Visit the TFA Archives July 1st
18 Jun
Come put on your white gloves (literally) and see original photos and blueprints of classic Tulsa modern architecture. Should be fun! Thank you TFA for hosting this event. White gloves provided.
Tag Archives: architecture
New Historic Buchner Photo Set
13 May
Modern Tulsa is excited to release the new photo set of the Robert E. Buchner collection, which the TFA Archive has graciously allowed Modern Tulsa to display. Buchner designed many of Tulsa’s iconic Modern buildings including the Ponca City Savings and Loan and the Mayo Meadow Liquor Store (which is no longer with us) among many others. A warm thank you goes out to TFA Archives for their effort in providing digital scans of the Robert E. Buchner collection, which is a must see. View the full photo set here.
Mayo Meadow Liquor Store (above) – From the Robert E. Buchner collection, the TFA Archives, photo by ben newby
Barnes Whitehill House, (above) From the Robert E. Buchner collection, the TFA Archives, photo by Bob McCormick
Resounding Success
9 May
Modern Tulsa’s debut last night was a resounding success. With 100+ in attendance it was quickly apparent that Modern Tulsa had hit a nerve that we believed to be there all along. Photographs of last nights event will be available shortly. Stay tuned for more event announcements as well as an increase in Modern Tulsa articles. We would like to thank those who made last night possible, The Fadem Family, Herman Miller, Maharam and RetroRedo.com. We would like to especially thank those who were in attendance. In order for Modern Tulsa to truly be effective we rely on the participation of those individuals in Tulsa who feel passionately about the architecture and design of our collective heritage.
If you have not joined TFA yet, please visit their website here and become a member to show your support in our mission to preserve and promote Tulsa architecture. (Membership is only $35)
modernTULSA debut
2 May
Join us May 8th for an evening of food, drink and design as we celebrate the debut of modernTULSA.
Revisiting Bruce Goff’s Architecture
2 May
Like any other art, architecture must be experienced before one can write adequately about it. Bruce Goff designed many remarkable buildings but I will comment on one of two I have visited and why I think, his work needs to be revisited.
Bruce Goff – a child prodigy who started working in an architectural firm at the age of twelve was the Dean of the College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma in the 1950s. His creative spirit looms large in that school where his remarkable architectural renderings and those of his students hang on the walls around the College. Like Frank Lloyd Wright, he took pride in drawing and saw the art of drawing as part of the architecture that would take shape. Nowadays, I fear drawing is seen as a means to an end. Like the ancients who created myth, Goff saw drawing as a vehicle to articulate our humanity. The purpose of myth was not to give an historical account of heroes but rather to try to articulate the inexhaustible dealings and feelings of people. It is to Bruce Goff’s credit that he had the skill to translate his ‘dealings and feelings’ from drawings into architecture.
The Pollock House in Oklahoma City, reveals a mastery of color, light, space, illusion and materials. Like Gaudi and Wright, Bruce Goff had a profound respect for nature and local materials. Like Frank Gehry, he was a sponge that soaked Classical music and was inpired by Balinese artistic traditions and the Pollock Hosue reflects this. Spaces flow into other spaces. Mirrors deceptively create greater depth in the rooms. Like repetition in music which sustains a moment and creates a sort of infinity of that moment, the enlargement of the rooms by the mirrors challenge the certitude that three dimensional space is all exists.
The pool and the sound of water flowing recalls Feng Shui and an Eastern reverence for nature and stillness. His daring cantilevered roofs show a disdain for conventions and throw down a gauntlet at gravity.
He had a fascination with a blue-green color, of which some of his other buildings have bluish-green stones.
Neither he or his work should be forgotten and we must try to preserve his surviving structures.
Written by my friend, Architect Doyin Terriba – who studied at the University of Oklahoma. Photo provided by http://www.narrowlarry.com
