Today's focus: One Technology Center (also known as Tulsa City Hall and The Dirty Ice Cube)
Williams Companies (whose founder was also responsible for our last architecture feature, the BOK tower) built this structure. Like the BOK Tower, which is right next door, it was a stupid idea from the start. Mainly because it is a glass building in a city in the middle of Tornado Alley, What could possibly go wrong? Well...
About a month after this building was open for business, a large gust of wind blew through downtown Tulsa, blowing out whole rows of windows on the northeast corner and sending shards of glass crashing to the street below. The windows were fixed and reinforced, no doubt by the second lowest bidder this time around.
Fortunately, no cars were on the street below when the glass fell. Otherwise, it would've prompted several phone calls to insurance companies starting with the words, "OK, bear with me here, 'cause this is gonna sound reallllly strange..."
Now, this building houses Tulsa's City Hall. Because nothing says I have a dead-end job with the city quite like a building that looks like it was designed by the Borg Collective.
Boo! I happen to think this building is pretty cool. Just becaue this is Tulsa's only glass building does not mean this is not done elsewhere. Our city has had so few opportunities in the last 20 years to build anything new that the few that have been constructed are heavily scrutinized.
ReplyDeleteI'll agree with you on the point that we've had so few opportunities to build new buildings in Tulsa. However, there is a rich history of Art Deco in Tulsa architecture, and every time I hear of some company breaking ground on a new building, I pray that it will uphold some sense of tradition, instead of being modern for the sake of being modern and taking us one step further removed from that past. One can honor the past and still serve the future... Theyre not mutually exclusive ideas. Just wait, I'm getting ready to really eviscerate the BOK Center!
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not that I really have that much animosity towards the Ice Cube. I actually kinda like the building, despite the poor planning in not reinforcing the windows and no one taking into account that winds can be a bit strong here in Tulsa.
These are all jokes here, and if I advertise something with the words "A Smartass Guide to Tulsa Architecture", please understand that I gotta play up the smartass part.
The BOK Center can wait a while. I think next week I'll tackle the ORU Campus.
I guess the old phrase, "you can't beat City Hall" can now be replaced with "resistance is futile"
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