Wright’s Price Tower, Bartlesville
Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Prairie style emphasized low, earth-hugging structures, so it’s not surprising that his portfolio includes only one skyscraper. Complete with Wright’s ubiquitous horizontal banding, the 19 story Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Completed in 1956 as a commission for Harold C. Price, the skyscraper cost $2.4 million, and served as the headquarters of Price’s oil pipeline company. It presently houses a hotel, restaurants, retail stores and a museum and an arts center that includes a number of works by Wright. Wright referred to the tower as a lone tree escaped from the forest, and originally planned the building as multi-use consisting of equal parts residential and commercial spaces. In June of this year, the Price Tower was designated a National Historic Landmark. The tower is open for
daily tours.
Breuer’s Ameritrust Bank Building, Cleveland
If Wright was the master of organic architecture, Marcel Breuer’s genius led in the opposite direction. Breuer was a proponent of the International Style, so named because of the lack of design elements attributable to any particular culture. This architecture took its vocabulary purely from the materials and technology of its day. Breuer’s stark buildings emphasize structure and function over decoration, and this one in particular has some supporters, but few takers. The architectural community is pressuring commissioners to save the building, but the commission is divided about the feasibility of a successful renovation of the asbestos-laden building that has been described as a “brooding box”.
