The Price Tower
The only Frank Lloyd Wright skyscraper
Not much needs to be added to the long history of Frank Lloyd Wright’s residential works. Instead, let’s take a look at the Price Tower in in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
The tower was commissioned by an oil pipeline construction company and a Mr. Harold Price in 1952. The intention was to build a structure to serve as an up-to-date headquarters for the company. The Tower’s design plan was developed from a 1929 Wright design for a cluster of apartment buildings in Manhattan that Mr. Price had admired.
His new headquarters was to earn for Mr. Price an AIA award and ultimately designation as a National Historic Landmark. Later, Mr. Wright called the building “the tree that escaped the crowded forest.”
Writing in Dezeen, Lilly Cao explained that phrase:
This short, but evocative phrase brings to a point much of what makes the Price Tower so meaningful even today. The high-rise was designed around a core or ‘trunk’ of four elevator shafts, which functions as both the primary structural support and an integrating element around which the rest of the design evolves. Each of the tower’s floor plates are cantilevered from this central trunk, resembling the branches of a tree. Accordingly, the building’s outer walls are lined with long copper wings, their textured green
Frank Lloyd Wright
We must recall a bit about FLW:
Wright was born on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1885–86, where, in the absence of instruction in architecture, he took engineering courses. But greater things awaited him, and he departed in 1887 for the architectural Mecca of Chicago. There, he eventually became an assistant to the great Louis Sullivan. Thus began a career based on his concepts of “organic architecture,” promoting a rational harmony between the built environment and nature, leading him inexorably to architectural immortality.
I have never been the greatest fan of Mr. Wright’s work. However, most of that opinion was not formed by his actual work; it was shaped by living in suburban America in the 1960s and observing the numerous middle-American homes that attempted to be Frank Lloyd Wright-style residences.
But the facts are that Frank Lloyd Wright, particularly after appearing on the cover of Time magazine on January 17, 1938, was, at the time of the Price Tower design, one of the most famous people in America and certainly the most well-known architect. In essence, Wright was the ”starchitect” of this American era.
More than his design skills and fame, Wright offered many philosophical “dictums” that have come to be symbolic of his “brand.” For example:
The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful.
And:
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
Love him or leave him, Wright may have generated more interest in American architecture, amongst the general public, than anyone before or since. Good on him!
H.C. Price
Let’s learn more about Mr. Price from the Price organization website:
Harold Charles Price, Sr. (1888-1962); or H.C. Price as he was fondly known, graduated from the Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado, in 1913 and began working for the Bartlesville Zinc Company. Due to changes in the economy he lost his job but enjoyed life in Bartlesville and wished to remain in the community. In 1921, he formed the Electra Welding Company, on Second Street in downtown Bartlesville, where he developed new techniques in electrical welding which were very successful and, in time, he became the largest welding contractor in Mid-America by 1926.
This was the preamble to Mr. Price’s company becoming one of the world's top oil pipeline builders. H.C Price passed away in 1962, leaving his son as President and his widow as Chairman of the Board. In 1981, the Price Tower was sold to the Phillips Petroleum Company, and the company's HQ moved to Dallas.
In 1990, the Bartlesville Museum [later to become the Price Tower Arts Center] opened on the ground floor under a no-rent agreement with Phillips. Eventually, Phillips donated the Tower to the Arts Center.
Today, the Tower is undergoing a significant renovation scheduled to be completed in mid-2027. Given that the Price Tower is Frank Lloyd Wright’s only built high-rise, it seems a great shame that Mr. Wright didn’t bring his unique approach to more skyscraper projects.