Rothko Chapel at the right time of day You have to be there when the light is right By Stephen Fox, special to the Houston Chronicle Dec. 4, 2014 Updated: Dec. 4, 2014 9:28 a.m. More Comments Print 5 1 of 5Rothko Chapel.Photo: Bruce Bennett, FOR THE CHRONICLE 2 of 5John and Dominique de Menil conceived Rothko Chapel as a spiritual place, of no given denomination, dominated by a set of Mark Rothko's enormous black paintings. Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff 3 of 5Depending on how you look them, the suite of 14 Mark Rothko paintings: a) are hardly anything but big black rectangles; b) foretold the painter's suicide; c) were Rothko's crowning achievement; or d) any or all of the above.Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff

The Rothko Chapel was built in 1970 and 1971 to contain 14 dark paintings made especially for the octagonal worship space by the great American abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Rothko's paintings strike many who see them as mute, inert, essentially blank and empty. But if you are in the chapel at the right time of day, this perception changes. When it is very bright and clouds move swiftly across the sky, the interior of the skylit chapel is charged with action. The central panel in the principal triptych, which you face as you enter the space, explodes in torment and anguish. It engages triptychs on the chapel's east and west side walls in an emotion-laden choral exchange while single panels on the four angled walls provide a dark continuo. Hanging on the south -- back -- wall, a single panel painting, illuminated by reflected north light, serenely resolves the turmoil and stress. This astounding performance subsides when atmospheric conditions change and the paintings revert to stasis. Was it a hallucination? Or a near-miraculous disclosure of the power of art to change the way you experience the world?

Architectural historian Stephen Fox lectures at Rice University's school of architecture and the University of Houston's Gerald D. Hines School of Architecture. He's a fellow of the Anchorage Foundation, and his books include the American Institute of Architects' Architecture Guide to Houston.