Name: The Plan 170
Brand: The Plan
Price: 15.00 EUR
Availability: InStock

By Raymund Ryan - 6 May 2026

It is surprisingly grand, this new religious and cultural institution in Houston. It is more extensive than expected, rising from its site as a literal and metaphorical earthwork and creating a dramatic yet delicate silhouette against the big Texan sky. There are affinities with classic temples from various world religions, those sometimes heavy and even secretive sancta sanctorum positioned strategically on platforms or podia. Yet here there is also a lightness, enviably slender proportions, and exterior walls constructed from myriad geometric components that often reveal slight differences one to the next and that collectively combine to suggest a ceremonial cloak by day or enticing chandelier at night.

The Ismaili Center is both a jewel in Houston’s cultural crown and the latest in a series of initiatives from this progressive branch of Shia Islam in Asia, Europe, East Africa, and North America. Thus far the
best-known is the one in Toronto, realized over a decade ago by Charles Correa; it addresses Fumihiko Maki’s Aga Khan Museum across a park by Vladimir Djurovic with rectangular reflecting pools (a recurrent theme of course in Islamic culture) and deciduous trees cognizant of the Canadian climate. In Houston, with its very different weather conditions, the latest Ismaili Center results from another stellar design team including Farshid Moussavi Architecture, executive architect and engineer DLR Group, landscape architects Nelson Byrd Woltz, and structural engineers Adams Kara Taylor (now AKT II).

The site is a generous, elongated tract – more park than simple lot – extending north from West Dallas Street to the serpentine Allen Parkway. Its long western flank is the axial Montrose Boulevard, one of many busy thoroughfares in this automobile dependent metropolis. The site slopes down to the Parkway which follows, in turn, the seemingly natural course of Buffalo Bayou. The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary...