Tulsa's International Style Architecture

[AVERAGE JOE]

quote:Originally posted by carltonplace

AJ and HT, Please keep going, I'm enjoying the education.

I think what makes it art is the extreme dedication to minimalism while still supporting function. The focus embraces the materials (glass, steel, concrete) and shuns ornament.

For the Bauhaus purists, it was integral to their lifestyle. They were practically monastic.

The old BSU on the TU campus, now called Westby Hall, is International Style (though heavily altered now).

[pmcalk]

Very interesting information.  I am having a hard time appreciating the merit of International style, however.  Obviously, we all have different tastes, and, while I am not crazy about the style, I appreciate that the airport and the International building have some degree of quality, style, design, whatever.  Yet, the pictures shown by Hometown--particularly the apartment buildings--appear to me to be little more than warehouses.  If international style lacks all ornamentation, and is strictly minimalist, what makes it good?  How is it distinguished from something hideous like the office depot on 15th (which looks pretty minimalist to me)?

Same way with modern art--I can appreciate an artist like Pollock; he gives you something to look at.  But the guy that paints the plain blue canvas--I don't know how you know that is good art.

[carltonplace]

quote:Originally posted by pmcalk

Very interesting information.  I am having a hard time appreciating the merit of International style, however.  Obviously, we all have different tastes, and, while I am not crazy about the style, I appreciate that the airport and the International building have some degree of quality, style, design, whatever.  Yet, the pictures shown by Hometown--particularly the apartment buildings--appear to me to be little more than warehouses.  If international style lacks all ornamentation, and is strictly minimalist, what makes it good?  How is it distinguished from something hideous like the office depot on 15th (which looks pretty minimalist to me)?

Same way with modern art--I can appreciate an artist like Pollock; he gives you something to look at.  But the guy that paints the plain blue canvas--I don't know how you know that is good art.

I think the main problem with those apartments is that most of the green area around them has been taken in favor of parking. For me, International works best when it is set as a stark divergence of its surroundings.

[Hometown]

Modernism was really a break with the past.  Modernists said take away the ornaments and look at the beauty of functional form.  It said let's shed all the phony ornaments meant to mimic historical styles and let's work with what's really there, like a wall of glass or a skin of sheer brick.  The brick skin stood or fell on its own merits.  It did not rely on phony historic references to make it work.  When an architect hangs a Gothic pendant at a building's entrance, the viewer brings their lifetime of memories of anything Gothic to the experience.  A lousy building can stand on phony historical references simply because the viewer of the building adds more than what is there – his or her memories of the history being referred to.

If a Modern building works it's because all of the functional elements were brought to a state of beauty.

Understanding Modernism means being able to love a brick wall just for what it is.  It means seeing art tucked away in the everyday mundane.  It means seeing a sea of blue in a minimalist painting and just enjoying the blue and the brush strokes or lack of brush strokes.

Modernism also reflected a belief that the future would be better.  They believed that machines would save us instead of harm us.  Modernists were great Utopians.  We, of course, no longer enjoy the belief that technology will take us to a better world.  And our architects have once again resorted to easy tricks to make their buildings work.  

Now if you love large abstract or minimalist paintings, they will never look as beautiful as they do on a well lit flat plane uninterrupted by molding or wainscoting or other distractions.  

Having said all that, I should add that I'm a lifelong Modern purist that has fallen by the wayside.  We live in a Spanish Revival home from the 1920s.  Buying period light fixtures, and restoring historic detail, et cetera, has been like a taste of forbidden fruit.

Later this week I'm going to printout the thread and go check out the buildings folks have mentioned.  Thanks for pointing me to more International Style buildings.

And before I forget it I want to mention that Modernism from the 50s-60s is enjoying a return to popularity.  There has been a nationwide fascination with homes like those you see in Lortondale and other areas of Tulsa developed in the 50s and 60s.

[AVERAGE JOE]

HT, if you visit the buildings listed, would you be willing to snap a few photos and post them on the forum? There really aren't many photos out there of some of our International Style buildings.

Of course, with all the security, taking photos of the airport will likely get you arrested. But getting a few photos of City Hall, Bishop Kelley High School, etc. shouldn't be too hard and will highlight some buildings people take for granted.

ps - for Westby Hall on the TU campus, the best stuff is in the back, facing the new BSU. There's a balcony back there that's textbook International.

[pmcalk]

quote:Originally posted by carltonplace

quote:Originally posted by pmcalk

Very interesting information.  I am having a hard time appreciating the merit of International style, however.  Obviously, we all have different tastes, and, while I am not crazy about the style, I appreciate that the airport and the International building have some degree of quality, style, design, whatever.  Yet, the pictures shown by Hometown--particularly the apartment buildings--appear to me to be little more than warehouses.  If international style lacks all ornamentation, and is strictly minimalist, what makes it good?  How is it distinguished from something hideous like the office depot on 15th (which looks pretty minimalist to me)?

Same way with modern art--I can appreciate an artist like Pollock; he gives you something to look at.  But the guy that paints the plain blue canvas--I don't know how you know that is good art.

I think the main problem with those apartments is that most of the green area around them has been taken in favor of parking. For me, International works best when it is set as a stark divergence of its surroundings.

Just goes to prove that anything can look worse when surrounded by a sea of asphalt.

[Renaissance]

It should also be pointed out that most Modernism/International Style since Mies van der Rohe put down his pencil has been done poorly.  Compare the works of Mies:


to what passes these days for Modernism.  What we mostly see is the principles of Modernism poorly applied.  Further, it works best when set against a physical architectural context full of more traditional styles.  But when every nickel-and-dime architect copies Mies (badly) you loes your traditional context and get a drab, ugly streetscape full of steel boxes.

[Steve]

For those sincerely interested in modern architecture history and international style, an architect friend of mine recommends the book "Modern Architecture: A Critical History," by Kenneth Frampton.
The Tulsa library has multiple copies of this book available for check-out, both the original 1985 version and the updated 1992 version.

[deinstein]

The Tulsa examples hurt my eyes.

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by deinstein

The Tulsa examples hurt my eyes.

Get some eyewash.  And open your mind.  (After 3 years posting on the Tulsa Now forums, I can be as b*tchy as anyone else!)

[Hometown]

DON'T TELL AVERAGE JOE BUT I THINK HE'S RIGHT ABOUT THE FIRST AND FOURTH APARTMENT BUILDINGS (in the first post) BEING ART DECO.  AND ED W IS RIGHT IN POINTING OUT THE FIRE STATION IS ART DECO.

But the apartment buildings are a close call.  And one writer did say that International Style architects were known to use horizontal bands.  But other decorative elements are there.

Oh well, here's some pics of International Style buildings I found with a google search of International Style.















Since starting this thread I have learned that as International Style architects fled Germany, a group of them went to the Soviet Union to build Utopian communities of International Style buildings.  These architects were eventually forced out of the Soviet Union and a number of them settled in Mexico.  That explains why I saw so many wonderful International Style homes in Guadalajara.

[deinstein]

quote:Originally posted by Steve

quote:Originally posted by deinstein

The Tulsa examples hurt my eyes.

Get some eyewash.  And open your mind.  (After 3 years posting on the Tulsa Now forums, I can be as b*tchy as anyone else!)

Why? Give me a break, I can have an opinion...two of the four are nothing but borderline slums run by Perry Properties.

They are ugly. Period.

[hoodlum]

The effect of mass, of static solidity, hitherto the prime quality of architecture, has all but disappeared; in its place there is an effect of volume. The prime architectural symbol is no longer the dense brick, but the open box. Indeed, the great majority of buildings are in reality, as well as in effect, mere planes surrounding a volume. With skeleton construction enveloped only by a protective screen, the architect can hardly avoid achieving this effect of surface, of volume, unless in deference to traditional design in terms of mass he goes out of his way to obtain the contrary effect.

-Henry Russel Hitchcock and Phillip Johnson
The International Style, 1932 (exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art, New York)

[AVERAGE JOE]

quote:Originally posted by deinstein

quote:Originally posted by Steve

quote:Originally posted by deinstein

The Tulsa examples hurt my eyes.

Get some eyewash.  And open your mind.  (After 3 years posting on the Tulsa Now forums, I can be as b*tchy as anyone else!)

Why? Give me a break, I can have an opinion...two of the four are nothing but borderline slums run by Perry Properties.

They are ugly. Period.

I love how the condition of a given building is seen as a perfectly valid reason to trivialize its architectural merit. /sarcasm

[hoodlum]

The above excerpt is from the introduction to a Chapter entitled "The International Style: theme and variations 1925-65" from Kenneth Frampton's seminal work "Modern Architecture; A Critical History"

As a result of the industrial revolution new materials and building technologies became possible. Materials like glass and steel were being used more than ever. Architects searched for an appropriate architecture in which to use these materials. Architects like Frank Lloyd Wright believed that buildings utilizing machine made materials should bear the mark of the machine. The straight line, the unadorned facade. Art Nouveau and Art deco were initial attempts at a new style of architecture in this new world. Some architects like Louis Sullivan believed " that it would be greatly for our aesthetic good if we should refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years, in order that our thought might concentrate acutely upon the production of buildings well formed and comely in the nude." Sullivan believed that ornament was a mental luxury and not a neccesity and that only by truly learning how to build beautiful unadorned masses would we then be able to clad them in a "garment of poetic imagery" making them appeal with "redoubled power" In order to understand what "International Style" or "Art Deco" is you must understand the contexts, manifestos and ideologies of all the major movements of architecture that collectively are refered to as Modern Architecture. i personally believe "International Style" to be a misnomer considering that the true International movement was not as wide spread as its followers hoped. International is only one piece of the collective category of Modern Architecture. There were the Austrian Seccesionists, DeStil, Bauhaus, Deutches Werkbund, Italian Futurists,  1st 2nd and 3rd tier modernists including architects like JJP Oud, LeCorbusier, Mies Van De Rohe, Alvar Aalto, Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra, Garrit Rietveld, Phillip Johnson, Walter Gropius, Tony Garnier.....Blah Blah Blah

Please pick up Kenneth Frampton's book, it is the best way to learn about the enormity of the modern movement in the 20th century and what caused it.