Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art Price Tower Arts Center
FRED JONES JR. MUSEUM OF ART • PRICE TOWER ARTS CENTER
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Fred Jo n e s J r. Mu s e u m o f A rt Univer s i t y o f Ok l a h o m a O c t ober 9 , 2 010 , th ro u g h Ja n u a r y 2, 2011 Pri c e Towe r A rts C e n te r Ba r t les v i l l e , Ok l a h o m a Ja nua r y 2 1 th ro u g h M ay 1 , 2 011
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Contents 10
Preface Ghislain d’Humières
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Acknowledgments Timothy L. Boruff
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Introduction: Adventures in Architecture Joe D. Price
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Chapter 1: Music—Architecture—Animation Brian Eyerman
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Chapter 2: Seeds for a Pod Hans E. Butzer
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Chapter 3: Wright, Goff, and After Sidney K. Robinson
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Chapter 4: Creativity and the Organic Architecture of Bruce Goff Kay L. Johnson
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Chapter 5: Bruce Goff and the Modern Organic Interior Scott W. Perkins
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Chapter 6: “Steadily to the Ideal”: The Paintings of Bruce Goff Mark A. White
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Select Bibliography
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About the Contributors
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About the Venues
Preface g h i s l a i n d’h u m i è r e s w y l o d e a n a n d b i l l sa xo n d i r e c to r , f r e d
jo n e s j r . m u s e u m o f a rt
Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind is a long overdue tribute to the amazing creativity of architect Bruce Alonzo Goff, who still, thirty years after his final work, inspires younger generations of architects, designers, and academics. This exhibition is the result of a fruitful collaboration between Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. Using twenty-first century technology, Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind demonstrates how contemporary and revolutionary Goff’s designs were and how his work often influenced that of his many close collaborators. One realizes that if Goff were still with us, his design style would be the same, using the most innovative computers and virtual technology available today. The list of acknowledgements for the advice and assistance we have received in preparing this exciting exhibition is quite long, yet each of these individuals were instrumental in its planning and execution. I would specifically like to thank Timothy L. Boruff and Scott W. Perkins from Price Tower Arts Center; Brian Eyerman and Lu Eyerman of Skyline Ink Animation Studios, without whom this project would not have materialized; the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture; the University of Oklahoma College of Engineering; the Friends of Kebyar; Nelson Brackin; Bart Prince; David Wanzer; and above all, Joe and Etsuko Price for their constant support and enthusiasm, and for sharing their knowledge and passion for Bruce Goff’s creativity. We are grateful to The Kirkpatrick Foundation; The Norman Arts Council; The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art Board of Visitors, especially President David Boren, Ellen Sandor, Sarah and Dan Hogan, and Max Berry for their financial generosity. And thanks go to Skyline Ink (Stephen Chaffin, Matt Curry, David Farnan, Derek Fitzpatrick, Jeremy Glenn, Keith Holman, Marty Law, Ben Shullaw, Andy Simon, Mike Ward); the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture (Charles W. Graham, Dean; Hans Butzer, Mabrey Presidential Professor of Architecture and Urban Design; Nick Harm, Academic Director; Thomas Cline, Assistant Professor; Angela Person, Forum Administrator; and Nick Safley, Lecturer); the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering of the University of Oklahoma College of Engineering (Dr. Kuang-Hua Chang, Williams Companies Foundation Presidential Professor, and Stephen Folmar), for their creativity and brilliance in bringing Bruce Goff’s designs to life. At the University of Oklahoma, I wish to acknowledge the skills and expertise of Robyn
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Tower, Associate Vice President, and Deborah Benjamin, Communications, in the Development Department; Dennis Aebersold, Matt Singleton, Jason McDaniel, and Michael Oakley in Information Technology; and Julia Messitte in the Legal Department. At Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, I wish to extend my thanks to Gail Kana Anderson, Deputy Director and Curator of Collections; Susan G. Baley, Director of Education; Michael Bendure, Director of Communications; Brigid Brink, Administrative Assistant; Miranda Callander, Registrar; Joyce Cummins, Director of Museum Security and Facilities; Clay Little and Brad Stevens, Preparators; Becky Zurcher Trumble, Manager of Administration and Operations, and Dr. Mark A. White, Eugene B. Adkins Curator. For the hospitality extended to us during the research process, James Cuno, Director of the Art Institute of Chicago; Mary Woolever, Archivist, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries; Lori Hanna Boyer, Department of Architecture; and Aimee Marshall, Manager of Rights Licensing, at the Art Institute of Chicago could not have been more helpful. The members of the Board of the Friends of Kebyar (Nelson Brackin, President; James Schildroth, Vice President; Michael Brown, Secretary; Robert Bowlby, Chief Financial Officer; Board Members Jerri Bonebrake, Nick Jeffery, Ellen Milstead, David Milstead, Joe Price, and Paul Uttinger; and Michael C. Hawker, Friends of Kebyar Journal and Network News Editor), and the team at Elliott Architecture (Rand Elliott and Mike May) help keep Bruce Goff’s work appreciated and relevant, as do Cara Smith Barnes and Robert N. Barnes, Caroline and Ron Bradshaw, Dr. Susan Havens Caldwell, Luciene and Jacques Gillet, Kathie Grasser, Herb Greene, Grant Gustafson, Shirley and George Hann, Ruth and Frank Henry, Sarah and Dan Hogan III, Vern Hunter, Sarah Iselin, Edward Madison Jones, Nancy LaPorte, Donald W. MacDonald, Joseph Matchey, Takenobu Mohri, R. Clarke Mullen, Marty Newman, Wilson Peterson, Jim W. Sealy, Fred Stitt, Anthony Thompson, Richard P. Townsend, Laura Warriner, and Richard L. Whitaker. And, lastly, a thank you to our visitors and museum members. We hope you enjoy this unusual, interactive, imaginative, and fun exhibition and that you will let yourself wander and dream within Bruce Goff’s creative world.
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Acknowledgments timothy l. boruff e x e c ut i v e d i r e c to r , p r i c e tow e r a rt s
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Price Tower Arts Center is honored to welcome the exhibition Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind to Bartlesville, as well as some of his most creative designs, many of which Goff produced during the years he resided in the Price Tower. This project has allowed us to collaborate once more with the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and our colleagues Ghislain d’Humières, Wylodean and Bill Saxon Director, and Dr. Mark A. White, Eugene B. Adkins Curator, who have worked together with Scott W. Perkins, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at Price Tower Arts Center, and his curatorial team to realize this exhibition. We are also pleased to coordinate the accompanying catalogue, which you now hold, and there are many institutions and persons to thank for its success. Production of the Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind catalogue was provided in part with funds from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund. I thank Peter W. Davidson, Chair, and Ann Birckmayer, Program Associate, for their consideration and support. Eric Anderson, Professor of Visual Communications at the University of Oklahoma, must be acknowledged for the graphic design and layout of the catalogue, and Jo Ann Reece for her role as copy editor. To the contributing essayists, who were charged with the task of rethinking the existing scholarship on Bruce Goff to bring new perspectives to the man, his work, and his legacy, I extend my appreciation to Dr. Sidney K. Robinson, Dr. Mark A. White, Kay L. Johnson, Hans Butzer, Brian Eyerman, and Scott W. Perkins, who also served as the publication’s editor. Joe Price’s introduction to the catalogue adds a personal touch and leaves a lasting impression of Goff’s role in his life. The work of these contributors depended upon the assistance of resources from across the country, including those of the Art Institute of Chicago (Lori Hanna Boyer, Department of Architecture; Danielle N. Kramer, Archives Assistant, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries; Aimee Marshall, Manager of Rights Licensing; Nathaniel Parks, Assistant Archivist, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries; and Mary K. Woolever, Archivist, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries); the Chicago History Museum (Erin Tikovitsch, Jay Crawford); Fallingwater (Clinton Piper, Museum Programs Assistant); the Filson Historical Society (Robin Wallace, Associate Curator of Special Collections); the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation (Margo Stipe, Curator and Registrar of Collections, Taliesin West); and Price Tower Arts Center (Deshane Atkins, Curatorial Assistant, and Joan Phillips, Collections Assistant).
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Several sources, both public and private, provided images to illustrate each essay. For them, on behalf of the authors, I must again acknowledge the institutions listed above, and add Robert Alan Bowlby, Nelson Brackin, Stephen Chaffin, Herb Greene, Cody Johnson of Cody Photography, Michelle Martin, Mickey Muennig, Bart Prince, and Scot Zimmerman of Scot Zimmerman Photography. Redeemer Lutheran Church, Bartlesville, graciously permitted us access to their Goff designed education building to photograph the beautiful mural installed there. At Price Tower Arts Center, in addition to those already mentioned, I must recognize Darbi Alstrom, Public Relations Coordinator; Patti Grissom, Executive Assistant; Amanda Herwig, Development Coordinator; Kay L. Johnson, former Register and Manager, Architecture Study Center; Cynthia Naylor, Outreach and Education Coordinator; Laura Riley, Director of Operations; Christine Staton, Director of Visitor Services; and Debra Woodall-Evensvold, Marketing Manager, for their efforts in promoting Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind and assisting in the planning, production, and distribution of its exhibition catalogue. On behalf of our Board of Trustees, I wish to welcome you to Price Tower Arts Center to see Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind and thank you for your continued interest in our exhibitions and programming. Bartlesville’s architectural history is richer because of Bruce Goff’s contributions, and I extend an offer for you to share in them with us.
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Introduction: Adventures in Architecture
joe d. price
My parents built a ranch-style house in 1947 on our Bartlesville, Oklahoma, farm. Designed by California architect Cliff May, it was one of the first ranch-style houses built east of the Rockies and quite an eye-opener for our little town. That same year, I entered the University of Oklahoma as an engineering student, but I kept looking for courses that stressed imagination over memory. It just so happened that the architecture school was under the engineering umbrella, and I met the director there, a man named Bruce Goff. He fascinated me, and we became good friends. My father had begun talking about building a new company headquarters in our hometown. On one fortuitous day, Frank Lloyd Wright came to our architecture school to give a speech, and Bruce Goff insisted that I meet him. Thus began my resolute quest to convince my father to ask Mr. Wright to design his office building. Persistence finally paid off, and, in 1952, I accompanied my parents to Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, where I remember that they disappeared with Mr. Wright into an inner office for hours. My father later emerged to say, “I told Mr. Wright I wanted a three-story building, and he tried to talk me into building ten stories. So we compromised on nineteen.” By the time I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1952, I began to work on the construction of the new office “tower.” My job, as it turned out, was to primarily be the liaison between my father and Mr. Wright, and eventually between Mr. Wright and my father. Construction began in 1953 and was finished by 1956. During the construction, Mr. Wright taught me to learn from nature and respect the organic process of architecture. With unbounded patience, Frank Lloyd Wright explained to me his fascination with nature. He taught me to appreciate the growth of things. Sometimes we would take a walk across the prairie, and Mr. Wright would stop to pick a flower and explain its structure, illustrating how each part functioned and how each shape served its particular purpose. Additionally, sometimes he would find an object as simple as an empty turtle shell and study it with unconditional attention. To this day I remember him saying to me, “Do you spell God with a capital G? Well, I spell Nature with capital N.”
P r i c e R e s i d e n c e : see fig. 5.9; p. 80.
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Though, fatefully, I discovered my first Japanese painting while with Mr. Wright in New York City, he never took the time to discuss art with me. Mr. Wright generally downplayed art, since he believed architecture was the mother art. In fact, it was hard to find any space to hang paintings in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. To him, the wall itself was art. During the early 1950s, I wanted to build my own home—a small studio on the far back corner of the family property. After much agonizing, I asked Bruce Goff to design a one room home for me, believing he would give me more of his time and listen to my ideas. Frank Lloyd Wright was nearing ninety years of age at that time, and I had convinced myself that even though Mr. Wright could build me what I wanted, Bruce Goff would build me what I asked for. Mr. Goff always spoke with his students by reaching into them and pulling out whatever the students had to offer, instead of telling them what to do. That, I feel, was the fundamental difference between a student of Bruce Goff and a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Bruce Goff’s first design for my little studio was an angular steel structure supported at each end and covered with aluminum sheeting. It did not include two parallel lines or surfaces in the entire structure. It was a short-lived design, because the cost of steel was greater than my budget for the entire project. Bruce solved the cost problems in three ways: he dropped the body of the studio onto the ground, designed it in a triangular motif, and changed the structural materials to wood. I remember showing the design for what I believed to be this second structure to Mr. Wright, and I was disappointed by his response, for he seemed to ignore it. But after a few minor revisions, we immediately began construction. Around this time, I began to hear stories that Frank Lloyd Wright had written a devastating letter to Bruce Goff about this project. In his biography of Bruce Goff, David De Long wrote that this letter so demolished Goff, that it produced a distinct change in his architecture. Mr. Wright had died by the time I learned about the letter, and I was unable to confirm it through him. Bruce told me it was true, but he always refused to show me the letter in question. De Long stated that Bruce Goff believed it was the first design, the one built of steel, which Mr. Wright saw and convinced me not to build. I do not remember showing the first design to Mr. Wright, but I do remember showing him the second. However, one thing I do know is that it was the cost of the steel structure, not any comments from Frank Lloyd Wright, that caused its cancellation. In spite of all that, the small bachelor’s studio survived for many years and served me well, until I brought my new wife, Etsuko, home from Japan. It did not take long before I realized she was not going to give me back my small bar and microwave until she had a fully functioning kitchen. Furthermore, my collection of Japanese art had grown so large that I asked Bruce Goff to make some changes to the studio. We needed a kitchen and a new
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museum—one that incorporated natural light to display the art. The little triangular studio was such a compact, complete design that I did not believe it was possible to add anything without destroying its beauty. But Bruce laughed and said, “It is organic and of course it can and should grow.” He took two shapes that should not have been compatible—two living spaces, one boisterous and flamboyant, the other quiet and elegant—and joined them together in such a way that no one could ever find the “joint.” The little studio plus kitchen plus museum survived another ten years until we decided to expand our family and realized that there might be a problem with twentieth-century children living amongst exposed seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art. We again called Bruce Goff to produce a new miracle. In this third stage, the construction went vertical, uniting bedrooms, a nursery, and a kaleidoscopic office into one compatible monolithic structure. The little studio and all its appendages survived until 1996, when it was tragically destroyed by an arsonist at Christmastime. Sometime around 1975, I asked Bruce Goff to design a general museum for Japanese art, one that could incorporate the use of natural, changing light—the light in which the paintings had been created. Artificial light did not exist in Edo period Japan, so the art was meant to be seen by sunlight, in shadows, under moonlight, and near candlelight. Paintings appear differently in each of these forms of natural light, most excitingly when viewed as the sun disappears behind a cloud. Designing a museum for Japanese art had other problems that no one had solved before. In fact, all Japanese art museums were just copies of western museums, where the artworks were lined up on the walls, exhibited behind thick panes of glass, and illuminated by stagnant spotlights. Japanese paintings are meant to be the only painting in a room. The works could be so delicate that they could not compete against others. They had no overbearing frames to protect them. I asked Bruce Goff to create a building where each painting could stand alone without competition, to be seen without glass from up close or from a distance, and of course, where it could be viewed under continuously changing natural light. Mr. Goff worked for twelve years developing the design. He tried seven entirely different solutions and then perfected the seventh one, which eventually became the Pavilion for Japanese Art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which opened in 1988. A great architect is one who will build a structure for a client that the client would have built if he or she were a great architect. Bruce Goff, therefore, became like a clone of his clients, always agreeing with them. It was like talking to a mirror. Bruce Goff designed my museum as if the art was his client, and his client was utterly and entirely happy with this new home.
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1
Music Architecture Animation
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brian eyerman
Designing a virtual exhibition of the unrealized work of architect Bruce Goff was a remarkable project for Skyline Ink Animation Studios. It has been a crowning achievement for a small studio of animators, many of whom are alumni of the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture, where Goff taught from 1947–1955. Our admiration of his design work made this project an irresistible opportunity. We are thrilled to help highlight his talent through an in-depth study of his unrealized and demolished work—a pursuit unlike many contemporary explorations of architecture, and one that necessitated a “nuts and bolts” understanding of the man, his materials, and his futuristic vision.
Our approach, which is standard for the present-day architectural industry, began by creating a digital, three-dimensional model of the site before progressing to the structure. Every aspect studied and executed on the computer (much as it would be in actual construction) began with a careful analysis of Goff’s blueprints, construction documents, and beautiful hand drawn presentation renderings. Lacking the ability to contact the architect for clarification on details, we sifted through Goff’s notes and correspondence, as well as magazine and trade journal articles. We also had the great fortune to interview many of his former students, associates, and clients. While acknowledging the impossibility of completely recreating his projects as conceived— often only in Goff’s mind—we accepted the challenge of interpreting the work of the architect and his draftsmen who, in hindsight, assisted us greatly with their remarkable accuracy and the meticulousness of their renderings and notes, especially given the complexity of geometry and detailing inherent in Goff’s designs. The amount of design information available was a major factor in determining which scenes to animate. Depending on how developed the projects were, details were varyingly complete; on many, such as the first studio design for Joe Price (1953), construction documents allowed for an in-depth recreation of nearly every room and all exterior surfaces. For others, where interior information was lacking, or too much conjecture would be required, the exterior experience became the primary exploration.
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Creating the animated scenes began with the application of virtual lighting and the placement of virtual cameras within the digital model. In this way, we could choreograph camera paths and lighting effects to create the same type of visual effects used in the film industry, before processing the files on a network of computers to generate high-definition animation. Editing the animated files, then, was similar to editing video files, and additional effects such as background music, atmospheric sound, and text completed the production process. From the outset of the project, two concepts intrigued us—the architecture of Goff, set to the very music that inspired him, and presenting the resulting animation as an immersive experience. The envisioned environment must feel like a journey into Goff’s creative mind, exploring architecture from an artistic perspective, that of texture, light and shadow, and its placement in the surrounding landscape, each detail incorporated within the animation. Technically compelled by Goff’s immersive approach, we needed to envelope visitors in this virtual space and essentially bridge the space between screen and viewer. This requires a system for efficiently producing innovative extreme-wide-angle animation with the practicality of off-the-shelf components. Virtual camera rigs within the computer model emulate the positions of three large-format screens, each guided through the three-dimensional environment to produce a gently flowing, lifelike experience of animation synchronized to create a seamless, peripheral experience. Accompanying the animation, then, is an auditory experience of ambient environments we have distilled from Goff’s philosophies, as well as each structure within its surroundings. Music becomes an integral part of the environment, too. Selecting pieces from Goff’s personal collection of nearly eight thousand long-playing record albums, held at Price Tower Arts Center, this “architecture through music” experience explores his work in a lighthearted and celebratory journey. Our team modeled, textured, animated, and edited his architecture, while listening to and appreciating the core audio component of each production, with the hope that these short productions will help inspire dialogue and continue to reveal more about the incredibly creative mind of Bruce Goff.
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1.2
g a r v e y h o u s e a n i m at i o n s t i l l One of approximately 2,880 frames of photorealistic animation created by Skyline Ink Animation Studios for the exhibition’s virtual tour of the Garvey House (project, first of two designs; Urbana, Illinois, 1952). Computer models and animation are based on architectural documents provided by the Art Institute of Chicago.
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2.1
Pod Exterior The form of the Pod evolves symbiotically in relation to the material nature of the plastic shell-system. Designed by Thomas Cline and Nick Safley. Computer rendering by Nick Safley.
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Seeds for a Pod
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hans e. butzer
The exhibition Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind presents a welcome opportunity to reexamine Bruce Goff, the educator, architect, and visionary. Though deceased for nearly thirty years, and despite having left his teaching post at the University of Oklahoma almost twenty years earlier, his legacy offers current and emerging generations the stimulus to continue exploring the potential for architecture through time, space, and current forms of media and representation. Bruce Goff also represents, along with his contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright, an image of the architect ideal—a singular creative voice born of and rallying against the culture in which it flourishes. Goff’s body of design work and his teachings remain ultimately, like the centrally isolated landscapes of Oklahoma itself, an underexplored frontier, ready for revisiting and always a defining aspect of the power of the “American individual.” I first met Ghislain d’Humières, Wylodean and Bill Saxon Director of The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, purely by chance in the front office of the College of Architecture in February 2008. The recently appointed d’Humières could barely contain his excitement about Goff’s vision and the possibility of developing an exhibition focused on the master’s unrealized works. To this end, he sought to collaborate with the College of Architecture, and he began discussions as soon as possible. The unrealized architecture of Bruce Goff, we eventually concluded, presented best through digital media, would more thoroughly capture the fluidity of his conceived spaces and their seamless materiality. Additionally, including Goff’s own hand drawings as part of the exhibition would present the forum in which he originally documented his designs. Without question, Bruce Goff would revel in the computer’s evolving position as a multifaceted tool that complements and expands the opportunities of creative individuals. To gain a historical perspective on this issue, I culled archival resources at the Art Institute of Chicago in search of lecture transcripts and other writings in which Goff addressed the potential role of technology in the creation of space. In a speech at Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, in 1955, Goff called for “the need for more continuity, plasticity and flow of space and materials.”1 Later, in a 1968 essay published in The Architect (Japan), he wrote: “New materials, methods, needs and increased technological knowledge will enable original architects to produce newly-beautiful-design structures of architecture.”2 In this same essay, the reader senses from his use of the term “computeritis” that the state of computer software at the time did not yet foreshadow the potential of this evolving technology.
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Defined by the extant drawings and written documentation accessible to the exhibition team, the final selection of projects presented in this exhibition allows a reasonable level of correlation to the digital media without the need for extensive interpretation. Recalling the groundbreaking work of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Kent Larson’s animations of architect Louis Kahn’s work, we remain aware of the many challenges to such undertakings, among them the appropriateness of the chosen media to the architecture in question. The defining qualities of the architecture of Bruce Goff, fluidly presented in the form of animated “fly throughs” paired with music by Debussy or Stravinsky, appear a natural fit. Here, the viewer experiences the revolutionary and fantastic visions of a uniquely creative architect in a near-immersive environment. The viewing space, affectionately dubbed “The Pod,” presented its own challenges relative to the work of Bruce Goff (fig. 2.1). Resisting the idea of designing “as Goff would” (this in fact might be counter to his methodology), the pod designers sought to focus on issues seminal to Goff’s teachings. The materiality of the pod springs to life when energized by continually streaming animations that penetrate the pod’s softer interior surface to manifest themselves as an aesthetically performative camouflage in the gallery environment. As if it were a plant invigorated through photosynthesis, the pod’s existence is continuous and interdependent with the spatial powers of the digital sequences (fig. 2.2). The many technical forces shaping the details of the pod act seemingly at odds with Bruce Goff’s hopes for architecture. Portability, projection viewing lines, and the ability to reconfigure the pod to accommodate different exhibition venues greatly influenced its form, yet provided the pod its creative lens. Only when first assembled within its exhibition space at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, reconfigured for Price Tower Arts Center, or reassembled at future museums, does the pod reveal its true organic structure and promise. Time will prove the pod’s ability to adapt to changing environments, while offering a necessary anchor for Goff’s visions. The Oklahoma frontier, proud of its Native American roots and values, is the physical point of origin for the exhibition Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind. Where time is fleeting and space is continuous, one is reminded of the ephemeral nature of the technology of computers, materials, and buildings. Voluptuous drawings and the accompanying animations within the setting of the bursting stoic pod invite reintroductions with an old friend and the undiscovered richness of his teachings. The exhibition attempts to project past visions while evoking new questions about their role in shaping contemporary architectural discourse. Years ago, with the master engrossing his students in music-filled classrooms, Bruce Goff set the stage for present-day deliberations on space, time, and the filter of the creative mind. Our exploration of his legacy, through this digital immersive pod, seeks order, inspiration from technology, the arts, organic systems, and the connected flow of one existence to another.
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Notes 1
2
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Pod interior
Bruce Goff, “The New Geometry in Modern
The inner surfaces are reduced to an enveloping
Building” (lecture presented at the Illinois Institute
neutral field that emphasizes the spatial qualities
of Technology, Chicago, Ill., November 1955). Bruce
of Goff’s architectural intention. Designed by
Goff Papers, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art
Thomas Cline and Nick Safley. Computer rendering
Institute of Chicago.
by Nick Safley.
Bruce Goff, from notes prepared for the publication of his work in The Architect (Japan) 05 (September 1968). Bruce Goff Papers, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago.
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F a l l i n g w at e r Frank Lloyd Wright, southwest elevation, Edgar J. Kaufmann residence, “Fallingwater,� Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1936. Photograph by Robert P. Ruschak, courtesy of Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.
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Select Bibliography
Books Cook, Jeffrey. The Architecture of Bruce Goff. London: Grenada, 1978. De Long, David G. Bruce Goff: Toward Absolute Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, in conjunction with the Architectural History Foundation, 1988. Futagawa, Yukio, ed. “Bavinger House, Norman, Oklahoma, 1950: Price House, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1957–1966.” Global Architecture 33. Tokyo: A.D.A. Edita, 1975. Hurst, Kara J. Free Thought: The Art and Architecture of Bruce Goff. Bartlesville, Okla.: Price Tower Arts Center, 2003. Meehan, Patrick Joseph. Bruce Goff, Architect: Writings 1918–1978. Architecture Series: bibliography. No. A-73, 1–33. Monticello, Ill.: Vance Bibliographies, 1979. Mohri, Takenobu. Bruce Goff in Architecture. Tokyo: Kenchiku Planning Center, Ltd., 1970. Robinson, Sidney K., and Elizabeth A. Scheurer. The Continuous Present of Organic Architecture. Cincinnati, Ohio: The Contemporary Arts Center, 1991. Saliga, Pauline, and Mary Woolever, eds. The Architecture of Bruce Goff, 1904–1982: Design for the Continuous Present. Munich: Prestel, in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago, 1995. Welch, Philip B., ed. Goff on Goff: Conversations and Lectures. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996. Periodicals Bruce Goff, special issue of Architectural Design 48, no. 10 (1978). Bruce Goff, special issue of Inland Architect 23 (December 1979). Bruce Goff and his students, special issue of Architecture and Urbanism 134 (November 1981).
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Branch, Mark Alden. “The World According to Goff,” Oklahoma Today 45 (September 1995): 48–56. Goff, Bruce. “Goff on Goff: The Work of Bruce Goff, Architect.” Progressive Architecture 43 (December 1962): 102–23. ——. “A Young Architect’s Protest for Architecture.” Perspecta 13/14 (1971): 330–57. “Goff on Goff.” Progressive Architecture 43 (1962): 102–23. Kebyar, dedicated to the work of Bruce Goff, is published by the Friends of Kebyar, founded by many of Goff’s former students, apprentices, and clients. For more information, see www.kebyar.com. Kostka, Robert. “Bruce Goff and the New Tradition,” The Prairie School Review 7 (2nd Qtr., 1970): 1–2, 5–15, 23. Plessix, Francine du, and Cleve Gray. “Bruce Goff: Visionary Architect.” Art in America 53 (November 1965): 82–87. “Pride of the Prairie: A High Priest of Individualism is Designing in a Strikingly Regional Idiom for His Grass Roots Clients,” Architectural Forum 88 (March 1948): 94–101. Video Goff in der Wüste (Goff in the Desert). Heinz Emigholz, director. Filmgalerie 451, 2003; Facets Video, 2005. Focus on Art: Shin’enKan, “Home of the Faraway Heart.” Rogers State University Public Television, Claremore, Oklahoma, 2005. The Artistry of Bruce Goff. Joe D. Price, producer. 1962. Price Tower Arts Center, 2004.
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About the Contributors
Hans E. Butzer, AIA (B.Arch., University of Texas at Austin; M.Arch., Harvard University) is Mabrey Presidential Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Oklahoma. Since 2002, Butzer has served as committee chairman of the Bruce Goff Chair of Creative Architecture at the University of Oklahoma. He has also served as critic and lecturer at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, the University of London’s Bartlett School of Architecture, and University of Texas at Austin. Butzer and designer Brian Eyerman, along with David Wanzer, were the creative team behind the exhibition Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind. His essay “Seeds for a Pod” showcases the technology used to recreate Goff’s demolished work, as well as ten unrealized designs. Brian Eyerman (B.Arch., University of Oklahoma) is President of Skyline Ink, Animation Studios in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and a specialist in producing cinematic three-dimensional animation and photorealistic images for a variety of industries. For the exhibition, Eyerman and his team recreated twelve Bruce Goff designs, using Goff’s drawings and writings to inform the animation. His essay “Music—Architecture—Animation” details the present day technology needed to “build” Goff’s work in the twenty-first century. Kay L. Johnson (B.A., Gustavus Adolphus College) is former Registrar at Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, as well as manager of its Architecture Study Center, which houses the nation’s second-largest collection of materials pertaining to Bruce Goff. Prior to her tenure at Price Tower Arts Center, Johnson was Registrar at the Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University and Assistant Registrar at the Dallas Museum of Art. She is currently Registrar at Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee, where, in addition to her regular duties, Johnson is helping organize their first exhibition of twentieth-century European and American design. Her essay “Creativity and the Organic Architecture of Bruce Goff” explores the architect’s organic theories throughout his career, but most importantly those of the mid-twentieth century. Scott W. Perkins (B.F.A., School of the Art Institute of Chicago; M.A. and Ph.D. Candidate, the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture) is Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, Oklahoma. His publications include essays on the interiors and furnishings of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, for each building’s respective fiftieth-anniversary catalogue, and Building Bartlesville: 1945–2000, which documents the work of Bruce Goff, Frank Lloyd Wright and others in northeastern Oklahoma. Since Fall 2009, Perkins has served on the Board of Directors of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. His essay “Bruce Goff and the Modern Organic Interior” discusses Goff’s designs for his own personal interior spaces, as well as those for his clients.
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Joe D. Price is a native of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and was a patron of Bruce Goff during the last three decades of the architect’s life, commissioning designs for his Bartlesville home and its additions, a house in Lake Tahoe, California, and a museum to showcase Japanese art (now the Pavilion for Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art). For more than fifty years, Price and his wife, Etsuko, have collected important works of art from Edo period Japan (1615–1868), often at a time when many of the artists had fallen out of favor with collectors. The couple lives in Corona Del Mar, California, in a house that was designed by architect Bart Prince. Sidney K. Robinson, AIA (B.Arch., Columbia University; Arch.D., University of Michigan) is on the faculty at Taliesin, The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, advisor for Taliesin Preservation, Inc., and is Associate Professor Emeritus of Art History at University of Illinois at Chicago, where he has taught since 1987. A frequent contributor to books on architecture and art, his publications include Modern Architecture in America: Visions and Revisions (with Richard Guy Wilson, 1991), Architecture of Alden B. Dow (1983), and “Bruce Goff and Music,” in the Art Institute of Chicago’s catalogue for The Architecture of Bruce Goff, the 1995 exhibition which he cocurated. His essay “Wright, Goff, and After” places Goff’s thinking in context with Wright’s through three points of comparison: music, waterfalls, and their plans for the Heurtley House site in Oak Park, Illinois. Mark A. White, Ph.D. (B.A., Oklahoma State University; M.A., Ph.D., University of Kansas) is the Eugene B. Adkins Curator at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, and was formerly Associate Professor of Art History at Oklahoma State University. His 2007 exhibition Oklahoma Moderne: The Art and Design of Olinka Hrdy celebrated the work of Hrdy, who collaborated with Bruce Goff on many of his Oklahoma projects. The exhibition, shown at both Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and Price Tower Arts Center, and White’s scholarly catalogue of the exhibition, centered upon the natural and man-made influences of Hrdy’s work. Similarly, his essay, “‘Steadily to the Ideal’: The Paintings of Bruce Goff” explores the organic links between Goff’s artwork and his architectural designs.
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Copyright © 2010 The University of Oklahoma Price Tower Arts Center This catalogue has been published in conjunction
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art
with the exhibition Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind
The University of Oklahoma 555 Elm Avenue Norman, Oklahoma 73019-3003
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art
phone: 405.325.3272; fax: 405.325.7696
October 9, 2010, through January 2, 2011
www.ou.edu/fjjma
Price Tower Arts Center
Price Tower Arts Center
January 21 through May 1, 2011
510 S. Dewey Ave Bartlesville, OK 74003
No part of this publication may be reproduced
phone: 918.336.4949
or used in any form without the written consent
www.pricetower.org
of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and Price Tower Arts Center.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010933383 ISBN: 978-0-971718-76-0
Catalogue editor: Scott W. Perkins Catalogue designer: Eric H. Anderson
This catalogue was printed by the University of Oklahoma Printing
Copy editor: Jo Ann Reece
Services and is issued by the University of Oklahoma and the Price Tower Arts Center. 2000 copies have been printed and distributed at no cost
Cover: Perfect Prisms: Crystal Chapel, 2009
to the taxpayers of Oklahoma. The University of Oklahoma is an equal
Ellen Sandor, Chris Kemp, Chris Day, Ben Carney, and Miguel Delgado,
opportunity institution.
(art)n; 30x40 PHSCologram: Duratrans, Kodalth, Plexiglas. This work was inspired by Bruce Goff’s breathtaking designs for a
Front foldout: digital rendering of Price Studio living area and entry,
nondenominational chapel at the University of Oklahoma. The chapel
created by Skyline Ink Animation Studios from architect's drawings.
has been constructed with an array of various prisms advancing out into space. Refraction of light and reflection color break up the serene
Back foldout: digital rendering of Price Studio seating area from entry,
environment and awaken it with new energy.
created by Skyline Ink Animation Studios from architect's drawings.
All the large details on the chapter dividing pages are taken from Bruce
Back Cover (detail): Bruce Goff, Untitled, ca. 1959, acrylic on paper
Goff's paintings that can be viewed in chapter 6 (page 93). Images on
mounted on board, Gift of Etsuko and Joe Price. Price Tower Arts Center
pages 4, 6, 30-31, 90-91 are reproduced © The Art Institute of Chicago.
2003.04.01. Photograph by Cody Johnson, Cody Photography, courtesy
All other large details are courtesy of Price Tower Arts Center.
of Price Tower Arts Center. (see page 100)
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