Frank Lloyd Wright Week (part 5)

The Price Tower gave me my first proper introduction to practical - and magical - geometry. Although this structure is not one I'd call "pretty," it is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever witnessed. It simply comes alive.

When I visited the newly remodeled Price Tower Arts Center a couple of years ago, I couldn't get enough of it. While my wife and her high school classmate (and amazing PTAC exhibition curator) Scott Perkins chatted over drinks in the 15th floor Copper Bar, I spent a couple of hours scaling the building several times on the 30/60/120 degree exterior stairwell. It was visceral! I could touch the pressed patina-green copper exterior. And the views! Wow - Bartlesville! Other than the aliveness of it all, I hardly noticed the cold swirling January winds.

I've also linked a couple of posts to what I call Price Tower's "Baby Daddy." Frank Lloyd Wright designed a progenitor of the Price Tower in the 1920's for St. Marks in the Bowery in New York. The proposed design would have manifested a series of apartment towers around the church as income producers. Alas, they were never constructed. But as a trial run for Mr. Wrights skyscraper opus, they proved immensely valuable.

In addition to the Art Center, the newly renovated tower offers hotel accommodations. This is a can't miss for Wright fans. Plan a trip to the Inn at Price Tower for an experience you won't soon forget.

Enjoy.

Price Tower (part 1)
Price Tower (part 2) details
St. Marks in the Bowery (part 1)
St. Marks in the Bowery (part 2)

Price Postscript - The Angel in the Details

You've heard the expression "the Devil is in the details." Well, there may be some truth to that, but upon close examination, there are angels to be found there as well.



A prime example - the pressed copper frieze weaving in and out of the building, both inside and out. What a choice example of ornament that is integral to the building. The articulation becomes one with the building, where the part is a representation of the whole. Variations on the theme keep the motif fresh.



(Contrast this approach with ornament "applied" to the surface like cake decoration.)



Below, yours truly along with my wife Dr. Victoria Johnson and Price Tower Arts Center curator Scott Perkins on a cold winter day in Bartlesville.

Wow, Bartlesville...

More Baby Daddy

Price Tower photo: Joe Price
St. Marks images: Frank Lloyd Wright et alii


Though not an exact replica, the genetic code is intact.

On the left, the constructed Price Tower. On the right, the design for St. Marks.

Check out this St. Marks Tower plan drawing that was revised and noted by Mr. Wright in 1952 as instructions for the layout of the Price Tower plan.

Compare this composite sketch with the plans of the Price Tower and St. Marks Tower shown in the previous two posts.

Price Tower's Baby Daddy

perspective image: the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
plan image: Francis Ching



Frank Lloyd Wright started working in earnest on a rotated plan skyscraper in the late 1920's when he proposed a series of towers for St. Mark's in-the-Bouwerie in New York.

Rector William Norman Guthrie, who had hired Wright to design a home (unbuilt) for him in 1908 when he was teaching at the University of the South, was quite the client. Known for being an extremely unorthodox and flamboyant member of the Episcopal clergy, Guthrie saw an opportunity to return "beauty" to the church.

He once wrote Wright "to do anything at St. Marks meant to be an ecclesiastical outlaw."

The towers, intended to be erected for the purpose of generating income for the parish, were to be eighteen stories high springing out of a lush, park-like setting at ground level.

Notice the similarity of the St. Mark's plan to the Price Tower plan (in the previous post) composed a quarter of a century later.

Sadly, the St. Mark's project stopped when contractor's cost estimates came in - as Guthrie put it - as "terrible factual revelations."

Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower

Plan image: the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

When was a teenager, the only arts-related offerings at my high school were mechanical drawing and architectural drawing - so I took them both.

Mechanical drawing was pretty dry. I loved drawing isometrics, though, and the holy grail of mechanical drafting at that time - the screw jack - was a challenging and fun exercise for this eager student, and in retrospect, quite the organic form.

Architectural drawing was another story. My love for architecture truly began when I discovered three Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the textbook: Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax office building and tower, and this fine jewel of a building - the Price Tower.

I remember being mesmerized by the geometry of the plan. The dynamic marriage of the square with 30/60 degree geometries blew my mind (and still does).

I had the opportunity to visit the newly renovated Price Tower a couple of years ago, and I was not disappointed. The two-story apartments (with lower level living area and sleeping mezzanine above) contrast magically with adjacent office flats. And the exterior 30 degree concrete stair puts you right out there in the wind with all of the cool exterior forms and materials.
















It's well worth a trip to Bartlesville, Oklahoma to experience this treasure. Stay at the Inn at Price Tower and take in the Price Tower Art Center -curated eloquently by Scott Perkins - for interesting exhibitions directly or obliquely related to organic architecture.