LOW-KEY BUNGALOW HOUSES MENIL TROVE : NEW ART MUSEUM IN HOUSTON

Downtown Houston on a weeknight is as deserted as a cow town before a shoot-out.

A few people wait patiently at bus stops, kids skateboard on empty streets and night crews dig up intersections with dinosaur earth movers. Yet, all around, rich Post-Modern cut-glass skyscrapers with serrated tops soar into the sky, twinkling light into the sticky Gulf air. Here is a dark convention center, there a new multimillion-dollar theater complex with an empty marquee. All these unpeopled amenities bespeak such wealth and cultural ambition that the transient visitor suspects the action must be in precincts reserved to the knowledgeable.

The last few days the action has been in the Montrose district, a calm suburb where an international strew of artniks was magnetized to ceremonies and celebrations attending the launch of “The Menil Collection,”, a new $24-million museum opening to the public Sunday.

About 500 of the art world elite attended a dinner in a big tent next to the museum. The L.A. contingent included Museum of Contemporary Art Director Richard Koshalek, County Museum of Art Senior Curator Maurice Tuchman, collectors Elise and Stanley Grinsteen and artist Ed Ruscha, among others.

The museum is the latest symptom of a trend to establish public showcases for private collections, such as that housing the contemporary treasures of Charles and Doris Saatchi in London or the still homeless Frederick R. Weisman collection in Los Angeles.

In Houston, the city’s elders like the idea. Mayor Kathryn J. Whitmore helped dedicate the museum at ceremonies for the local gentry. She praised the museum for being free to the public and said it would benefit people not yet born.

The collection inside is a fabled trove put together since the 1930s by Dominique de Menil and her late husband, John. The French couple immigrated here after the Nazi invasion and eventually joined the ranks of the super-rich, thanks to the success of Schlumberger Ltd., a company established by Dominique de Menil’s father and an uncle who invented a device for locating underground oil deposits.

Today, the Menil collection is valued at as much as $175,000 million and includes some 10,000 objects that emphasize modern--particularly Surrealist--works but also range through ancient, primitive and medieval objects as well as a small gaggle of Old Master paintings.

Despite the eclectic and historically discontinuous nature of the collection, professionals revere it for the quality of the selections and a spirit that seems to reflect the De Menils’ dedication to civil rights and ecumenical religious causes.

(One section of the collection is devoted to depictions of blacks throughout history. The museum itself lies near the Rothko Chapel, a non-denominational place of contemplation built by the De Menils in 1971 and hung with large wine-dark abstract paintings by Mark Rothko. Outside stands Barnett Newman’s sculpture “Broken Obelisk,” purchased by the De Menils as an homage to Martin Luther King Jr.)

Speaking at the dedication, Dominique de Menil admitted she had gone ahead with the project despite severe losses in the family fortune caused by the oil crisis. Elegant and somewhat frail at 79, she still speaks with a French accent.

“This work is justified only by the work of artists who are economically useless but absolutely indispensable. We need artists and saints to make us contemplate the essential, the mystery of life and God.”

The museum is directed by Walter Hopps, who established a reputation as an innovative curator at the old Pasadena Art Museum in Los Angeles.

The Menil building was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, best known for his partnership in the design of Paris’ Pompidou Center. In contrast to the Tinker-Toy bravura of that popular showplace, the Menil building is a low, horizontal two-story affair faced in clapboard painted gray and white.

It was clearly designed to fulfill Dominique de Menil’s wish that it should look “small on the outside and large on the inside.” It stands unobtrusively on a block of greensward bordered by similarly painted domestic bungalows bought up by the De Menils as office space for the staff. Inside, works stand in serene white galleries off a single long corridor.

Only a fraction of the collection is on view at once, with the rest in “open storage” upstairs where interested citizens may view it on request. The high-ceilinged galleries are lit with a combination of artificial light and daylight filtered through a distinctive skylight system controlled by giant mechanical louvers.