Architecture and the University of Houston's Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, and Fellow of the Anchorage Foundation of Texas. His work focuses on architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in Houston and Texas. Fox examines the ways that architecture engages such social constructs as class identity, cultural distinction, and regional differentiation. He is the author of the AIA Houston Architectural Guide and The Country Houses of John F. Staub.