Seven Wonders

Buffalo Bayou Partnership

SEVEN WONDERS

Wortham Center Theater
501 Texas Avenue
Houston, Texas 77002

SEVEN WONDERS

The public art at Buffalo Bayou’s Sesquicentennial Park is hard to miss. Seven 70-foot-tall pillars, known as the “Seven Wonders,” flank the park’s Promenade and Preston Avenue Bridge. Each column, designed by Mel Chin, contains 150 drawings, created by 1,050 local schoolchildren. With the help of artists Rachael Splinter and Helen Nagge, Chin translated the drawings into a computer image and then etched them into the pillars’ stainless steel with a laser. The student artists, who were 12 years old when the pillars went up in 1998, were all born in 1986, the year Houston celebrated its 150th birthday. The themes of the tiny works—agriculture, manufacturing, medicine and technology—fit into the context of the city’s history. At night, “Seven Wonders” gives off a lantern-like glow, illuminating the park and buildings around it.