Wish we still had our old Brazos County Courthouse. Looks like it was a beautiful building:



Definitely looks better than the ugly, non-descript bunker we drive by today.

Was the old Courthouse at the same location as the new one?

Grimes County's is really nice as well.

Grimes really did a nice job on that restoration.
Here's some previous discussin on the topic.
http://mybcs.com/content/forums/Replies.aspx?tid=1669477

quote:

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Was the old Courthouse at the same location as the new one?

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Yes. It's a crime it was torn down.

I love the upstairs courtroom at the Grimes Co. courthouse. It's like stepping back in time.

Eva, your comment reminded me of the Coryell County courthouse. It too, has a fascinating upstairs courtroom.

And the Grimes County courthouse is probably the only one built on an island in the middle of a street. While once the largest towns in Texas, little old Anderson now much sleepier.

And the clerks vault is even more like stepping back in time there. Really neat building.

It really is a shame that the old one is lost to history. Out of 254 of them, it's hard to imagine any of the county courthouses in Texas being uglier than the one we have now.

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Have you been to Brenham?

Palo Pinto County has an ugly one

Aransas is really ugly too.

Palo Pinto actually looks artistic compared to Brazos County. Washington County, while not beautiful, still looks better than Brazos.

Aransas is pretty darn ugly. It's in the running. (The old one in Aransas looked pretty cool, by the way. Another shame.)

Waller County and Austin County both have dreadful looking courthouses. I think Austin County is even worse than Brazos.

Wow, TKD. Austin County may be the winner so far. Looks like the same architect was at work on this as on Brazos County. Horrible. Of the photos I've seen, it's Austin Co. and Brazos Co. in a photo finish for the ugliest. What were these people thinking?

Waller looked bad, but not in the other 2's league, IMO.

I've started taking pictures of all of courthouses I've been to. I'm over 150 now. There are some gorgeous buildings. The historical commission has done well helping restore some of these landmarks inside and out.

Brazos' courthouse is definitely one of the ugliest you'll find anywhere.

Thanks Zona for sharing that great picture.

[This message has been edited by Cdub06 (edited 5/10/2013 5:55p).]

Well, since I worked with one of the co-architects for the Brazos Co Courthouse, I can probably speak to "what were the architects thinking?"

One of the constraints was that Modern (Post-Modern if we must quibble) Architecture was in vogue. Public-project budgets, never over-rich in the first place, are doubly-complicated with courthouses. This is due to certain expectations for the appearance of courtrooms.

Which brings up another issue on appearance--change in use and function. That, coupled with changes in several technologies.

In the days of the glorious county courthouse, they were day-lit, "natural" ventilation buildings whose primary purpose was to house the county Court, and the County Offices.

To accommodate daylight, and for cross-flow ventilation, you are limited to buildings (or wings of buildings) only about 25' to 30' wide. If you need more than room that wide (like if there are two County Courts, for instance) you need additional floors, or longer wings. In natural ventilation, you also need taller floors, with 18' or 20' between floors, and not 12-15' as seen today.

The need for light/air wells, and use of multiple tall floors makes for a unique appearance. One we can see in the photo album of courthouses.

But, enter in technology and societal change. Electricity gives air-conditioned floors, so more floors within a given height are possible. Electrical lighting means that courtrooms do not need windows. In fact, dark courtrooms are at an advantage for various presentations within the courtroom.

Also, Courthouse operations virtually require proximity to the County Jail. Jails tend to need to be windowless sorts of buildings.

Ok, so that was then.

We could certainly turn the inside feces of a putative Courthouse to the inside, and set the other spaces to the outside. Jury waiting areas; jury pool administration areas, and the like could all be on the outside.

But, that would require a new from the ground up building. Which would take a bucket full of dollars, and for all the visual failings of the present CH, it's cheaper than a brand-new one.

Makes it a question of hurting one's eyes or one's County Property Tax bill.

Anyone know of the courthouse in the region that was never used as a courthouse?

Thanks for the explanation, Cap. Seems the form vs. function challenges that architects face on all projects are even more involved on a courthouse building.

I wonder if there was any strong preservationist sentiment during that time that the old building was torn down. Any real movement to save the original? It's hard to imagine a courthouse (or any public building) like the original being razed today without a fight.

We're are letting the old College Station city hall be razed to replace it with a new multi-story condo development w/o any objection.

We're are letting the old College Station city hall be razed to replace it with a new multi-story condo development w/o any objection.

As I recall, there were serious structural problems with the old building, as was true with most early brick or stone buildings in the area.. The new court house was designed by Caudill, Rowlett and Scott and received lots of approving commendations and awards. How times and styles change!

Mil393, thank you for that info. Had a great history lesson on "CRS" thanks to Wikipedia. My grandmother has often lamented on the demolition of the previous courthouse (which wasn't the original either). She's told me it was torn down almost overnight and that there was little if any prior, public discussion about it. There must've been a few folks in the know though...there's a home on Bee Creek in CS that contains original railings from the courthouse. The Porter family built it in the 70's and were wealthy farmers in the area for a long time. Glad at least a few items were saved though an intact, grand, stone courthouse in downtown Bryan would be an amazing site today. You'd almost think that even 55+ years ago SOMEONE would've seen the benefit in just possibly building a new courthouse on a different site nearby and keeping the older one as a museum, annex or some other function. As Mil393 mentioned, the old one was in dire need of help though. I've heard that heavy rains left water pouring down hallways, etc.

Another interesting story I've heard about the "new" courthouse is that when it was built central A/C, being still relatively new, factored in greatly to design, etc. They put very, very few windows in the structure hoping to keep costs for cooling down. Soon after completion a power outage left most county staff groping in pitch black offices and hallways for quite a while. Windows were soon added.

Thank goodness the recent renovations have at least spruced up the addition facing Wm J Bryan. Its not perfect but is a huge improvement.