68The Flame Made of Mirrors

In front of the Holiday Inn Express & Suites, in a bed of boulders, agave and spiky little grasses, three flat ribbons of mirror-polished stainless steel stand up off a white-tiled pedestal and twist around one another as they climb. They cross, part, cross again, and at the top they peel apart into three curled tips. Step back and the whole thing closes into a single shape: a tall teardrop, or a flame caught mid-flicker.

Walk around it and it changes what it is made of. From the front, the hotel is its backdrop — four storeys of charcoal and white, the green H sign high on the corner. Around on the parking-lot side the ribbons fill with blue sky and cloud instead, and behind them, past a roadway guardrail, three humped steel truss spans line up along the skyline like a row of camel backs.

Then bend down to the lowest ribbon, just above the tiles. Etched faintly into the steel are sprigs of leaves — little stems with paired oval leaves, like laurel — running along the face in rows. Up top it is all shine. Down here it has a pattern you only find on purpose.

This was the last of the three hotels developer Kenny Bhakta set out to cluster along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. He went public with the plan years ago, aiming for 2022; this one received its occupancy certificate on January 16, 2025. It is listed as a new riverfront hotel, across from East Riverwalk Park on the Brazos. Three hotels, three sculptures out front, and only one is signed: the Cambria's painted dancers carry Dorit Levinstein's name in the pattern at the base. The whirl at the EVEN and this flame carry nothing.

So we don't know who made it, or when it went in. There is no plaque, no signature, no date, and not a word about it in the coverage of the three hotels' completion. If you know who designed or built it, tell us, and we'll credit them properly.