R-2011-03 designate Sylvan Beach Pavilion as State Archeological Landmark/no action taken

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2011 -03 -21 16:28 REP. SMITH, WAYNE (512) 463 -1323 >> 281 842 1259 ,P 8/11 • Sylvan Beach Pavilion Description The 1956 Sylvan Beach Pavilion is a two -story, concrete- and - steel - framed: mid- twenti century • modern dance pavilion. It overlooks Galveston Bay and was built in Sylvan Beach Park, a twenty - one -acre public park acquired by Harris County in 1954 in the bayside town of La Porte, Texas. The Sylvan Beach Pavilion consists of an octagonal, glass - walled ballroom pavilion crowned by a circular . concrete roof plate; an attached, rectangular, flat - roofed block containing stairs, a spacious entrance foyer, and a concession bar; and a broad, angled, open air terrace deck. The entire complex is elevated on concrete columns ten feet above grade. The octagonal ballroom pavilion is walled with glass and is transparent. The foyer block is faced with corrugated cement asbestos board interrupted on the front (northwest) and side.(southwest) elevations by projecting bays containing access stairs. The northwest stair bay is faced with turquoise painted stucco; the southwest bay is faced with brick. • The southeast elevation, facing the terrace deck and the bay, is almost all glass and is fitted with a scalloped; cantilevered canopy above the concession bar. The interior of the Sylvan Park Pavilion is broad and open, reflecting its modern design and bayside location. The most significant interior feature is the circular hardwood dance floor surrounded by a seating area designed to accommodate crowds as large as a thousand people. Another significant feature is the ballrooms conical roof plate, which curves upward to a central oculus. The roof plate is a thin shell, steel reinforced concrete dome that is 135 feet in diameter. The shallow dome rises to a ten -foot wide central oculus. Eighty -five feet from its center point, the roof is supported by a tension ring consisting of post tensioned steel cables encased in concrete upstand beams carried on eight, equally spaced concrete columns, eighteen inches in diameter, which frame the octagonal •dance.floor. The outer twenty -foot perimeter of the roof plate is canted upward. This "brim" (as the architects called it) counterbalances the.thrust of the interior portion of the roof plate along the tension ring, holding the roof structure in equilibrium even in winds as high as 120 miles per hour. • Statement of Significance: • • ,,The Sylvan Beach Pavilion, completed in 1956, is named for the public park in which it was built. It is the third pavilion to have been built in this park. It embodies the distinctive characteristics of the Texas darice_hall type employing a method of construction (thin shell concrete vaulting) and the artistic values (modernist Functionalist planning and spatial organization) especially associated with the mid - twentieth- century period in Texan architecture. The pavilion is one of the most outstanding examples of mid - twentieth- century modern architecture built along Galveston Bay. In the area of engineering, the pavilion is an early example of the. application of modemist construction practices to the problem of designing a glass - walled, Tong -span pavilion in a vulnerable location exposed to the storm surges and violent wind gusts of periodic tropical hurricanes. Therefore, the pavilion building possesses unique attributes concerning mid 20 century Texas architectural and engineering history. ��V