Cite has been the official publication of the Rice Design Alliance since 1982. The Rice Design Alliance was founded as a part of the Rice School of Architecture in 1972. The intent of the RDA was to have a public-facing organization to talk about design and architecture, which has been the mission of Cite since the beginning. On the RDA’s site, they describe their mission this way: “We curate an annual lecture series, design competitions, exhibitions, publications, and worldwide architecture trips that bring people together to critically explore the urban condition in Houston and beyond, raising awareness and inspiring solutions to the challenges that citizens and cities worldwide are facing today.” Cite has been an important part of the ongoing dialogue about urbanism in Houston. Given that this 41 year publication span has corresponded with a vast expansion of freeways, exurbs, strip malls, and parking lots, its effect on Houston seems slight. I am reminded of a 2003 quote by Kurt Vonnegut:
During the Vietnam War, every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.
I realize that this is a harsh and probably unfair judgment on the effect of the RDA and Cite on the real world. Cite has been one of the few dependable places for thinking about urbanist issues in Houston.
The RDA announced at the beginning of February that they are shutting Cite down. The announcement is a little vague:
Rice Design Alliance is currently working to reimagine and reassess the future of our public engagement programming, including the work of Cite Digital. During this time, Cite Digital will be pausing the commissioning of new content.
Cite 104—the 40th-anniversary issue—is in progress and will be printed later this year. Please stay tuned for more information about the future of our programs and publications.
But beyond this statement, I have heard from a friend that the Rice Design Alliance is itself shutting down. Perhaps the Rice School of Architecture has decided that 50 years of failing to accomplish much of anything is enough. They may reasses Cite. Maybe after the reassessment, Cite will be revived. One can hope.
Cite is a beautifully designed magazine—so nice that it’s hard to believe it was produced in Houston. As a city, we don’t have a deep well of the various talents required to produce beautiful publications. We don’t have a publishing industry which would draw talented designers, editors, illustrators, etc. to Houston. (I realize I come across as a bitter curmudgeon, which I am. So I will mention that FLAT files, which is brand new compared to Cite. All three issues of FLAT Files that have been published have looked beautiful—so design-wise, perhaps they are the successor to Cite.)
I want to look at Cite issue 90, from fall 2012. It was their 30th anniversary issue, and carried the subtitle: “Find a city to live in.” That is a quote from the song “Cities” by the Talking Heads:
Think of London, a small city
It's dark, dark in the daytime
The people sleep, sleep in the daytime
If they want to, if they want toI'm checking them out
I'm checking them out
I got it figured out
I got it figured out
There's good points and bad points
Find a city
Find myself a city to live in.Down El Paso way things get pretty spread out
People got no idea where in the world they are
They go up north and come back south
Still got no idea where in the world they are.
This song appeared on Fear of Music. I saw Talking Heads in concert in 1983 at the Sam Houston Colosseum. The substituted “Houston” for “El Paso” when they sung this song.
This issue contains a bunch of stats for their publishing history. By issue 90, they had published 1,082 articles, had over 400 contributors, of whom the top contributors were Stephen Fox, Bruce Webb, Christof Spieler, Barry Moore, Drexel Turner, William F. Stern, and Barrie Scardino. In an article about Cite and its past, Bruce Webb wrote, “Cite has been a consistent critic of Houston’s laissezfaire attitude about its past.” It would be reasonable to ask, has a single element of Houston’s past been preserved because of Cite?
I have been critically observing Houston for the entire time that Cite has been published. In that thirty years, we as a city managed to build 23 miles of light rail, almost all of it inside the 610 Loop, with no connection to, say, an airport or intercity railroad station. Houston has become a bigger city, but not a better one.
Above are a selection of excellent Cite covers. Issue 87 has a dramatic photo of Havel + Ruck’s Fifth Ward Jam.
Gary Panter is one of my all-time favorite artists, and it pleases me that Cite commissioned two covers from him, twelve years apart.
Cite published one book collection in 2003, Ephemeral City: Cite Looks at Houston, in 2003. As far as I can tell, it is out of print and you will pay a small fortune to get a copy. Thank god for libraries.
It is well-worth seeking out. It consists of a large number of well-illustrated articles from the magazine, structured in a way that is implicit in the subject of the magazine. The first section discusses the “idea of the city”, with pieces on freeways, water, public space, the Loop, the Beltways, city planning, etc. The focus narrows in the next section, “place of the city.” Here it looks at neighborhoods—Montrose, the museum district, their portmanteau “Indo-Chinatown”, Houston’s academic enclaves, etc. The final section seems appropriate for a magazine published by the Rice School of Architecture, “buildings of the city.”
But you don’t need to spend a small fortune getting an out-of-print copy of Ephemeral City. The RDA website has every issue archived. You can look at any article on any issue. But will this archive be maintained once the RDA is officially dissolved?
I hope Cite continues to be published. It is one of the only venues in town for local writers to discuss local things. (I guess the Houston Chronicle sort of qualifies.)
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Your article motivated me to get the book. I lucked out, finding a copy on amazon for $15.
So sad