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A makeover for the ugliest building in Dallas

Architects Weiss/Manfredi have been selected for the coveted project to reinvent Dallas' notorious Dawson state jail, but like the jail itself, the process to get there was opaque — and raises serious questions about diversity.

Can a bad process produce a good outcome? In defiance of conventional wisdom, it would seem the Trinity Conservancy is hoping for an affirmative answer to that proposition as it moves forward on the design of a park between the levees.

The latest reason for concern is the selection, announced Thursday, of the architecture firms Weiss/Manfredi and Malone Maxwell Dennehy for the remaking of the decommissioned Jesse R. Dawson State Jail. New York-based Weiss/Manfredi will be the lead designers on the project, with Malone Maxwell Dennehy local partner.

The dreary beige-block jail, built in 1997 on a prominent site along Commerce Street, was notorious for both its ungainly presence on the skyline and the poor conditions within. The transformation would reinvent it as a gateway to the forthcoming Trinity Park.

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A sketch by Weiss/Manfredi architects shows design inspiration for its renovation of the...
A sketch by Weiss/Manfredi architects shows design inspiration for its renovation of the former Dawson Jail on Commerce Street to help open it up to views of the Trinity. (Supplied / Courtesy WEISS/MANFREDI)
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“We could not imagine a more profoundly important project,” says Marion Weiss. “What it had been was a place of fortification and exclusion. And it resides on the levee, which is also a kind of fortification. Never has it been so important to transform those kinds of paradigms into places where the community has time to breathe.”

“The jail is one of the ugliest buildings we’ve ever had to work with, but it’s also one of the most strategically well-positioned buildings we’ve ever had to work with,” says Michael Manfredi. “This will become Dallas’ most public space, across every kind of stratification.”

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A signature of Weiss/Manfredi’s work is the integration of architecture, urban design and landscape — an essential requirement of this commission. Among their most notable projects is the Olympic Sculpture Park (2007) in Seattle, a zig-zagging structured landscape that provides civic amenities as it links the city with its waterfront — a clear precedent for the Dawson project, which presents challenges.

“They’ve done inspirational building,” says Deedie Rose, board chair of the Trinity Conservancy. “What I’m looking for is a brain that is seeing something in a way that other people don’t see it, and they’ve got that capability.”

The firms were selected from seven finalists drawn from 45 submissions, an impressive number given the requirements and short deadline for applicants. It was a coveted project for good reason: The remaking of Dawson is an opportunity to directly address the systemic inequity of the justice system that has roiled the nation in recent months, and to remake a civic eyesore with a gruesome history into a place of symbolic and functional reckoning.

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The gym inside the former Jesse R. Dawson State Jail on Aug. 29, 2013 in Dallas. The jail...
The gym inside the former Jesse R. Dawson State Jail on Aug. 29, 2013 in Dallas. The jail held up to 2,200 offenders with state jail felonies and two-year maximum sentences. (Sarah Hoffman / Staff Photographer)

Given the import of the commission, the conservancy could have moved forward with a more public selection process, at minimum a public review of the finalists. Instead, deliberations were conducted in private, and the result has the unfortunate appearance of a preordained outcome.

This will not be Weiss/Manfredi’s first project in Dallas. In 2016, the firm inaugurated the Marshall Performing Arts Center at the Greenhill School. Michael Malone, of Malone Maxwell Dennehy, was the consultant who led the search that awarded that project to Weiss/Manfredi. The presiding force in the search for Greenhill was Catherine Rose, daughter of Deedie Rose. It all seems very cozy.

It must also be noted that neither Weiss/Manfredi nor Malone Maxwell Dennehy has a minority partner, which is especially jarring given this project’s emphasis on justice reform and the fact that Dallas is a minority-majority city.

“If you’re asking was that something we thought about, that’s a resounding yes,” says Rose, of minority representation. “That was one of the things we were looking at, but it wasn’t the only thing…. Our selection process did include minorities, who were on board with this selection.”

Earlier this summer, the Trinity Conservancy selected Austin-based architect Mell Lawrence for the design of the architectural elements of the West Overlook Park, on the opposite side of the levees from Dawson; that decision also was made without any public review. Lawrence does not have a minority partner. Michael Van Valkenburgh, the lead designer of the park, has one minority partner among six.

The former Jesse R. Dawson State Jail (center) at 106 West Commerce St. near downtown Dallas...
The former Jesse R. Dawson State Jail (center) at 106 West Commerce St. near downtown Dallas is pictured at sunset, July 7, 2020. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

“We made a very clear statement that we would be engaging a broader range of team members that represent a whole set of different constituencies that are underrepresented in projects like this,” says Manfredi. “It’s not just the technical consultants, but also the artistic voices that can speak to underrepresented communities in Dallas.”

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Those voices will be essential in determining a program for the building, which is very much undecided at present, though there is a plan for some form of public programming on the ground floor and office space for the conservancy. A more transparent façade is clearly in the works. The architects plan to preserve artwork created by inmates on the interior.

“There are a couple of things that are remarkable if you overlook the exterior,” says Weiss. “It could not be more beautifully located, and it’s a simple form. In its clarity it is an empty canvas for a greater vision to be realized.”

Precisely what that vision will be, and who will get to decide it, are questions that remain to be determined.

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