This Bartlesville, Oklahoma building opened in 1956 as the headquarters of H.C. Price pipeline construction company, and in 1981, became home to Phillips Petroleum. When that company moved to larger quarters, the building languished until 1998, when the community organized a capital campaign to acquire the building for an arts center.
Price Tower Art Center
The first two floors now house the Price Tower Art Center, a museum dedicated to architecture and home to significant pieces by Wright and Oklahoma architect Bruce Goff, including some of the tower's original pieces of furniture. The Goff collection here is second only to those of the Art Institute of Chicago, and include more than 200 renderings as well as paintings and personal effects. The center hosts traveling exhibitions as well including, most recently, UK/OK Exploring Traditions in Contemporary Design.
Frank Lloyd Wright Design
Wright claimed to be inspired by a tree when designing Price Tower. He called it a tree that escaped the crowded forest, and indeed, it still rises above much of the surrounding town and certainly the prairie in which that town sits. Four central concrete shafts support 19 floors canitlevered like branches. The building's outside is clad in copper and tinted glass and indoors, it features floors of scored concrete, a material favored by Wright. These floors are dyed deep red. Unusual angles of 30 and 60 degrees, parallelogram angles which Wright favored, abound in the building, even in hotel room showers. Nineteen hotel rooms, designed by architect Wendy Evans Joseph, remain true to Wright's vision. Light fixtures and fascia on built-in shelving feature copper accents, and towel bars are copper pipe. Platform beds, desks, cabinetry and couches made of pale wood also bear accents in copper. Louvered windows run the length of the rooms, which are free of any structural obstacles, thanks to the cantilever design.
Inn at Price Tower Features
Floors 15 and 16 house The Copper Bar and Restaurant, which offers dining on one of several small outdoor terraces, or indoors in one of the building's former apartments. Continental breakfast is served here for hotel guests each morning. The top two floors, 18 and 19, held a private office and reception area for H.C. Price; these floors have been preserved in their original state and are now included in building tours. Tours start in the museum and are complimentary to hotel guests.
Bartlesville, Oklahoma lies 40 miles from Tulsa and 125 from Oklahoma City. Despite its remote location and small size, the town has a ballet company, symphony orchestra, and community center, and a downtown with numerous fountains and tidy landscaping, all the benefits of serving as the international headquarters of a major petroleum company.
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