MacKie & Kamrath, Houston’s best-known proponents of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian architecture, designed the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute (1954, extensively altered) and the University of Texas Dental Branch Building (1954, currently scheduled to be demolished). Both were distinguished by their use of Georgia Etowah pink marble. In 1954, Time magazine dubbed the hospital the “Pink Palace of Healing” in a feature article on its architectural innovations, and in 1955 the building won a medal of honor from the Houston AIA.
As the Dental Branch Building appears more or less in its original state, it allows one to still see the wonderful detailing that MacKie & Kamrath devised for it. In 1951, the editors of Progressive Architecture declared it one of the most innovative new medical buildings in the nation, in an annual survey that a few years later would become formalized as the P/A Awards program. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center recently informed Texas Historical Commission of its plans to demolish the building.
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