Sarah Dahnke

As a bratty child growing up in Oklahoma, I didn't realize I was in the minority because I had a Frank Lloyd Wright building gracing the skyline of my hometown. And I wasn't particularly excited when it came time for our yearly field trip to the building, which involved a two-hour tour up and down the tightly wound steps. Frankly, I was more worried about the boys in my class looking up my skirt as I ascended the staircases than the fact that I was inside of one of Wright's only erected skyscrapers. I remember taking turns sitting behind Harold C. Price's desk, pretending we were high-powered oil professionals, never quite noticing its unique structure and how it was customized particularly for this uniquely shaped building. This is not to say our town was uninformed of the distinctiveness of the tower; I just didn't care.

It's safe to say that I have grown up quite a bit and have come to appreciate the Price Tower and how it represents Wright's ability to merge architecture and artistic design. Built in 1956, the Price Tower was commissioned to be the headquarters for the H.C. Price Company, a company that builds oil and gas pipelines. At the time, Bartlesville, Oklahoma was a booming little oil town that headquartered Phillips Petroleum, and it seemed like an obvious location for the new Price building. Wright had been working throughout his life to create a skyscraper in cities such as New York and Washington D.C., but he was continually rejected due to zoning laws that would not accommodate a multi-use building. His idea to create a tower that would house retail space, business offices and apartments was appealing to Price, who eventually made his residence in one of the 700-square-foot luxury apartments. So before it was even a hot trend, a sustainable building was born, and Bartlesville suddenly had a vertical mark on its skyline.

The narrow building was built in a pyramid shape, and the furnishings, also designed by Wright, were customized to fit perfectly inside of the tower's uniquely tight corners. The aforementioned desk was thick, sturdy and triangle-shaped--the case with much of the furniture created for the building. It was also incredibly detailed and functional. For example, Price's triangular desk also came with a built-in triangular trashcan. The Price Tower has since been renovated and now contains an art gallery, a restaurant and a hotel, and many of the original furnishings have been removed. But the Chicago Architecture Foundation is putting them back on display with the opening of "Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower."

The exhibition, organized by the Price Tower Arts Center and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the tower and includes documents, photographs and drawings from the foundation's archives, in addition to desks, chairs, tables and textiles that were formerly located inside of the building. It opened at the Price Tower in 2005 and has been on display at Yale University and the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. before landing in Chicago. It's difficult to truly experience the architecture of a building without physically standing inside of it, and because the building is built in such a spiraling manner, photographs rarely do it justice. Wright used his unique concept of rotational geometry when designing the tower, which means the building is based on a concrete core and has cantilevered floors on each side. It's tall, slender shape and green patina exterior caused Wright to famously call the Price Tower the "tree that escaped the crowded forest," as it proudly sits alone in downtown Bartlesville, unobstructed by other buildings.

I've been told by a few non-Oklahomans that they have traveled to Bartlesville with the sole purpose of visiting the Price Tower--a move that used to puzzle me. But as I write this, I regret the fact that my family has relocated to another city, giving me no excuse to visit the building anymore. The building has been revered by architecture buffs and hardcore Wright fans since its construction, but for me, it will always be a reminder of hometown pride. That building could have existed in any major city, but at the time, Bartlesville was the only city willing to accommodate Wright's vision.

It's a bit of a trip from Chicago, but for extreme architecture and design lovers, a visit to the Price Tower is well worth it. For everyone else, "Prairie Skyscraper" should suffice.

"Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower" shows at the Chicago Architecture Foundation's Atrium Gallery, 224 South Michigan, (312)922-3432, through April 29.

(2007-01-23)

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