The Hawkins Sculpture Walk features sculpture busts of ten notable figures, providing a distinct welcome to everyone entering the McGovern Centennial Gardens area of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas. The creation of this landmark was part of a bigger transformation of the entire space, highlighting what an imaginative approach to enabling engagement can mean for a space and to audiences.
Reimagining a Scattered Collection of Icons
The Houston Garden Center was built in Hermann Park in 1941, becoming one of the many features that defined the identity of the park. Over the years though, it waned in popularity, compelling the installation of a nondescript parking lot in the 1960s. In preparation for the centennial of Hermann Park, the Garden Center was taken down so the entire space could be completely reimagined as the McGovern Centennial Gardens. Opened in 2014, the Gardens have enabled engagement on a whole new level.
As part of this reimagination of the space, sculpture busts that had been randomly placed in the Park’s International Sculpture Garden were refurbished and moved to the entryway of the Gardens at the corner of Caroline and Hermann Drive. Individually donated to the city of Houston over the decades, these pieces would be newly assembled to form the Hawkins Sculpture Walk, which allows audiences to engage with the histories and cultures from around the world.
Busts of Simon Bolivar, Robert Burns, Cabeza de Vaca, Ramon Castilla Y Marquesado, Benito Juarez, Jose Marti, Bernardo O’Higgins, Dr. Jose P. Rizal, Vicente Rocafuerte and Jose De San Martin line the Hawkins Sculpture Walk. Figures like Bolivar and O’Higgins were South American revolutionary leaders while Burns was a Scottish poet and lyricist, highlighting the variety of legacies that the Sculpture Walk honors. Information about each figure is displayed near their sculpture.
What might otherwise be a simple entranceway or a random assortment of sculptures has instead been imagined as something much more, defining the Hawkins Sculpture Walk in ways that benefit the McGovern Centennial Gardens. Doing so has created a physical and figurative path to engagement in the present and future.
From Simplicity to Legacy
The Hawkins Sculpture Walk has the physical space to increase but it can similarly expand in terms of the people and history that it honors, highlighting what sort of options an imaginative approach to creating engagement can represent for audiences and to stakeholders across the eras.
