HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – The Museo Medical Office Building, rising just north of the Museum of Fine Arts, has reached its topping out as the 10-story tower takes shape with a design inspired by Picasso and the Cubist movement.
Developed by a group led by Dr. Mike Mann of the Mann Eye Institute with Testa Rossa Properties, the project aims to translate the principles of Cubism into architecture—using fragmented planes and geometric forms to create a sculptural, perception-driven building that departs from conventional medical office design.
“The tower takes its cues from early 20th-century analytical Cubism and will be defined by the art movement made famous by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, which used fragmentation to break up forms and reconstruct them in an abstract fashion to create an illusion of depth and perception. Like the avant-garde art form that is Cubism, the building designer’s architectural vision utilizes similar compositional tools that carve up Platonic geometric forms to create a sculptural building that deviates from convention,” the developer said in a press release.
The project team includes PJMD Architects principal and Philip Johnson protégé Marko Dasigenis, working in collaboration with Dallas-based Huitt-Zollars. The 364,000-square-foot building, slated to open this fall, has achieved LEED certification in recognition of its sustainability features.
CBRE Vice President Brandy Bellow Spinks and the CBRE leasing team are marketing the property at 5115 Fannin Street. The Mann Eye Institute will occupy the top floor, while Houston-based Texas Laparoscopic Consultants has signed a lease for 9,130 square feet on the ninth floor.
Museo MOB is being positioned not only as a modern specialty surgery center for internal medicine specialists, dermatologists, plastic surgeons, and other medical and nursing practitioners, but also as a destination for advanced treatments across multiple disciplines. The developer emphasizes the building’s oversized floor plates, state-of-the-art facilities, and a dramatic marble-clad entrance leading to a soaring lobby as features that will attract a new generation of medical service providers.
“Museo will be a dynamic place for a new generation of medical service providers who will be attracted to the building’s state-of-the-art facilities and oversized floorplates—not to mention the dramatic marble-clad entrance to the soaring lobby. We can’t wait to open Museo to the entire Houston community this fall,” said Dr. Mann.
The Museo Medical Office Building represents Phase I of a larger, mixed-use vision intended to reflect the neighborhood’s commitment to art, science, and culture. The developer describes the project as an ambitious gateway to the Museum District that will ultimately expand the area’s civic and cultural presence.
April 23, 2021 Realty News Report. Copyright 2021.
Rendering image courtesy of Testa Rossa Properties. Architecture by PJMD Architects principal Marko Dasigenis in partnership with Huitt-Zollars.
For further reading on Texas real estate: Houston 2020: America’s Boom Town – An Extreme Close Up by Ralph Bivins.
File: Picasso Inspired Medical Building To Open in Museum District