Houston Sights

  1. Art Car Museum

    And now for something funky: the Art Car Museum is a repository for more than 15 of the psychedelic, buglike, and Mad Max-esque vehicles that have taken part in the annual Art Car Parade.

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  2. Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum

    Dominique's acquisition of a 13th-century Cypriot fresco almost caused an international incident; in the end, she built the custom Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum to safely protect the treasure for 99 years.

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  3. Children's Museum of Houston

    Walking distance from Hermann Park is the activity-filled Children's Museum of Houston. Little ones can make tortillas and learn some Spanish in a Mexican village, or they can learn to draw in an open-air art studio.

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  4. Houston Museum of Natural Science

    Delve into excellent traveling shows - often with shiny themes (treasures of Tsarist Russia, gold of Afghanistan) - at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Dinosaurs, fossils, gems and mineral exhibits, chemistry and interactive experiments are all part of the permanent collections.

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  5. Menil Collection

    Local philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil's 15,000 artworks form the core of the Menil Collection. The couple's taste ran from the medieval to the surreal - several rooms are devoted to the likes of René Magritte and Max Ernst.

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  7. Museum of Fine Arts

    The Museum of Fine Arts houses one of the largest permanent collections of art in the country in two separate buildings, one of which was designed by the famed German architect Mies van der Rohe in 1958.

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  8. Orange Show Center for Visionary Art

    Beer cans, welded-steel oranges and plastic flowers as folk art? Conservative Houston has a wacky art streak. The late Jeff McKissack molded his house into a junk-art tribute to his favorite fruit until his passing. Today it's the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, off I-45 S, which fosters the folk-art vision by offering tours and keeping up the 50,000-can exterior of the Beer Can House (222 Malone St), off Memorial Dr. The center can give directions to other arty houses around town.

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  9. Rothko Chapel

    For lovers of 20th century art the Rothko Chapel is a special place of beauty. Fourteen paintings by abstract master Mark Rothko specifically painted for this non-denominational space create a meditative sanctuary that seems light years away from the traffic and buzz of Houston. The chapel also holds meditation sessions and sponsors an annual human rights award.

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