Price Tower, Bartlesville, USA
Created | Updated Jul 23, 2002
Price Tower is nineteen floors of mixed use space designed and built in 1953 by Frank Lloyd Wright for the HC Price Company of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, USA.
Concept of Living
Wright's concept was for people to live and work in high-density accommodations with easy access to the surrounding countryside. Wright dubbed his design the tree that escaped the crowded forest.
HC Price
Hal C Price developed and ran a successful oil pipeline business, in which he deployed electric arc welding. During the world war of 1939-1945 he licensed his welding processes for the construction of ships; welding was a big improvement over rivets.
Construction
Tower construction is of cantilevered concrete floors skewed out of square on alternate levels, giving the effect of triangular space around the three main central supporting columns that also carry utility services and the three automatic lifts. Exterior is clad with copper and glass. Copper cladding is treated to produce a verdigris colour. Glass is treated with a coating to reduce the greenhouse effect of the sun.
Multi-use Building
Wright was always concerned about the uses to which his buildings were put. He designed lifestyles rather than plain dwellings. Price Tower follows the Wright ethos, it was a place designed for people to live and work in. Residential quarters are split-level across two floors with exterior walls made of glass panels behind vertical blinds that shade the interior. Business quarters are built on single levels with windows shaded by horizontal blinds.
Immediate Impression
Visually the Price Tower is an intriguing building, one that invites interior exploration. Fu-Manchu was thwarted in his desire to see inside when first he visited it fifteen years ago. When new it was used as it was intended. Architect Bruce Goff lived and worked there, a bank, a television station, and other businesses had their offices too. Eventually it became disused. In 1981, Phillips Petroleum Company of Bartlesville bought the tower; in 2002, they transferred the title of the building to Price Tower Arts Center. Since that transfer, Fu-Manchu has toured the interior.
Inside Price Tower
Feeling of the building is reminiscent of the Art Deco era, but it is unique. Inside is light and airy, devoid of rectangles. All exterior doors are glass, as are the walls. On every floor there is a balcony area and access to the exterior staircase. As a habitation it is small, somewhat poky, but that shouldn't bother the British who are used to living in one-up two-down terraced housing: it is a big problem for giant Americans used to walk-in closets and cavernous rooms filled with monster overstuffed furniture.
Wright designed everything even to the decor, furniture, cutlery, crockery, and fittings. Woe unto the person who made changes; beware the Curse of FLW.
Lifts
Wright commissioned the Otis Elevator Company to design special lifts to fit the constrained space available. Right angles are found between the bottom and sides, top and sides only. Into each lift three persons is a tight fit. Only the smallest items can be ferried. Anything large like a mattress would have to be portaged up the outside staircase, which is all very well if you live on the lower levels.
During structural repair work concrete had to be mixed on the ground then carried up in buckets.
Fu-Manchu has a feeling that the lifts only stopped on certain floors; one lift for residents and the other two for business purposes.
Living Area
Main living area is on the lower of two floors with glass walls on two sides, the glass panels butted together at the corner. On the interior wall opposite this glass corner there is a small gas fire. Looking out with your back to the fire: on the left there is a door to the small balcony; on the right the door into the fitted kitchen; to the right of the kitchen a water closet with fitted lavatory and sink.
Kitchen
Naturally, the kitchen is an odd shape too and only big enough to accommodate one person. All appliances were specially designed: a top-loading dishwasher, an oven and refigerator adjacent to each other below an electric stove top. A sink, fitted cupboards, and small work surfaces complete the kitchen.
In this part of the country, kitchens were never very big until recently. People ate out most of the time. Witness the number of breakfast joints, lunch counters, and dining establishments.
Wardrobes
Forget it! What closet space there is is triangular and about the size of a small broom cupboard.
Bedroom
The sleeping quarters are reached from the living room by a narrow stairway, like stone steps leading up onto a seawall of the kind you can find on the Cobb at Lyme Regis, and just as slippery. An alternative is to use the lift.
More of a loft, the bedroom has a low wall over which one can look down into the living room. A shower and a toilet is located about where the kitchen would be. Bruce Goff had installed wooden shutters between the ceiling and the coping of the low wall that can be closed to shut out light -- not what the Great Man intended.
Nineteenth Floor
Hal Price had his office up here where it is equipped with a wood burning fireplace. Price insisted on having a telephone. What a cad! Wright insisted that Price keep it in his desk drawer as it upset the subtle feng-shui1 of the work space.
By the time Price Tower was commissioned, designed, and built Hal Price's pipeline company had become international in scope. Frank Lloyd Wright designed and caused to be built a globe. Price sent it back for modification because it didn't show the location of Bartlesville. Now Bartlesville has been erased from its surface by the numerous fingers that have sought out the town.
Getting There
Bartlesville is located in northeastern Oklahoma. Easiest way is by air to Tulsa International Airport, about an hours flight north from Dallas International Airport. Once at Tulsa, rent a car and get directions to State Highway 75 (SH75). Drive north on SH75 to Bartlesville, it will take another hour.
Turn west or left off SH75 onto SH60 disguised as Frank Phillips Boulevard and drive to the tall buildings of downtown. Be adventuresome; see if you can find the building without asking for it once you get downtown.
Accommodation
Hotel Phillips is within walking distance of the Price Tower. Bartlesville has the usual complement of hotels, motels, and other hostelries -- pick your poison.
Activities
Architect Zaha Hadid of London is designing a new museum building to provide classrooms, an auditorium, and exhibit space next to the Price Tower
Price Tower is being renovated as the Price Tower Hotel including a restaurant, bar, and arts center building. It overlooks the Community Center designed by William Wesley Peters wherein, each year in June, the OK Mozart Festival is held drawing an international crowd of people and talent. Opening of the hotel is scheduled for December 2002.
It will be interesting to see how an hotel is integrated into this unique space. Scale of charges for rooms are expected to be between $125 and $175 per night.