Limestone museum buildings and a reflecting pool around Hermann Park, and the butterfly conservatory Boyhood visited.
What Museum District looks like
The Museum of Fine Arts campus runs along Bissonnet Street, where the Beck Building's pale limestone wall has almost no windows, with the Red Line's overhead wire running past on the street below. The Glassell School next door is stone and glass behind a screen of mature oak trees. The sits a few blocks south on Hermann Park Drive. It is a lower stone building with a three storey glass conservatory, the Cockrell Butterfly Center, attached to one side.
Main Street, Montrose Boulevard and Fannin Street meet at , a round basin in the traffic circle that marks the park's north entrance. Past it, the Mary Gibbs and Jesse H. Jones Reflection Pool runs 740 feet down the park's center between two paved plazas. Farther south, is ringed with limestone columns under a copper roof, its lawn sloping up behind the seats.
Away from the park, the district holds smaller institutional buildings on quieter streets. , at Main and Binz, is a Neo-Gothic building faced in limestone with a corner bell tower. The complex on Caroline Street is a two storey red brick mansion from 1917, with palm trees flanking its front lawn. The , on San Jacinto Street, is a three storey cream stucco building with a white classical portico over its entrance.
Shot in Museum District
Boyhood's day of sightseeing through Houston stops in Hermann Park. Mason Sr. takes his children through the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, then out onto the grounds of Miller Outdoor Theatre for football.
Boyhood, 2014
Miller Outdoor Theatre
Mason Sr. gives his children some football coaching on the grounds beside Miller Outdoor Theatre. The venue's own dark angled roofline shows past the oaks along the entrance path.
The Mary Gibbs and Jesse H. Jones Reflection Pool is flanked by paved plazas near the Beck Building's pale limestone. The Capitol Reflecting Pool on the National Mall has the same formal layout, also lined with limestone coping and steps. Houston's pool runs 740 feet against the Mall's much longer pool, and the Texas Medical Center towers show up in any wide shot. Keep the frame low along the water and steps. Try searching limestone coping and steps now.
Museum Campus in Chicago, Illinois
The Beck Building's pale limestone and flat, minimal window facade closely matches the Field Museum's Beaux-Arts limestone block on Chicago's Museum Campus. Both are institutional buildings set back on open lawn. The Museum Campus sits directly on Lake Michigan, so a frame with open water or a skyline breaks the match. Houston's palm trees also need staying out of any wide shot. Try searching Beaux-Arts limestone block now.
Balboa Park in San Diego, California
El Prado in Balboa Park is a formal pedestrian spine of museum buildings, fountains and lawns at roughly the district's own scale. Its Spanish Colonial Revival facades carry far more carved ornament than Houston's plainer stone and glass. The carved Churrigueresque facades and the California Bell Tower along El Prado would give San Diego away in a wide shot, so this only holds in tight frames on plain lawn, steps or a pool edge. Try searching fountains and lawns now.
