Film

  • Lone Star Mod: Midcentury Houston Architecture
    Sam Wainwright Douglas
    Director
  • GRANTEE
    Design Onscreen
    GRANT YEAR
    2011

Interior, Frame/Harper House in Houston, TX designed by Harwood Taylor in 1960.

Alongside New York, Chicago, and the West Coast, Houston, Texas, is a hub for mid-twentieth-century modern architecture. It's all there: stunning homes, sleek office buildings, churches, schools, banks, museums, hotels—the Astrodome Architectural Record has designated many modern Houston homes as record houses, and the AIA has bestowed numerous awards upon local buildings. Houston has hosted many talented architects whose work is critically acclaimed, but not well-known by the general public. Design Onscreen partners with director Sam Wainwright Douglas to produce Lone Star Mod: Midcentury Houston Architecture, a documentary film on modernist architecture in Houston and the effects of the city's controversial lack of zoning on the preservation of mid-century modern landmarks. This project's significance to the field of architecture lies in its exploration of these issues through an entertaining, engaging, and enlightening film that will reach a far broader audience than traditional written scholarship in this area.

Sam Wainwright Douglas is a documentary film director and producer. His most recent film, Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio, was nationally broadcast on PBS and has screened internationally at theaters, museums, universities and film festivals since its premiere in 2010 at the prestigious South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX. Douglas also directed The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose, a chronicle of the infamous bad boys of 1960's folk rock. The film played at theaters and festivals worldwide and was released on DVD in 2007. As a producer and editor, Douglas has worked on projects for HBO, PBS, BBC, A&E, and The Food Network.

Heather Purcell is the executive director of Design Onscreen and will serve as producer for Lone Star Mod: Midcentury Houston Architecture. Purcell has previously produced the documentaries Journeyman Architect: The Life and Work of Donald Wexler; William Krisel, Architect; and Contemporary Days: The Designs of Lucienne and Robin Day. Before joining Design Onscreen in 2008, she spent twelve years as an attorney specializing in media and entertainment law, representing independent producers, as well as print, cable, radio, television, and internet companies. Purcell is a graduate of Stanford University, the University of Texas Law School, and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

Founded in 2007, Design Onscreen is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to producing, promoting and preserving high-quality films on architecture and design.  Design Onscreen distributes its programming widely, via multiple media formats and public screenings, to national and international audiences; promotes a greater general understanding and appreciation of post–World War II design; informs and elevates the ongoing "conversation" among professional   architects and designers; works in a collaborative manner with museums, schools, universities, professional design groups, film societies, and other educational organizations; and supports only the highest-quality programming utilizing the most creative minds in film production.