Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) Arrives

Emitting damp, pungent air indicative of its use, Houston's Buffalo Bayou flows under our freeway system and meanders slowly but surely to the ship channel and then further down to the Gulf. Few at University of Houston, located a scant mile from the riverbank, are attuned to the vitality and diversity of the natural and manmade environs. But thanks to the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) and the University’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center, students and faculty are investigating the Bayou’s waters and the activity along its shores. For the Bayou may be a place of mystery to passersby, but it is a vital home to hardy natural wildlife and a national center of commerce and industry.

In January 2009, the results of CLUI’s investigation will be exhibited at Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, a show organized by Rachel Hooper, the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Curatorial Fellow at Blaffer Gallery. As Blaffer’s education curator, I was invited to tag along and document Patrick Peters’s architecture class as they embarked upon their first foray upon the water (further activities will take place throughout the semester).

Downstream

Awaiting our group were two boats, a small pontoon and even smaller motor boat. We scampered down a festive but steep conveyor belt (it wasn’t turned on) to our crafts and set off in the chill air. First we cruised downstream, and the landscape was decidedly industrial, culminating in a large sewage treatment plant where one student informed me, “From aerial photographs, you can see how the chlorine changes the color of the water.” And the air, previously carrying a distinctive odor I will not soon forget, did indeed take on a sanitized bouquet, and a froth of green-tinged bubbles danced across the water’s surface. Everywhere, large drainpipes emitted liquids of various types, in a Willy Wonka kind of way. Seemingly out of place, egrets and other waterfowl greeted us as we passed the grassy shores. Our downstream voyage did a 180 when we reached the boundary of the ship channel, encountering security cameras that marked the completion of our trip, and we headed back.

Upstream

Re-tracing our path through the treatment plant and industrial sites, we passed lime-jacketed community service crews who waved at us, the sole navigators of the Bayou, as we motored by. We waved back. Skilled Captain Matt Coolidge amped up our engine until sooner that we expected, the city skyline was in sight. As we slowly slid underneath I-45, we found ourselves inhabiting an unfamiliar perspective on terrain that most in the group traversed every day. “It’s rush hour up there,” a fellow passenger said. She sounded astonished. For down in the Bayou, it was quiet. We could hear the motor’s buzz, and we could hear the traffic, but sound seemed buffered by the river and building and foliage that encompassed us. We passed familiar sites, crisscrossing downtown and following along Buffalo Bayou Park, with Allen Parkway winding above. The sun was setting over the city when we returned.

Vital. That’s the word that comes to mind now when I see the Bayou down below.

Find out more about the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center's collaborative student project at University of Houston at: http://uhstudentportal.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-sit-elaunched.html