Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower
June 17, 2006 - September 17, 2006
Completed in 1956, the Price Tower is the only true skyscraper Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) designed that was ever constructed. The 221-foot highrise is a jewel on the prairie, the culmination of the architect’s long-held vision to build a uniquely modern skyscraper in the American landscape. Wright approached the project as he did all others, with the intention of creating a Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. In what is considered a rare achievement, he convincingly applied this concept to the most iconic of all American building forms.
Wright first conceived of a cantilever tower based on the geometry of a rotated square in a 1927 project for St. Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie. In the revolutionary scheme, four central concrete pylons stand in place of a conventional steel frame. Similar to how a trunk supports the projecting branches of a tree, this vertical central core absorbs the weight of each successive floor.
Wright never relinquished his vision and in 1952 met Harold Price, Sr., an oil and gas pipeline executive who was searching for an architect to design a three-storey, 25,000-square-foot headquarters for his company. By the time their partnership ended, Price Tower stood 19-stories high with more than 57,000 square feet for offices, shops, and apartments. Beginning with a rotated square divided into four quadrants, Wright developed the pin-wheel geometry of the Price Tower, which generated everything from the building’s floor plans and construction details to its elevations and ornament.
This exhibition features more than 100 drawings, models, photographs, documents, building components, and furnishings that illuminate how Wright’s dream materialized in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Now refurbished and remodeled, the landmark is home to Price Tower Arts Center and a boutique hotel. Prairie Skyscraper is presented in honor of the 50th anniversary of this remarkable building.
Sponsors
Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower is a traveling exhibition organized by Price Tower Arts Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in cooperation with The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona. The exhibition, its tour, and its publication are made possible in part by The Henry Luce Foundation, the Buell Family of Bartlesville, The Silas Foundation, and the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department.
At the National Building Museum, the exhibition is made possible by the Copper Development Association, Mr. and Mrs. C.J. Silas, and the Museum’s F. Stuart Fitzpatrick Memorial Exhibition Fund.
Sponsors & Partners
Credits
Guest Curator: Anthony Alofsin, Roland Roessner Centennial Professor in Architecture at the University of Texas. Alofsin also edited the accompanying catalog (Rizzoli, 2005), which is for sale in the Museum Shop.
Exhibition Design: Zaha Hadid and the Office of Zaha Hadid, London, with the Price Tower Arts Center and Yale University Art + Architecture Gallery.
National Building Museum Team: Chrysanthe B. Broikos, Cecelia A. Gibson, MaryJane E. Valade, Nancy Van Meter, Christopher Maclay, Donald Maclay, and William H.C. Griffith, with assistance from SurroundArt.
