Hilton Hotel - Dallas, TX - Frieze Art on Waymarking.com

"The hotel is a masonry-clad high-rise building, with basement and 14 stories, supported by a reinforced-concrete frame. Its horseshoe plan features two massive towers projecting toward Harwood Street, forming an open court between them. Capped with flat roofs and parapet, the towers are prominently tied together on the main facade with a frontispiece entrance at street level and an elaborate bridge at the 10th level. The ornate detailing, intact and in excellent condition, recalls Beaux Arts forms and is executed largely in terra-cotta. Granite, cast-iron and wrought-iron detailing also occur. Belt courses divide the building into four sections: a basecourse, shaft, cornice, and attic story.

The drama of the main facade results from its massing, deeply projecting and receding planes, fertile ornament, and an unusually narrow light-court. The prominent frontispiece entrance, centered in the 9-bay composition, rises three floors and ties together the two towers at the base. The entrance is framed by paired, fluted pilasters resting on stone bases and capped with modified Corinthian capitals. Terminating at horizontal panels ornamented with crests and garlands, the pilasters are accented with spiral colonnettes. The arch contains new glass doors in metal frames below an ornamental frieze and grille of cast iron. Four cast-iron columns frame three windows which let into the auditorium at the second level. At the keystone of the arch is located a scroll bracket flanked by spandrels with foliate designs. A cornice separates the arch both from a balcony with turned balusters and an arcade composed of three round-headed openings. Perched atop the arcade is an aeroterion with giant scallop.

Flanking the frontispiece entrance are the four-bay towers. New glass door and windows in metal frames now fill the original window and door openings at street level. Transoms are covered with panels which appear to date from the 1950s."