UT Arlington launches David Dillon Center for Texas Architecture

The University of Texas at Arlington announces the establishment of the new David Dillon Center for Texas Architecture, an initiative of the School of Architecture that will honor the legacy of the longtime architecture critic for The Dallas Morning News.

The center will support the research of faculty and students as they investigate how the region and its architecture have changed across the past several decades. It also will promote public dialogue about architecture and urbanism in North Texas and beyond.

Kate Holliday, an architectural historian and assistant professor of architecture, has been named director of the new center, which will formally debut with “Architecture Criticism Today,” the inaugural David Dillon Symposium scheduled April 26-27 at the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center. The symposium is open to the public, but seating is limited.

Dillon, who died in 2010, kept his meticulous notes, manuscripts and recorded interviews about Texas architecture and architectural journalism itself. He wrote more than 1,000 pieces about architecture for The Dallas Morning News and authored several books, including “Cowboys Stadium: Architecture, Art, Entertainment in the Twenty-First Century,” “Dallas Architecture: 1936-86,” and “The Architecture of O'Neil Ford: Celebrating Place.”

Colleagues credited Dillon with helping shape civic debate on issues across North Texas, from underdevelopment in South Dallas to sprawl in the northern suburbs, famously questioning in a 1980 D Magazine cover story: “Why Is Dallas Architecture So Bad?”. BD+C

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